Start up the hyperbole machine because it’s time to see who is
the best and greatest of all time.
Start up the hyperbole machine because it’s time to see who is the best and greatest of all time.
I took a little flak when I called the 2007 Gilroy High football team the best to ever represent the school, and I understood why.
Who does this new guy think he is, having never seen a GHS football game before last season?
Well, my opinion was based on the records I had in hand, the conversations I conducted with current and past players and coaches, and the basic belief that today’s athletes train harder, longer and more efficiently than in the past, making them reasonably stronger and faster than teams of the past.
That last argument doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m about to write.
The 2008-09 school year stands an excellent chance of being the most successful year of sports in the history of Gilroy High. It will be the season to measure all seasons, the high watermark, the top line on the door frame that families use to measure height.
It will be the greatest year across the board that anyone in Garlic Town has ever witnessed, and then it will be over. Why? Because nothing this good is meant to last forever. We’ll get to that point later, though.
Looking at the fall, winter and spring sports lineup, the Mustangs have four bona fide favorites, or at the very least contenders, to win a Central Coast Section title: Football, field hockey, wrestling and softball.
Football is coming off its first appearance in a CCS title game last year, and it is currently undefeated.
Field hockey is also undefeated, a first in program history this late in the season. The team has beaten every team it’s played with only one tie on the record.
Wrestling ¬- enough said. OK, I’ll say one quick thing. Nothing is a given, and this year will be much more difficult than the past six years of dominance, but the Mustangs are once again the runaway favorites.
Softball returns a very talented squad that lost the CCS championship to rival San Benito, a school that lost more contributors than the Mustangs. The Gilroy JV team from last year was loaded as well, so there shouldn’t be much of a drop-off.
As of right now, 1990-91 is the pinnacle. In addition to the four league titles won, it’s one of just two school years in which GHS had more than one CCS champion – wrestling and boys’ soccer. Coincidentally, the same feat was achieved in 2007 by the same sports.
In total, the Mustangs have won 14 CCS titles. (Yes, I counted the individual boys badminton title. I’m told that exchange student was ruthless with a shuttlecock in his possession.) Nine of those 14 belong to wrestling.
The next best year after ’90-91 could be 1985-86. No CCS titles were won, but seven teams won league titles.
Then you have last season – one CCS title for wrestling, which went on to finish second in the state, and five league titles, including the first for football in more than two decades. For those who don’t know yet, football adds extra points because of how many people play and attend games.
This year features the already mentioned Fine Four, and then several Tri-County Athketic League title dark horses: Girls cross country, boys soccer, girls soccer, girls basketball, baseball and probably one or two others I’m leaving out. (Use it as motivation if you want, but please still give me interviews.)
There are three reasons this been achieved, according to Darren Yafai, a current teacher and former coach at GHS.
“It’s enrollment, coaching staffs staying in place and a nice cycle of talent coming in on both the boys and girls sides,” he said.
“Part of it is continuity with the coaching staffs, but a huge part is … we’re one of the largest enrollments in all the section.”
Gilroy currently has over 2,500 students, and that’s a big reason why GHS’ success won’t last. There will be a new kid on the block named Christopher High School next year, and it will be taking in only freshmen and sophomores. A drop-off may not be noticeable on the GHS varsity teams next year, but it will be the following year when the talent on the freshman and JV levels is split in half.
“The first year doesn’t really hit you that hard,” said Art Silva, a cross country and basketball coach at GHS, “but that second year, you only have half your juniors.
“I know quite a few of the coaches at Live Oak and what happened to them (when Sobrato opened in Morgan Hill). It’s devastating.”
A GHS guy born and raised, Yafai will be taking over as Athletic Director at CHS. He said he takes no pleasure in the fact that the Mustangs’ recent success has a short shelf life.
“This year has the potential to be the best,” Yafai said. “It’s kind of cool because this could be Gilroy’s last hurrah with the big, big boys.”
Yafai then added, “I hope everyone doesn’t take that wrong with ‘the last hurrah,’ but in the TCAL or Open Division, chances are four years from now, Gilroy and Christopher High aren’t playing the Valley Christians and Oak Groves (in the playoffs).”
Yafai sees both teams being a part of the Monterey Bay Athletic League, like GHS was in past decades, and competing for Division II or III titles as enrollment levels out at just over a thousand.
It’s bittersweet that Gilroy has never been this good across the board and the success has an expiration date. But then again, what better way is there to go out than on top?
