GeeDee commented on 82-0
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Hey,
Just a quick announcement for those of you going to the game tonight. Hopefully this saves people a little hassle.
Crenshaw fans will park in the Victory parking lot tonight, Birmingham will be in the Haynes lot. Best way to get to the Haynes St. lot is from Balboa Blvd.
I'm not sure if this story on senior DB Greg Burgess made it onto the internet, so I thought I'd post it here:
By Ramona Shelburne
Staff Writer
You know something's up when Greg Burgess is quiet. He's just that kind of kid. Always talking, joking, laughing or mixing it up with teammates, opposing wide receivers or anyone within earshot. But this week, Birmingham's top cover corner has been quiet. Real quiet.
The Patriots are hosting his former school, Crenshaw, in the semifinals tonight. And if that wasn't enough, Burgess' cousin is Crenshaw's top wide receiver, Kemonte Bateman so he should be matched up with him most of the night.
``I've been real mellow and laid back this week,'' Burgess said. ``All those guys at Crenshaw are still my boys. I hand out with them every weekend. But I've got to stay mellow. I can't do anything stupid. I can't get too hyped.''
The change in his demeanor has been a bit shocking to his teammates.
``He's been real quiet this week,'' senior tight end Mychal Rivera said. ``He's focused. He's staying humble.''
Burgess transferred from Crenshaw to Birmingham after last year. He'd been an All-City defensive back, but off the field, he'd started running with the wrong group of friends and his parents felt he needed a fresh start, at new school.
Burgess didn't want to leave at first, but has come to realize the change was for the best.
``I needed a fresh start and I got that here,'' Burgess said. ``Everything here is different. But it's been my best year, in school and in football.''
This week, Burgess learned he'd scored over 1,500 on the SAT test, more than enough to qualify for college. He said he's been contacted by several schools --Idaho, San Diego State, San Jose State, Fresno State and Arizona -- but the schools told him they were waiting on his test scores before they offered him a scholarship.
Birmingham defensive coordinator Jim Rose said Burgess has ``the quickest hips of any defensive back I've ever coached'' and should definitely be a Division I player, despite his 5-foot-9 frame.
``He's a true cover corner and guys like that are hard to find,'' Rose said.
Friday night, he'll draw the most difficult match-up of his career. Bateman and his teammate Clint Floyd have verbally committed to Arizona State.
``Kemonte and I have been playing against each other since we were five years old,'' Burgess said. ``We've known each other since we were three weeks old. ... And I know he's going to line up against me.''
The whole team has been pumping DB Greg Burgess for information on Crenshaw, the school he transferred from after last season, but Burgess has been conservative in what he says.
``I keep asking him, but he just says, `I'm not snitchin' '' Birmingham coach Ed Croson said. ``I can respect that.''
OK, trying to figure out the state bowl game picture is either very easy or more complicated than the BCS, depending on how much weight you place on the common opponent question. Right now, it looks as if Birmingham only has to worry about Corona Centennial because it beat Long Beach Poly, quite convincingly, in Week 1.
Corona Centennial of course, beat Crespi, the team that beat Birmingham in a Week 0 game, so Corona Centennial would probably get the nod, if common opponent was the deciding factor.
But, how do you evaluate Centennial's loss to Mater Dei now that Crespi came back and beat Mater Dei last night? And what if Crespi then goes on to beat Servite and Long Beach Poly? Birmingham beat Notre Dame, which beat Servite... See where this is going? And you thought the BCS was complicated.
Birmingham's best argument is it's quality wins over Poly, Notre Dame and Valencia. It should also push the argument that it's going to be a long time before the City Section has another team that has as good a chance to compete against DLS.
Centennial's best win was over Crespi, and to a lesser extent, Norco. And that win over Crespi is looking better and better by the day.
Of course, both teams will need to win Section titles, so all this could be moot if one loses.
Tonight's sideline crowd included coaches from Pierce College, Ventura College, Cal Lutheran and UNLV.
Special guests included former players Dennis Keyes and Ramal Porter.
Keyes obviously has a big weekend ahead of him, with UCLA's showdown game against Oregon set for Saturday.
Porter recently finished a tryout with the Avengers, which he said went well, and will continue in January.
He stays in shape by working with Birmingham's longtime sprints guru, Kertic Carruth.
For some perspective on just how good Birmingham's defense is, consider that starting defensive back Evan Jenkins had two interceptions tonight and got his name mentioned in the newspaper for the first time all year.
On any other defense, Jenkins would be one of the team's stars. But for Birmingham's defense, which held Taft to -25 yards on Wednesday night, he's just one of the guys.
It's a bit like the Oaks Christian effect of last year, when most mentions of the team's best players only went about 3-4 players deep -- Jimmy Clausen, Marc Tyler, Marshall Jones, Sean Wiser -- even though seven other seniors ended up being Division I players.
At Birmingham, on the defensive side of the ball, star linebacker Donovan Carter and defensive ends Malik and Marquis Jackson grab a lot of the headlines. LB TJ Rosas and Marcus Law occasionally get recognized. DBs Greg Burgess and Okechukwu Meke are known to opposing offensive coordinators.
All will likely be selected All City. All will likely play somewhere in college next year.
But where does that leave players like Jenkins, CB Kyle Lard, DL Carlos Escobar or LB Daniel Mora? All are solid players who'd be big names on any other team.
The anonymity doesnt bother Jenkins though.
``We just want to win,'' Jenkins said. ``We were definitely trying to make a statement tonight. Taft is a good team. They're running back, Morgan is good and their wide receiver, #1 has some talent. They tried to get under our skin. But we weren't going to let them. We play with heart and wanted to make a statement that nothing was going to stop us from our goal.''
Just in case you're wondering, this week's story will feature senior linebacker Donovan Carter and his family.
Birmingham has five players --Milton Knox, Donovan Carter, Mychal Rivera, Rafael Lopez and Malik Jackson -- who've verbally committed so far, but that doesn't mean the phones have stopped ringing.
Carter and Knox are committed to UCLA, but planning to take 2-3 official visits to other schools, and Malik Jackson is receiving some serious interest from USC. Knox will probably visit Florida, Colorado and maybe Notre Dame. Carter is taking trips to Colorado and Washington.
All three say they are still firmly committed to their respective schools, but when you commit so early in the game, it's hard to listen to other pitches.
Both Knox and Carter have told me they're not overly concerned with the Bruins coaching situation. It's more that if UCLA were to fire Karl Dorrell, they'd be anxious to see who the new coach was, who the new assistants are, how many recruits stick with their commitments and what type of systems will be run. Both did say that they hoped Dorrell stayed.
Taking the trips to the other schools was planned all along though.
As for Jackson, he said he's still solid in his commitment to Fresno State. But it's worth noting a Fresno State assistant was on the sidelines last Thursday.
Exavier Johnson needs to finish strong in the classroom this semester in order to complete all of his core classes and become eligible for college, but the SAT Test isn't a problem.
Ex took the test in June of 2007 and scored over 1,500 out of 2,400. He got a 1,030 combined on his math and verbal scores. That's more than enough to qualify and ranks as one of the top scores on the team.
Said his mom Cecilia, ``After all those test prep book I bought him, he better do well.''
Cecilia even sweetened the deal. If Ex studied and did well, she promised to buy him a new pair of shoes. Judging from the 15 or so pairs of shoes I've seen him wearing before and after practice this year, I'd say he hit the books pretty hard.
``Is he in Imelda Marcos territory,'' I asked Cece, who is Filipino.
``Not quite,'' she said. ``But he's close.''
Birmingham quarterback Morey Croson isn't exactly ... um ... big. But that doesn't mean he has a hard time competing at this level. Croson, pound for pound, is one of the strongest players on the team.
The last time they did weight testing, the junior signal caller power-cleaned 220 pounds. He weighs 150 pounds, meaning that he can lift almost 1.5 times his body weight. The charts say that ranks among the top 1 percent in the country for boys his age.
Coach Croson told me today that's he's trying to add a team or two to next year's schedule but is having a hard time getting call-backs. Not surprising considering Birmingham is arguably the most talented team in City Section history.
Croson said his first choice would be to add a Marmonte League school. He said he's called a few, but hasn't received much interest.
Right now, it looks like Valencia, Notre Dame and Dorsey will be back on the schedule, Long Beach Poly probably won't.
Milton Knox has just about every record there is by now -- the City rushing record, scoring record, 6,000 yards, etc. -- but there's one he's got his eye on that's going to come down to the wire. Knox really wants to get to 100 career touchdowns, something no area large-school running back has ever done. Right now, he's got 92. If Birmingham keeps winning, that's at least three more games, meaning that he'll need to average between 3-4 touchdowns a game. If Birmignham earns the state bowl birth, he'd have an extra game to do it.
That might sound like a lot, but anyone who's been watching the Patriots this year knows that if they weren't so darn sportsmanlike, Knox could have 110 or 120 touchdowns by now. But, because the games have been such blowouts recently, Knox is usually out of his shoulder pads by the third quarter. He's also been sharing time with promising sophomore Trajuan Briggs, and giving up a lot of goal line carries.
Birmingham coach Ed Croson isn't the kind of guy who gets really into records, but in our conversations about the issue, I've gotten the impression that he's always got it in the back of his head. Knox has been a star player for him and a real leader this year and last. Croson wants him to go down as one of the best running backs ever to come from the area. Getting the 100 touchdowns would help. But on the priority list, it ranks well below 1. Winning a City title, 2. Positioning for a state bowl game birth 3. Continuing to improve as a team and 4. Keeping everyone (especially Knox) healthy.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this balancing act plays out the rest of the way.
Just weights and film for the players today, but the coaches will be pulling an all-nighter to watch tape on Taft and get a game plan together for Wednesday's quarterfinal game against Taft before Saturday morning's practice.
This week of playoffs is always the one you have to watch out for. The short week leaves less than normal time to heal up from the previous game and less than normal time to prepare for the next week.
Birmingham coach Ed Croson told me earlier that this is the week he fears the most. In Croson's world, that means, he's going to spend every waking hour -- and even some sleeping hours -- preparing for the game. It's the way he copes. You can't be as nervous if you know you've prepared as much as you can in the time given.
It helps that they played Taft just a week and a half ago. There are fewer surprises. But, and this is a big but, it's very hard to beat a good team twice in the same year and Taft is definitely a good team. Former Taft coach Troy Starr used to tell me this all the time, in regards to Birmingham, but it works both ways.
Anyway, off to bed... Not that any of the coaches will be seeing theirs tonight.
I heard some sad news tonight. Jerry Bobrow, who ran a top test prep company and was a friend to Birmingham sports and countless other athletes in the Valley --including this reporter, way back when -- passed away on Nov. 12 after a long bout with cancer.
Birmingham administrator Fern Somoza passed along the sad news. Bobrow, she said, has helped a number of Birmingham students and athletes over the years who wanted to go to college, but couldn't afford all the high-priced test prep. One athlete he helped, is expected to attend Harvard next year.
``He was a wonderful man,'' Somoza said. ``We're all really going to miss him. He's done so much for so many people.''
This week's 60-0 victory over Kennedy was actually sort of close for a little while. It was only 14-0 midway through the second quarter. But it was a subdued kind of feel out on the sidelines tonight. Last week against Taft, the guys from Birmingham were able to get up for their league rival, but after six straight blowouts, it does get a little old.
Coach Croson always seems to find a new way of motivating the troops. Sometimes, he talks to them about ``being great'' everytime they step on the field, sometimes, he can use a Homecoming game or Senior Night to pump them up. This week, he constantly reminded the guys that ``this is the playoffs'' and no team good enough to make it is going to roll over and quit just because they're down three touchdowns. That worked for a while, but by the fourth quarter, it was all about cheering for the back-ups and JV call-ups who were getting in the game for the first time.
I could tell the Birmingham coaches had mixed emotions about laying 60 on Kennedy. The Patriots staff is close with Kennedy coach Dion Lambert and has a lot of respect for him. To Kennedy's credit, they never stopped playing. RB Matt Gentle stayed in the whole game and kept running hard until the end.
OK, so I finally put some of my Stanford education to work tonight. Well, just that one web design class I took, I guess. But I went through and added in all the stories that have run in this fall's series, so if you've just come across the project, you can go back through and get caught up.
Thanks to the guys in new media for making sure the stories will be available for the next six months online. Normally they expire after two weeks, but we decided to let these live a little longer.
Email me if there are any problems.
When I started out reporting for this week's story on Birmingham's assistant coaches, I asked head coach Ed Croson for a brief description of each of his guys. When we got to defensive line coach Floyd Peterson, Croson said simply, ``He's the ghost.''
When practice is over, Peterson is gone. Where he goes, nobody knows. It's kind of a running joke amongst the guys.
And if you try calling him on his cell phone, you'll get a gruff voice delivering this message: ``I'm not here. Leave a message and I'll call you back if I feel like it.''
It's all good natured ribbing of course. Because Peterson's contributions to the team are huge. He's been with Croson the longest of any other assistant and even coached a few years in college, so he's got a ton of experience.
OK, before the 1-9 season, back when Weis was still thought of as an offensive genius. Forget it, maybe I should've said Norm Chow. Anyway...
Every program has one. The quiet coach who is content to sit in the booth, calls plays and let everyone else take the credit even though he's a genius X's and O's guy. At Birmingham, that guy is offensive coordinator Jim Thornton. He drives in from Simi Valley every day, sits in the booth and hardly says a word, but according to all the other assistants, and coach Croson, he's one of the power brains behind the whole operation.
``He's our Charlie Weis,'' assistant Kevin Thomas said. ``He's just a football nut. He's been doing it his whole life. He's great at breaking down film, doing the X's and O's kind of stuff.''
So what's a typical Saturday like for the defending City champs?
Not counting the late Friday night which always tends to stretch into the early morning hours of Saturday, It starts about 9 a.m. The coaches meet the players at 10 to watch the game tape from the previous night. The coaches have already watched and analyzed the tape, late Friday night.
After tape, everyone gets a lift in, just to help work out the soreness from the night before.
Around noon, the coaches all head over to defensive coordinator Jim Rose's house. It's a bachelor pad of the highest order, with big-screen TVs in each room and tons of comfortable couches and bean bag chairs. For the next six to 10 hours, the coaches break down film on next week's opponents. Offense in one room, defense in the other. Each game tape is watched about 2-3 times, then charted.
Later, game plans and schemes are developed to present to the players on Monday.
Birmingham defensive ends Malik and Marquis Jackson have developed into two of the most dominant defensive players in the region this year, but they didn't look like much when they first showed up at the school as sophomores.
``They wanted to play linebacker,'' assistant coach Kevin Thomas said.
Neither were getting much playing time in Birmingham's experienced linebacking core, so Thomas asked Marquis if he wanted to try his hand on the defensive line, where there were a few openings.
``We tried Marquis out on the line at the Occidental camp, in a game against Bakersfield, who was ranked like No. 9 in the state at the time, and just dominated,'' Thomas said. ``He was so good, I was like, `You're starting. Right now, you're a starter.' Even though he was just this little sophomore.
``A few weeks later, Malik came up to me and was like, `Coach, you think I could try defensive line too?' That's how it started.''
It was no accident that quarterback Exavier Johnson took off on an 18-yard run to open Friday's game against Taft. The Birmingham coaches --head coach Ed Croson and offensive coordinator Jim Thornton -- purposely called for Johnson to run on the first play so he'd get any extra energy/aggressiveness out right away. Johnson was the quarterback at Taft for two seasons before transferring to Birmingham.
``That was a good idea coach Thornton had,'' Croson said. ``Ex was pretty pumped up so it was good for him to take off, hit someone and get some of that out right away.''
Wow, I had to do a double-take when I walked up to practice today. The team grew from 62 to 90-something over the weekend as coach Croson called up players from the junior varsity in anticipation of the playoffs. It's always fun when the younger kids get to line up against the big guys on the teams. On a typical Monday, practice can be a little ragged as everyone shakes out the cobwebs from the weekend, but with the new JV call-ups, there was a lot of intensity today.
Most of the guys will never see the playing field, but it's a really good experience for them to get a taste of the big-boy game and playoff atmosphere, which begins, this week with the annual showdown against West Valley League rival Taft. It's great when this game falls on the last week of the regular season. Both teams have been building towards this all season and the league title is on the line. Last year, it just felt silly to play the big game in Week 6, but this year, the rotation is back the way it belongs.
A bunch of the guys took their SATs on Saturday morning, at 8 a.m. Friday's game didn't end until 9:45 at night, and most of the players didn't make it home until 10:30 or 11 so it was a pretty quick turnaround.
I asked Malik Jackson how it went.
``I think I did pretty good,'' he said. ``But kind of boring. It's like four hours long. ''
Jackson expects to get his results in 2-3 weeks.
One thing I've noticed, over the course of the season, is the premium Birmingham coach Ed Croson places on routine and consistency. Every Friday, after the game Croson and his staff head over to defensive coordinator Jim Rose's house in Northridge to watch the game and break down the tape before they show it to the players Saturday morning at 10.
If ever there was a week you could take it easy and sleep in on a Saturday morning, this was it. Birmingham beat Cleveland 82-0 on Friday night. Really, honestly, what can you learn from watching that tape, I asked some of the assistant coaches?
``It's not about that,'' offensive line coach Matt Pentecost said.
After being around this team for most of a season, I already knew why. It's about routine and being consistent so everyone knows what to expect, all the time. That's important when you're dealing with a bunch of teenage kids, from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of socioeconomic statuses and all sorts of issues on their minds.
For a lot of the kids on the team, football is the only part of their lives that's predictable. And so, even after an 82-0 win where the back-ups played more than half the game, you show up on Saturday morning.
In the football world, City Section teams have a reputation for being undisciplined in an Oakland Raiders kind of way. A lot of that is due to a lack of resources. Each program has six paid coaching positions. That's six paid coaches for varsity and JV so most programs just split it up or rely on unpaid assistants. Those aren't easy to find though. Some programs get more than others. Birmingham has a lot, they're all committed, and it makes a huge difference.
Think of it in terms of class size. No matter how good a teacher you are, if you've got 45 kids in every class, it's tough to maintain control. But if you've got 20, things are totally different.
Everyone on the Birmingham sideline cringed a little when the Patriots scored to make it 82-0 in the final four minutes of Friday's win over Cleveland. I really got the impression that the coaches and players felt bad about the final score being so lopsided.
Athletic director Rick Prizant even said, ``We apologize for how the final score looks but it was never our intention to score that much.''
I went over to the Cleveland sideline after the game to gauge reaction and none of the coaches or administrators had a bad thing to say. Mostly, I think, because Birmingham had almost starters out after the first half. Milton Knox and Exavier Johnson even changed into street clothes during the second half.
Said coach Ed Croson, ``I feel bad. But you can't tell a sub, who is getting a chance to play, not to score. I put the subs in. We stopped passing. It's a hard situation.''
Blowouts are always a hard thing to manage. The basic rules are: 1. Take your starters out. 2. Stop passing. 3. Don't run any trick plays. 4. Don't insult the other team by fumbling on purpose or punting on first down. Birmingham did all of those things, but still, sometimes, the score gets out of hand. Give Cleveland credit though. They took it like men, didn't whine and said, ``We'll get you back next year.''
One parent even said after the game, ``Hey, that's football.''
Running backs Milton Knox and Trajuan Briggs have been limited in practice this week and are officially listed as ``game-time'' decisions, although both are expected to play tonight against Cleveland.
Knox has been hampered by a deep thigh bruise, Briggs has a bruised foot.
Knox, who broke the City Section career rushing and scoring records earlier this year, sounded confident he'd get on the field on Friday.
The question is how much will either RB play with the big game against Taft coming up next week? That probably depends on the score...
Pictures will definitely be coming shortly, but I wanted to post this before the tabloids got a hold of it...
Linebacker T.J. Rosas beat out defensive end Marquis Jackson and swimmer Daniel Lopez for homecoming king last Saturday. The voting was said to be very close ...
Just an FYI. You can real the full text of today's article on the internet...
There was so many compelling stories, I couldn't get them all into the paper, but it ran in full online, so consider it bonus coverage.
This marks the fourth week in a row Birmingham will face an opponent it's heavily favored to beat and each week, it's getting harder and harder to keep the team focused.
Mostly, coach Ed Croson and his staff try to keep the team focused on themselves. They set goals like: Having their defense outscore opponents' offenses or getting every guy on the team into the game. Sometimes, during games, I've even noticed Birmingham calling plays or packages that don't completely fit the situation, but need to be practiced in game situations.
A couple of weeks ago, Birmingham scored a touchdown and extended its lead. They then lined up to kick the extra point, but when the defense jumped offsides, coach Croson sent the two-point conversion unit it.
It was the first quarter, so it's not like they needed the 2-point conversion. But what better time to work on things than a game situation?
None of this is meant to be disrespectful to the opponent. Croson generally pulls his starters by the middle of the third quarter, if not earlier. And each game, he's tried to get every player on the sidelines into the game.
But as a coach, you have to find a way to keep your team focused so that they don't get surprised when playoffs come around.
Birmingham hosts Cleveland this week. It's senior night and Croson has been talking about that in his speeches all week. The week after that is the rivalry game with Taft, so there will be no problem focusing on that.
But the first few weeks of playoffs could be lopsided games as well.
Oh well, as problems go, this isn't a bad one to have.
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