Hello, I was calling about the Gilroy football article. First of
all, there are no moral victories in football. Either you win or
lose.
Everything Football
CALLER 1: Hello, I was calling about the Gilroy football article. First of all, there are no moral victories in football. Either you win or lose. The Mustangs played a great game and overcame numerous dropped balls and penalties. They were driving down the field for the winning score when Coach Hammond made his only mistake of the night – on a third-and-two trying to audible and getting a delay of game penalty with two timeouts left in his pocket. That essentially cost the Mustangs the game. They played a great game. I believe they know that they can play with any team in the section. They will have a good test this week against Serra High School, one of the top teams in the state.
On another note, it was really disturbing to pick up a San Jose Mercury on Saturday morning and find out that the Gilroy/Oak Grove game is in the paper but there was no stats from the Gilroy side only Oak Grove. Somebody on the Oak Grove side drove home at 10pm and was able to call the Mercury with their statistics. There is a big article about Hollister barely beating Wilcox. It was close and everything (but) it was a big article like they had won the Super Bowl. I just feel the people of Gilroy are very lax in this publication.
Also, you walk into the beautiful Garcia-Elder Stadium to watch a football game, and they don’t even have programs. I just don’t understand that. If they need some donations for paper or to get some pictures for the programs, I’d be happy to donate some money for that.
GREEN PHONE: Dear EVERYTHING FOOTBALL, First of all, you’re wrong. The record may only say win, lose or draw, but every sport has moral victories, including football. No one knew how Gilroy would perform against Oak Grove after a 49-0 thrashing in 2006, including the players and coaches. With the knowledge that they can hang with one of the best teams this section has to offer, the Mustangs learned a valuable lesson in defeat and it should make them focus better in the future. Winning would have felt great, but it most likely would have caused players to be less inclined to receive constructive criticism. Nothing makes a player take a good look in the mirror like a close loss.
Also, making mental mistakes such as facemask penalties, false starts and delay of game infractions – whether fault lies on the coach or players – have a cumulative effect in causing a loss. No one penalty lost the game, especially with two downs still to play. All of the penalties combined helped give Oak Grove a free pass against Gilroy.
As for reporting scores to the San Jose Mercury News, Green phone is more concerned with people reporting their scores to The Dispatch. Whoever did report the game though, forgot that Danny Contreras blocked an extra point and the final score was 27-21, not 28-21 as reported.
The Wilcox-San Benito game probably received a write-up by the Merc because it was in San Jose, not Hollister. Gilroy could soon get its due from the Metro newspaper in the coming weeks considering the team was on the cusp of being a top-15 ranked team in CCS by high school beat writer David Kiefer. He has had some complimentary things to say about the Mustangs in his blog (mercextra.com/blogs/hssports).
As for having a program at games, here is what GHS Athletic Director Jack Daley had to say.
“We have a fall sports program that we’re doing that’s new this year that took a little longer (to make),” he said. “This one includes all the fall sports and we’re hoping to have it for the first league home game.”
The first league home game is Oct. 5 against Alvarez. So, what this means is you can expect a new fall sports program to go with an 1-0 start in the TCAL.
Making the Band
CALLER 2: Hey, Green Phone. I was just wondering why the Gilroy band has no fight song. We had a good old-fashioned fight song back in the day. Lately, I haven’t heard no fight song, just that drum beat with the cheerleaders jumping in the air. Also, memo to the Gilroy High School band: Don’t play music when the offense is running. Only on defense. You make too much noise when the offense is running. It distracts the players. So keep that in mind.
GREEN PHONE: Dear MAKING THE BAND, GP tracked down Joey Fortino, the director of the GHS band, and he told us that the Mustang Band is still throwing punches.
“We do have a fight song,” Fortino said. “It’s to the trio section (ending part) of an old Dixieland tune called, ‘Washington and Lee Swing.’ ”
As for distracting players, Fortino said that was never the intention.
“There is no hard and fast rule,” he said. “When we’re on offense, I try and keep our playing to a minimum because I don’t want to affect our team. But there are moments when we want to get the crowd pumped up and we want to give the fans a push after a big play.”
Fortino also said that as far as he knows, the GHS band has been playing “since at least the 1930s.” He then mentioned that some members of those bands are still living in Gilroy. Stay tuned, pun slightly intended, as The Dispatch will have an article on the history of the GHS band in coming weeks.
