Sobrato is a team who has played dozens of football games since 2004 — half of which were at “home” — but yet has never had the benefit of home-field advantage.
Because Ann Sobrato High School sits along the Morgan Hill/San Jose border, it is subject to the greenbelt rules that provide an open buffer between the two cities.
Those rules prevent any permanent structures be built inside the greenbelt — beyond those that are already there. So when the school opened, it included a football field that housed no bleachers, no light standards, no concession stands and now restrooms.
Sobrato and Live Oak agreed to share Rickert Field to allow the Bulldogs to play football, a field that is adorned with a Live Oak scoreboard and sits on the Live Oak campus.
So for 10 seasons, the Bulldogs have been a team without a field they can call their own.
Now Coach Albert King wants that to change.
He wants to see if there is a way he can get his team to play its home games at its true home.
“My kids work just as hard as anyone else. We deserve our own venue and I’m going to work (hard) to get it,” King said.
The topic came up innocently enough: When asked before the Nov. 8 game against Independence about how happy the team is to finish out the season at home, King responded by saying his team isn’t really playing at home.
“Unfortunately, we never are home. Unfortunately, we have to go across the freeway and play at Live Oak,” King said. “They make no bones that that’s their field. Every game that we play is away. We play 10 away games every year. That’s not our home. Our home is sitting right here.”
Sobrato High School has a thick grassy field with a green color that is equally as thick.
Rickert Field, meanwhile, is beat up and has yellowing grass and some bare spots where the grass isn’t allowed to grow back. There are also spots where grass clippings fill in holes.
The state of the field is part of the reason why Live Oak is pushing for an all weather surface that will cost the district $2 million.
“As the head coach for this program, I’ll be making a huge push so that we will finally have our own venue,” King said. “I think that Sobrato, I think that these kids and I think that all these students at Sobrato deserve an opportunity to go to a game that represents Sobrato, not Sobrato through Live Oak.”
The decision when the school was planned and built to move Sobrato football off campus to play its games (although the Bulldogs do practice at home) wasn’t a bad one and the decision of the board more than 10 years ago is understandable.
You can’t have anything permanent at the school and the cost to bring in temporary fixtures isn’t something to scoff at.
Gilroy is paying more than $12,000 to bring in temporary bleachers for its field after the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex stands were condemned this past summer.
That also doesn’t take into account the needing portable bathrooms and other necessities to make fans comfortable.
It’s a challenge King is willing to take on because he wasn’t to give his players a place to defend and a place alumni can come to during homecoming that bares the Sobrato name.
“I’m going to spend a lot of time in the off season to make sure we either play here or play somewhere else,” King said.
King said he formed a small committee to talk about ideas to get the temporary fixtures at Sobrato as well as how to raise the money to rent them.
Lights will be one thing that Sobrato won’t be able to bring in, but King said he is comfortable playing on Saturdays.
“Morgan Hill Unified School District needs to treat Sobrato the exact same way they’re treating Live Oak. These kids deserve it and I’m going to continue to push hard for it,” King said. “I’m going to make sure there is not one stone left unturned.”
The plan is at heart a win-win for the two schools. Live Oak’s field can get a rest and Sobrato can take pride in a field of its own. Scheduling won’t be as big of an issue as Live Oak and Sobrato no longer need to coordinate on schedules to avoid conflicts.
Is there a down side? Sure. This is predicated on parents, future coaches and the school remaining committed to the cost and the planning required to bring in bleachers and other fixtures.
If Sobrato goes this route, it has to remain committed as returning to Live Oak will result in not just complications but also conflicts as teams and schools scuffle over logistics.
King said a possible compromise is if MHUSD commits to representing both schools on the field assuming the new artificial turf is approved. King said if Live Oak is painted in one end zone and Sobrato painted in the other, it will go a long way toward showing him and the team that they are taken seriously and respected.
Still, even this compromise doesn’t quite fix everything. During El Toro Bowl games, Sobrato will still have to look up at a scoreboard that doesn’t represent them and Live Oak every other year will stand on the wrong end of its own field.
Sobrato deserves its own field. The Bulldogs are out growing big brother’s hand-me-downs and are ready for things to call their own. Live Oak also deserves to have a field unique its own.
The solution will be hard and not entirely inexpensive, but if parents and the school are willing to make the commitment to the students, the rewards in school pride and attendance have great potential.
