I trace my love of James Brown’s music back to a late Sunday
night when I was 10-years-old. I have no idea why my dad thought it
was a good idea for a young kid to go see the R-rated movie
”
White Men Can’t Jump
”
in theaters, but I immediately fell in love with three things
after watching the film: Trash talking with a sense of humor, Latin
women (Not bad, Rosie Perez) and the sounds of James Brown, who
provided the soundtrack to every scene of basketball. My dad even
bought the movie poster from the theater that night and it hangs on
my door to this day.
I realize this has nothing to do with a nickname contest held
this week for the Gilroy High football team, so let me get to the
point.
I trace my love of James Brown’s music back to a late Sunday night when I was 10-years-old. I have no idea why my dad thought it was a good idea for a young kid to go see the R-rated movie “White Men Can’t Jump” in theaters, but I immediately fell in love with three things after watching the film: Trash talking with a sense of humor, Latin women (Not bad, Rosie Perez) and the sounds of James Brown, who provided the soundtrack to every scene of basketball. My dad even bought the movie poster from the theater that night and it hangs on my door to this day.
I realize this has nothing to do with a nickname contest held this week for the Gilroy High football team, so let me get to the point. For the rest of the season, in addition to being called the Mustangs, the moniker that the currently undefeated and unbelievably entertaining group of 16-, 17- and 18-year-old athletes will go by is … The Blue Bosses.
In the words of James Brown, it’s now time to find out if these guys “paid the cost to be the boss.”
Coaches told me after last game, a 55-7 win over Pacific Grove, that the defense was playing so good it deserved a nickname.
I thought about it and said, no.
If you win and lose as a team, you get an additional nickname as a team. The last thing you want is a high school version of the Baltimore Ravens, where defenders are calling out an offense when it doesn’t come to play, or vice versa.
We opened up the voting online to you readers, and Blue Bosses was the overwhelming favorite in the fill-in-the-blank option. My submissions – The Blues Brothers, Garlic City Guards and Mustangs of War – had varying degrees of support. You’ll see the exact percentages on the bottom of page B1. (To those of you who supported Mustangs of War, I understand it was leading the vote, but we have two real wars going on right now. I’m not a big fan of war analogies for sports, and I did say from the start my vote would be weighted. If anything, I should have come up with a different choice in the beginning.)
Alisal comes to Gilroy (6-0) tonight for a 7:30 p.m. contest, and it’s not expected to be the test the Blue Bosses have been waiting for. That will come next week, when they face the Palma Chieftains at Salinas Sports Complex on Halloween. That game very well could decide the Tri-County Athletic League champ since this evening the Chieftains take on North Salinas, which, along with Palma and Gilroy, is the only other undefeated team in league. Both will try to stand in the way of Gilroy repeating as TCAL champs, something GHS has never done.
What tonight’s matchup between the Trojans and Gilroy will show, though, is if the focus is still there. The Bosses have been treating opponents with the disdain one has for an intern falling asleep on the first day of work. Coaches have been equally abrasive, barking at players even in blowouts to keep the intensity high. All of this has made practices exponentially more important.
If the Mustangs don’t jump on Alisal from the start, similar to how they have in the past three weeks in wins that combined for a 159-9 point differential, who’s to say Gilroy has a legitimate chance of winning a section title, let alone a state bowl game? By the way, Alisal is 3-4 and lost to Salinas last week, a team Gilroy beat 45-2.
The past few opponents have been cupcakes and the two-part main course, or meat of the schedule, is only a week away. The Mustangs have North Salinas the Friday following Palma.
Gilroy’s starters are likely to get more time than the 30 minutes of action they’ve been seeing the last three games to make sure they’re ready to go four quarters.
“I would like to not have to play them all four (quarters),” Gilroy coach Rich Hammond said in practice this week, “(but) this would be a game that we’d like to play them at least three.”
Unlike a certain sportswriter, Hammond wasn’t willing to say the game will get out of hand quickly.
“Regardless of what happens, we’re going into the game preparing to play four,” he said.
Rightly so.
Hammond then added, “If you let them hang with you, they’ll go 10 rounds.”
Well, like a prizefighter sporting spiffy trunks, Gilroy has a new nickname that should be evident by its uniform and style of play. If they’re going to be called the Blue Bosses, it would seem only right that they shouldn’t let Alisal hang around more than the first round- er, quarter.
A knockout needs to be delivered.
