GILROY—It goes without saying a father will do anything to protect his son. This past spring Steven Montgomery put those words into action, playing center and blocking for his son Sterling Montgomery as he played quarterback for the Gilroy-based Central Coast Barnstormers semi-pro football team.
Their time on the field together was short lived due to injuries, but that makes the memory that much more valuable.
Sterling and Steven took the field together not only as father and son, but as teammates in Week 2. They helped the Barnstormers to a 27-21 win over the Richmond War Eagles at the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex despite the elder Montgomery blowing out his shoulder in the third quarter. Steven wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to play with his son and fought through the pain to finish the game.
“For him to come out and play a semi-pro football with me is (awesome); he’s the man,” Sterling said. “He has that heart and drive—he’s Steven Montgomery. He always says that I can do anything. I think that he proved to a lot of the younger guys with amazing talent that he has that heart. He is no slouch.”
Sterling, who was named a Pacific Coast Football League Top Performer for Weeks 1 and 2, suffered a medical collateral ligament sprain—an injury to the ligament on the inner part of the knee—and severe bone contusion on his left knee in Week 3 against the Delta Ducks. With college looming just around the corner, Sterling and his father decided it was best for him to sit out the rest of the season in order to be healthy enough to compete for the starting job at Gavilan—which he is currently vying for. While their seasons were over, both took solace in the memories created in Week 2—until the final week of the regular season that is.
The Barnstormers were taking team pictures before their May 31 game against the Golden State Giants, so Steven and Sterling put on their gear and headed over to GHS. They walked hand in hand onto the field as captains but Steven didn’t bother to put on full pads, suiting up with only shoulder pads, a helmet and his jersey. In the fourth quarter, his teammates were teasing him to go back in despite the fact that he’d had surgery just six week prior.
“I don’t even have a mouthpiece,” he told his teammates before someone threw him one. Without asking the coaches, Steven snuck out to get a couple more series under his belt. But when the quarterback realized it was Steven snapping to him, he called a timeout.
“All of a sudden I hear the crowd cheering and I hear our sideline cheering and I look over and out comes trotting Sterling. It was something pretty special, you know?”, Steven said, fighting back tears and the lump in his throat. “I went back and gave him a big hug and said ‘This is it; this is it for me, man. Let’s go ring the bell one more time’ and we did. We drove down and six plays later, he throws for a 35-yard touchdown pass and that was it.”
The Barnstormers went on to win 52-16, but the victory pales in comparison to the memories the Montgomerys created on that field.
“It’s priceless. Surgery? It’s OK. Sneaking out that last game I definitely set the recovery back, but it was totally worth it,” Steven said.
Sterling calls his father his biggest supporter and his best friend, crediting him for shaping him into the quarterback he is today and for helping him earn the starting job with Christopher High the past two seasons. Steven, who played center for Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Wash., snapped to his son during their practice sessions over the last three and a half years, took him to training camps, taught him proper nutrition, was his workout partner and, most importantly, Sterling said, was there for moral support.
“My dad has always supported me with whatever I wanted to do and has let me walk my own path with his guidance, of course,” Sterling said. “My dad is really my best friend and I can go to him for anything. Some days, some weeks get really hard—especially back in high school with finals coming up, training, trying to develop with me not playing the position very long. He was part of the backbone that kept me going and took out some of the bad stuff in my life that I didn’t need—the bad influences and stuff. He’s kept me on the right path and he’s given me the right tools in my life to succeed.”
“He gave up a lot for it (football), but I think it was the thing that kept him away from drugs and alcohol and all those things,” Steven added. “Sterling has really made it easy to be a parent for the most part.”
While the duo won’t remember every snap or every series, they will remember the little things. For Steven, it’s wearing his son’s cleats customized with the No. 13 and nickname “Gunner” and playing on the same field Sterling spent his high school career on that stick out the most.
For Sterling, he remembers his dad asking to walk arm in arm with him off the field of the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex following his final high school game—a 24-0 loss to St. Ignatius in the opening round of the Central Coast Section Division III playoffs on Nov. 22, 2013. Sterling asked his dad the very same question following his last Barnstormers game on May 31 and the duo walked of the field, arm in arm, together one final time.
“I think that this whole experience is just a lifelong memory that you can’t buy,” Sterling said. “There’s almost no words to explain being in an actual sport with your father with this kind of relationship and actually being able to play with him. It’s almost unexplainable, but for me and my dad we both understand what means because we did it together.”
