After his name has been linked to the job for weeks, Anthony Rice was hired as the Pomona High School head football coach on Thursday, pending school board approval.

Following two CIF championship seasons in four years at Colony High School, the Pomona native will be the fifth coach in seven seasons for a program that hasn’t made the playoffs since winning the Valle Vista League in 2003.

“When people think of Pomona, they shed a negative light on it,” Rice said. “But that’s not how I think of Pomona because that’s where I’m from. These kids are in the same boat I was in when I was growing up and I want to turn this program back into what it used to be.”

Unlike when Rice was a record-setting running back at Garey High School, the Pomona Unified School district is saturated with new schools. The dispersed talent is the reason for Pomona football’s lack of recent success but the Red Devils have the talent to end their playoff drought, according to Rice.
Continue reading “Pomona hires Rice to be head football coach” »

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After two CIF championships in his four years at Colony High School, head football coach Anthony Rice resigned Tuesday, with his sights set on the head coaching job at Pomona High School.

Rice, 35, desires an administrative position, something that appears difficult to obtain at Colony amidst the financial crisis. His Jan. 25 application for the Pomona head coaching position isn’t Rice’s only link to the job, according to former Pomona head football coach John Brown.

After one year as coach, Brown resigned Jan. 8 on the premise that Rice was offered the Pomona head coaching position behind Brown’s back, a claim Rice and Pomona principal Roger Fasting denied. Rice said he was never offered the head coaching position, but shortly after the season ended in November, Pomona athletic director Tom Sweeney contacted him about an offensive coordinator position under Brown.

Brown’s resignation and Rice’s application for the Pomona head coaching position are not related, according to Rice.

“It’s very much a coincidence,” Rice said. “Everybody can say what they want, but I have to go through the same process as everybody else that applied for the job. Let the naysayers fall where they may.”
Continue reading “Colony’s Rice resigns, applies for Pomona job” »

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Here are the boys basketball matchups for the Martin Luther King one-day event at Los Osos High School. Tickets are $6 for adults and $3 for students.

8 a.m. – Ontario vs. San Dimas
9:30 a.m. – Bishop Amat vs. Charter Oak
11 a.m. – Serrano vs. Claremont
12:30 p.m. – Diamond Bar vs. Rancho Cucamonga
2 p.m. – Chino Hills vs. Los Alamitos
3:30 p.m. – Glendora vs. Garey
5 p.m. – Twentynine Palms vs. Alta Loma
6:30 p.m. – Santa Monica vs. Etiwanda
8 p.m. – Los Osos vs. Ayala

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With re-leaguing taking effect next school year, here are the 2010 leagues:

Baseline League:
Alta Loma
Etiwanda
Glendora
Los Osos
Rancho Cucamonga
Upland

Citrus Belt League:
Eisenhower
Fontana
Miller
Redlands
Redlands East Valley
Yucaipa
Continue reading “League changes coming in 2010 school year” »

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A season after snapping a state-record 49-game losing streak on the field (the Giants won twice via forfeit during a stretch that began in 2002) the Ganesha High School football team ended a 35-game Valle Vista League losing streak on Friday with a 16-10 victory over none other than defending league champion Covina Northview.

After not only breaking a streak that was cutting into its seventh year last season, but winning TWO games in 2008, even considering Friday’s victory it would appear Ganesha is taking a step backward this season.

That’s not the case.
Continue reading “Another year, another streak ends at Ganesha HS” »

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• I think Kaiser’s Anthony Brown (above) should play running back in college, as opposed to cornerback. I saw the USC-committed senior play for the first time in Friday’s 19-14 loss to Colony, during which he rolled up 199 yards on 27 carries with a pair of touchdowns. He plays a lot bigger than 5-feet-11, 180 pounds and I have no doubt he would make a fine cornerback given his athleticism and fondness for contact. USC has yet to indicate where it would like him to play but he has an ideal skill set to play running back: vision, burst, aggressivness and flat-out play making ability. Brown is one of those players too electric not to play offense.
• I think teams with difficult nonleague schedules are going to find themselves in much better standing when things get tense in about a month. Now, this depends on the difficulty of a given team’s league but a team like Colony (4-1) needs to stack its nonleague schedule given the lack of playoff success of its own Mt. Baldy League. But a team on the rise like Damien (1-4) runs the risk of being so beat up after taking on four top-notch teams, including two defending CIF champs, that it may not have enough left for Sierra League play. I’m curious to see how Ayala, which has faced one high caliber team, will stack up with Chino Hills, which scheduled a much more difficult slate. Nonleague scheduling is a delicate thing given the fact it is done well in advance and there is plenty of unpredictibility involved. It’ll be interesting to see how different philosophies effect the rest of the season.
• I think the Bonita-San Dimas game, being played on Friday, creates one of the two best atmosphere’s I’ve seen in California high school football. Only the Redlands-Redlands East Valley game is comparable in my mind. I haven’t covered a state championship game but Bonita-San Dimas is a more charged atmosphere than any of the CIF championship games I’ve been to. Both schools have bye weeks before the game so as to create as much hype as possible. They participate in non-football competitions leading up to the game, for example, seeing who can raise more money for charity. It’s just a good old-fashioned rivalry that lives up to the billing.

Leave a comment. Ask a question. Or e-mail me at clay.fowler@inlandnewspapers.com

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• I think Rancho Cucamonga High School’s Greg Watson inspired me to believe he could play quarterback in college more last year than he is this year. The primary reason for that doesn’t have much to do with Watson himself. Rancho Cucamonga is truly a running team this season; plus the Cougars graduated their two track-star receivers (No, seriously… Charles Saseun is at Cal on a track scholarship and Irshad Stoden is playing football at UNLV), in the process losing much of the opportunity to utilize Watson’s most obvious passing strength, the deep ball. The reigning CIF-SS Central Division MVP hasn’t had enough opportunity to find a passing rhythm, averaging five less attempts per game this season than he did last year. He is throwing for less than 150 yards per game whereas he averaged 189 last season. The good news is Watson’s team appears it will have him on a big stage again this year but if he is to secure a Division I scholarship to play quarterback (in a quality program) some things are going to have to change.
• I think Kaiser cemented the fact it has successfully made the transition from legendary coach Dick Bruich to his longtime defensive coordinator Phil Zelaya with a 20-0 win over Cajon on Friday. The Cats’ defense may not have produced a more impressive performance under Bruich than holding a Cajon team, then-ranked No. 2 in the Central Division, 50 points below its average. Yes, Cajon was averaging 50 points. Granted, Kaiser appears to have as much talent this season than it has had in recent memory (USC-bound RB Anthony Brown, touted LB Josh Shirley, etc.), but its hard to say Zelaya isn’t maximizing it. It doesn’t get any easier for Kaiser, who has Colony and Colton next on the docket before delving into an improved Sunkist League.
• I think I’m more than a little surprised Pomona is ranked No. 3 in the CIF-SS Mid-Valley Division. I realize the Red Devils are 3-0 but I think Pomona coach John Brown would agree that doesn’t tell the entire story. Brown, in fact, was nothing less than disgusted with his team after a sloppy 14-0 victory over Alhambra Keppel on Thursday. Pomona’s three opponents thus far have ratings on calpreps.com of -6.4, -13.2 and -24.2. Pomona’s rating is 3.9 while the top-rated team in the Valle Vista League, San Dimas, is 16.6. Of course, San Dimas was voted into the No. 4 spot in the Mid-Valley Division behind you know who. The good news for Pomona is five of their final seven opponents have negative ratings on calpreps.com, including three Valle Vista League teams.

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Upon first glance, the San Dimas High School football team appears to have missed its best opportunity (by a single excruciating point, no less).

The Saints graduated 320 rushing yards per game and the entire offensive line from a team that rolled up 46 points per game… but lost a 40-39 heartbreaker to Covina Northview for last season’s Valle Vista League title (before surprisingly dropping out of the playoffs in the quarterfinals).

Head coach Bill Zernickow believes he’s reloading this season. The new backfield running his Wing-T is even bigger that last season’s talented trio of Nico Barbone, Daniel Joseph and Erek Brown.
Continue reading “San Dimas HS isn’t rebuilding, but it’s bigger in ’09” »

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Football coach Dave Fleming’s first season at Ganesha was a rousing success.

It consisted of two victories.

But when you haven’t won a game on the field since the 2003 season-opener, winning not once but twice represents a mammoth leap. The former Diamond Ranch assistant ended a state-record losing streak on the field at 49 games (Ganesha won a couple of forfeits since the ’03 season opener).

Had he switched the 6-1, 250-pound Justin Goytia from offensive line to fullback before the season, Fleming believes Ganesha could have improved exponentially.

“If I would have used Justin at fullback last year, we could have won six to eight games,” Fleming said. “I’m not kidding, this kid has a chance to be special. It was my first year and that was a big mistake I made, not realizing that he could have helped us so much more.”
Continue reading “After 0-49, can Ganesha HS actually make playoffs?” »

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This is a Thanksgiving themed story that ran in Thursday’s paper… Many football players claim their team as family but San Dimas sophomore Cawatas Brown actually had to choose between his real family and his football team.
Continue reading “San Dimas’ Brown adds to family tradition” »

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