They’ve got four football-playing sons. They’ve got a
mini-football field in their backyard. They’ve got hundreds of
football game tapes scattered around the house.
And yes, they’ve got one heck of a busy schedule.
Welcome to life at the Gutierrez household, where playing
football is king and watching football is a close second.
They’ve got four football-playing sons. They’ve got a mini-football field in their backyard. They’ve got hundreds of football game tapes scattered around the house.
And yes, they’ve got one heck of a busy schedule.
Welcome to life at the Gutierrez household, where playing football is king and watching football is a close second.
“We just take it day-by-day,” laughed Susan Gutierrez, the mother of this pigskin-loving family.
Day-by-day and game-by-game, the group of seven somehow gets it all in.
Louie, the oldest son, is a senior Z-back on the Gilroy High varsity squad, while JoJo is a tailback on the JV team and Stephen is a tailback for the freshmen.
Meanwhile, 10-year-old tailback Alex runs for the Gilroy Browns Junior Pee-Wees, while Louie and dad Joe lead the team as coaches.
Ah yes, and 8-year-old daughter Natalie cheers for the Pop Warner Mighty-Mites football team. Those are some more games to attend.
“I guess,” Joe said of football, “you’ve just gotta love it to get so involved.”
And they do love it. Make no mistake about that.
Dad can be seen up in the stands with his video camera, diligently taping each of his son’s games. Through the years, he’s gone through four cameras and progressed from 8MM to DVD.
Mom can be seen up in the stands with her Gilroy jersey, diligently changing outfits for each of her son’s games. On occasion, she goes through three jerseys a day and has progressed from a football novice to an all-out fan.
“I love it,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss a game for the world.”
As for the boys, if they’re not playing or practicing football over on the fields at GHS, you can be almost guaranteed they’re doing something related to the sport back home.
“All the time,” Stephen said. “There’s always some kind of football thing going on.”
Some of the kids might be outside playing on the bordered-off, 40-yard field the family built in the backyard.
Some of them might be inside playing Madden or watching an old game tape – maybe a Mustangs’ game from two weeks ago, a Pee-Wee game from five years ago or even a Niner game from 10 years ago.
“We used to watch those old 49ers games,” Louie recalled. “Dad would record them and we’d watch. That’s how we got better.
“Now Alex is always turning them on.”
Ask the others, though, and Louie is still considered the dean of tape-watching. He not only breaks them down for his own benefit, but for his brothers as well.
“He’ll look at them over and over,” Joe said with a laugh. “The other boys will get up in the morning and Louie will be telling them, ‘If you’d have done this or done that,’ and they’ll be like, ‘What, have you already looked at the film?’
“Louie will just say, “Well … yeah.”
The coaching part comes easy for the eldest Gutierrez son. He said he has a “passion for coaching little kids,” and he’s got a schedule to prove it.
The Browns’ season is over now, but all during the fall Louie would faithfully go straight from varsity practice to Pop Warner practice.
“They work them pretty hard and he was always pretty tired,” Joe said. “But he would come straight to practice and stay to the end.
“All the kids look up to him. They just love Coach Louie.”
None, of course, more than little Alex.
“He definitely looks up to him,” Joe said. “This year he wore the No. 33 (same as Louie) because there’s so much respect there and they work with each other so much. I thought that was neat.”
While the deep respect the brothers have for one another is evident, there is some friendly competition among the group – some interesting dinner-table conversations.
When Stephen ran for four touchdowns in a September game at Watsonville, JoJo (four TDs) and Louie (one TD) followed it up the next night with their own scores.
“We go at it all the time,” JoJo said with a smile. “A little brotherly love, you know?”
The sophomore called Louie “the man,” but both Louie and Stephen both concede the ultra-quick JoJo, who’s recorded 22 touchdowns this season, is currently the most talented of the group.
“It’s like he was born to play the game,” said Stephen, who has 10 touchdowns of his own this year. “He’s a natural at it.”
But apparently Alex didn’t get the memo.
“Right now I’m the best,” the fifth-grader said with confidence. “I hit hard and run fast.”
All bragging rights aside, though, “the boys really make it enjoyable because they feed off one another and support each other,” said Joe, a project manager at a plumbing company who often has to adjust his work schedule so that he never misses a game.
“Kids are kind of like football … a lot of hard work but definitely rewarding. I enjoy watching them – it makes my day.”
For him, the unquestioned devotion to his kids is personal.
Joe never went camping with his dad. He was never encouraged to take part in athletics. And when he was 13, his parents divorced and he never saw his father again.
So you’ll understand if he’s spent a couple thousand dollars on weights the kids wanted. Or that he’s willing to pay for any football camps the boys might like to attend.
“I’m trying to do things differently than the way I was raised,” he said. “Family is a big thing with me and sports is a big part of that.
“Sometimes it takes a toll financially, but it all pays off.”
To see Louie coach is to know part of the reason why.
“He’ll go up to the kids – some even on the other teams – and give them advice and help them out,” Joe said. “There’s a lot of kids in that league without fathers, and a lot of the divorced or single moms will come up to me and say how they respect Louie and how much they appreciate him being a role model to their boys.
“To hear a parent say that about one of your kids? Wow, that makes me feel good.”
And how, after all, do you put on a price on that?
