Tuesday night, Aug. 31, Coach Marni Katuk and her Sobrato High
girls volleyball team will take the court at Live Oak High. Whether
the Lady Bulldogs play in front of a huge crowd or a small one,
whether they play a great game and whether they win or lose – none
of that will really matter. What will matter is they will be be
playing in the first official athletic contest in their new
school
’s history just one week after it opens for class.
Tuesday night, Aug. 31, Coach Marni Katuk and her Sobrato High girls volleyball team will take the court at Live Oak High.
Whether the Lady Bulldogs play in front of a huge crowd or a small one, whether they play a great game and whether they win or lose – none of that will really matter. What will matter is they will be be playing in the first official athletic contest in their new school’s history just one week after it opens for class.
That Tuesday night volleyball match will be just the first of many such contests in school history, underscoring both the ambitious strategy and the current reality of the Sobrato High sports program initiated by its principal architects – Principal Rich Knapp and Athletic Director Dennis Martin.
First, the Lady Bulldogs volleyball team is, indeed, just one of a number of sports teams set to begin play this school year – in the fall and beyond. Not only is Sobrato offering nearly every sport that Live Oak is, and has always planned to do so, but plans to go to varsity competition by next year.
Second, the school’s first athletic contest – a home match – will be played at an off-campus site, namely at Live Oak High. That’s because, as expected, virtually none of the school’s athletic facilities is expected to be ready for use when school starts, with the notable exception of the baseball and softball diamonds, soccer fields, outdoor basketball courts and a few practice fields.
When planning for the school’s first year of athletic competition, Knapp and Martin said they stayed focused on a mantra that pervaded everything from athletics to academics to facilities – Sobrato would offer students everything that Live Oak could.
“The plan was always to offer the same curriculum, including athletics, that Live Oak has,” Knapp said.
That meant offering everything from the higher-profile sports such as football, basketball, baseball, softball, track, cross-country, volleyball, swimming, soccer, and wrestling, along with the lesser-known and sometimes less-popular sports in which the student-athlete interest can wane such as field hockey, badminton, golf and tennis.
It also meant starting off at the junior varsity or frosh-soph level the first year with a quick ramp-up to the varsity level in the second year. (Sobrato has already been accepted by the Central Coast Section and Tri-County Athletic League, though it won’t officially compete in the TCAL until 2005-06, and some sports will compete in the Blossom Valley Athletic League.)
And, all those sports needed to have a place to compete, so the school always had plans for full athletic facilities – everything from a full-sized gymnasium to a football field and track to tennis courts, baseball and softball fields, and a competition pool, among other amenities.
Not that everyone agreed with such an ambitious plan.
Some critics, including a few on the Morgan Hill school district’s board of trustees, said the athletic program plan was too ostentatious for a start-up high school. Some also said that placing so much emphasis on Sobrato unfairly and unwisely took the focus away from the existing high school, Live Oak.
“I think (the plan) is heavy-handed,” Trustee Shelle Thomas said. “It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement (of a new school). In a budget crisis, we’ve got to look at our fiscal picture or we’re going to hurt kids with broken promises. I want to get it right. As much as I recognize the importance (of sports), we have to be realistic.”
In addition to bond funds for the facilities construction, Knapp said $500,000 was designated for start-up costs, essentially purchasing the necessary equipment and uniforms among other costs. In addition, Knapp said the athletic program will operate on a budget similar to Live Oak’s, except at about half the amount because of half the number of teams.
However, he and Martin both acknowledged that the high school’s athletics program would likely have to rely heavily on fundraising led by a brand new boosters club, and admitted that would present a unique challenge. But Martin said the club has already conducted a few fundraisers and are off to a fine start.
Knapp and Martin said they looked to other start-up high school programs, such as Evergreen Valley High in San Jose, for guidance. And, they said they adopted largely the same approach as other new schools did.
But both Knapp and Martin said the decision, just as with the school’s mascot and colors, on which sports to offer was ultimately left up to the incoming students – the freshmen and sophomores that will represent the school’s first two classes. (Sobrato students narrowly chose Bulldogs over Panthers and Serpents as the mascot, with dark maroon, black and white for colors.)
According to the Sobrato duo, a survey conducted last Spring indicated that students were interested in all the sports that Live Oak offers, starting with football, field hockey, cross-country, and girls volleyball, tennis and golf in the fall.
And, for the most part, they said the response has been solid for the fall sports. Football coach Jeff Patterson said as many as 40 kids showed up at times during summer workouts, and other teams have had plenty of players.
But there have been some hiccups. There are no female golfers signed up yet, though Martin said he hopes to have some interest in the first few weeks of school. And, there will be no boys or girls water polo teams this fall because of a lack of interest in the sport, as well as the immediate absence of a pool at the high school. Martin said he knew early on that there would be little interest in the water polo program and students were encouraged to transfer to Live Oak if they were dedicated to pursuing the sport. But Martin said the school still plans to offer the sport in the future.
In fact, both Knapp and Martin said they are convinced that the district’s open enrollment policy has allowed students plenty of opportunity to choose between the two high schools for any reason, including sports.
But there have been grumblings from some students and their families who said identifying the schools’ boundaries and applying for a transfer has been difficult.
