Unique team-building experience at Monterey State Beach ends
solid first week of fall training camp
MORGAN HILL — For so many reasons, the 2009 Bulldogs are the benchmark of Sobrato High School football.
The obvious ones were embroidered into the coaching staff’s polo shirts after the season; school records that include most wins/best record (8-3), first shutout wins (two straight), most points scored in a game (60) and fewest points allowed during a season (166), to name a few.
Another reason was brought into fold Saturday. On a sun-baked stretch of sand in Monterey State Beach, members of the current Bulldogs team grunted their way through a 4-mile obstacle course that included tire flips, bear crawls, speed and agility stations and other football-related challenges, the kind of stuff that builds a team by breaking it down.
The Bulldogs didn’t do this a year ago. They didn’t need to.
“They just had natural chemistry. They had a great, huge group of seniors,” SHS coach Nick Borello said. “This year, when you have a small group of seniors, and the seniors are where you look to get your leadership from, you know, we look for something to bring that out a little more.”
In five years at SHS, Borello has seen the Bulldogs rise and fall and rise again. They produced their first winning season in 2007 under Dan Brown, flopped (2-8) in Borello’s first year at the helm, then returned to playoff form in 2009.
Borello and his staff want the latest turnaround to be one that lasts.
“We’re trying to build a great season into a great tradition here. You get that with team-building stuff like this,” said assistant coach Albert King, the architect of Saturday’s workout. “This is something that is going to be one of the cornerstone’s of this winning tradition.
“I’d like to think that the group last year was the standard. I think Sobrato teams from then on are going to be compared to that team, so it’s up to us to meet that challenge. You have to go through trials and tribulations together in order to be great.”
No matter how you weigh the team’s 5 seniors and 25-plus junior class, Sobrato’s roster is still relatively small. The Bulldogs grew more intimate Saturday as they paired up to tackle the obstacle course.
They had no idea what they were in for — anything but an ordinary day at the beach.
“We did like a 1-mile warmup jog in the sand and thought, ‘Is that it?’ Then we just kept running,” junior lineman Skyler King said Sunday. “There were people everywhere telling us where to go. They just kept yelling, ‘keep running!'”
Team-building was at its best during the tire stage. Quarterback Jerry Jacob gained a new level of respect for his partner, sophomore running back Drew Glines.
“He’s pretty good at flipping tires. He’s a strong kid,” Jacob said. “The whole thing was pretty intense, but it was actually a really cool experience. It was fun, too.”
Players were treated to a barbecue afterward and could already sense a newfound camaraderie.
“We feel like our chemistry might be stronger than what it was last year,” said Skyler King, now in his second year on varsity. “Most of us already knew each other pretty well. Having this bond is important because it’s a lot easier to go to practice and work hard together.”
The Bulldogs did plenty of that last week. Coaches expected them to bring tons of energy to the first few days of contact practice and were not disappointed.
The defense looked especially solid, as position battles heated up along the front eight. The down three looks like it will come down to senior Gustavo Ramirez, King and either Tanner Holt, Sergio Mihai or Nick Perry.
Senior Kurtis Juarez highlighted a hard-hitting week for the linebackers.
“It makes sense that the defense had a good week; once you put the gear on, the defense starts looking good,” Borello said. “Offense is … still doing what they’re doing. We’re optimistic.”
Star fullback Obi Mbonu switched in at bandit, a hybrid linebacker/defensive back position. Borello is learning toward starting him both ways this fall.
“We figure he’s too good of an athlete to have just in one position,” Borello said.
The grueling workout Saturday was indeed helpful for a team that for the second straight year had to scrap two-a-day practices because of a schedule conflict between Morgan Hill Unified School District and the state’s governing body for prep sports, California Interscholastic Federation.
For MHUSD, the school year opened Tuesday, three days after the start of fall training camp.
“They’re going to go through the prior things we didn’t get from double-days,” Borello said Friday. “It’ll be a hell of a workout. Their bodies will feel like they went through double-days.”
SCRIMMAGES: Sobrato and Live Oak will play in separate jamborees starting at 6:30 p.m. Friday. The Bulldogs will face Pioneer, Silver Creek and Branham at Pioneer High, and the Acorns will host Gilroy, San Benito, Christopher and Independence.
