Coming off a season of firsts, which included the team’s first season in the Blossom Valley Athletic League Mount Hamilton Division and a Central Coast Section playoff victory, the Sobrato High football team will look much different next year.
And that difference starts at the top. After the program’s most successful season, which ended at 8-4, Nick Borello stepped down and handed the keys to longtime assistant Albert King. The newly hired coach, who played college football at Sonoma State, will have some work cut out for him with only 13 returning players.
“Out of all 13 who are returning, only nine saw the field (last year),” King said. “Out of those nine, only four got significant playing time. That should tell you the perspective of what I’m looking at. We are going to be young, young, but that doesn’t mean our expectations are going to be any less.”
And those expectations are going to be grand. After taking five years to climb from the lower division of the BVAL to last year’s second-place finish, Sobrato has no intention of falling back. Instead, King and the Bulldogs expect to continue to take steps forward.
“Our tasks and our jobs have not changed,” King said. “Just because we are younger doesn’t mean the likes of Oak Grove and Live Oak are going to take it easy because we are young. Everybody is going to take it out on us, and our challenge is not to let that happen. Nick had done a great job putting Sobrato on the football map and we want to stay there.”
And that’s going to start with the team’s youth and what leadership it can gain from it, he said.
“What I’m looking for is a lot of leadership,” he said. “I’m looking for some young leadership. It’s going to have to come from me and the coaching staff. We’ve been here longer than any of these kids. We know where the program has come from. I think some of that leadership is going to come from us in the very beginning. We are going to have to instill in them that essentially this is their team.”
King, 43, has plenty of experience at Sobrato. King joined Borello’s staff in 2009 and helped the Bulldogs establish a winning program. King was born and raised in San Jose and graduated from Gunderson High in 1987, where he earned a spot on the San Jose City College team. From there, he played for Sonoma State.
When he arrived at Sobrato, the Bulldogs were still trying to develop a football tradition. But after five years, they did just that.
“I helped him get the program where it is now,” he said. “I was a large participant in getting the program to where it’s at right now. We are going to do our own thing now.”
Remnants of the Borello tenure will still hold a special place on the Bulldogs’ field. The offensive and defensive structures will remain relatively the same, and assistants Herb Bocksnick and Rick Dukes will return to the sidelines.
The opportunity to take over as the head coach is something King cherishes, he said.
“I want to continue our tradition,” he said. “The opportunity is that I don’t have to wait two or three years. I guess you could say the lingering kids to graduate. Essentially the entire program is starting over from scratch. We will have a new JV staff, a new varsity staff. The imprint is going to be immediate.”
Despite all the changes, King doesn’t expect a fall from last year’s pinnacle season, he said.
“Everybody is anxiously waiting to see where Sobrato’s football program is,” he said. “The only thing I can tell people is that we may be young, but don’t count us out. Everything is going to be pretty much the same.”
