When the 49ers reached out to Live Oak football coach Mike Gemo for a chance to bring members of his team to a high school football day at Levi’s Stadium, he couldn’t say no.
“The 49ers are really reaching out to the high school coaches and youth programs nowadays,” Gemo said. “For Live Oak to get a chance to go out there—they got to sit in the media room and some questions asked by some major papers and media outlets—it was a really fun experience.”
He brought along quarterback Erik Ornduff, runningback Paul Lomanto and linebackers Jacob Locsin and Ryan Quadros to take part in a day filled with tackling drills, their own press conference and a video shown to rookies about the dangers of social media.
“I hope the team sees Live Oak is one of those schools people know about and they’re looking to us to have another good year,” Gemo said. “If we continue to work, these are the benefits we get from hard work and doing the things the right way.”
Schools from around Northern California took part in the day, including some from around San Jose, Sacramento and the East Bay, including perennial powerhouse De La Salle.
“It really opened your eyes to how much competition is out there. Beyond just the people who surround us in the Mt. Hamilton League or the Santa Teresa League, a lot of teams outside of that, there’s a lot of good competition,” Lomanto said.
Before going up on stage to address the media, 49ers Head Coach Jim Tomsula spoke to the players, stressing to all of them to learn as much as they can from their coaches and to take to heart some of the things they learned from the day at the 49ers’ facility.
“Go back to your guys and (with) the things that you’re learning, pass it on,” Tomsula said in a video posted by Maxpreps.com.
Ornduff said it is up to the four who went to the media day to truly be examples to the rest of the team and let the rest of the team see what they have learned.
“We just have talk with them, show them the ropes and lead by example,” Ornduff said. “We’ve already been on varsity…so we have to lead by example.”
Some of the favorite memories of the day was almost unanimously the press conference the boys participated in.
The video can be seen on the Live Oak football page on Maxpreps. Photos from the day are also available on the site.
“It was very nice to experience that, especially when we had that press conference going on in front of all those reporters,” Lomanto said. “It felt pretty legit like all the pros and the college people do.”
Ornduff said the opportunity to speak with press from bigger media organizations was a good opportunity to learn.
“It was a good chance to practice for the future,” Ornduff said of being part of the press conference.
Gemo said it was a neat experience to be up there and have questions asked of them in a press conference type setting.
“Hopefully it’s an experience they can look back on when they’re done playing and say ‘I did that,’” Gemo said.
Between the social media video and the press conference, Lomanto said it was a good lesson about how to conduct yourself in the public eye and to be careful because people may twist what you say in a negative way.
“You really need to watch what you say because people look up to you. You need to be a good role model,” Lomanto said.
Locsin said it was good to see what the pros are looking out for because they are on such a higher pedestal.
“You have to be a good role model, especially at the pro level because you have so many who look up to you,” Locsin said.
The boys also got to go on the field and participate in tackling drills put on by USA football, the same drills used at Live Oak practices now.
