A Night at a Pop Warner Practice and a Radical Decision About Thursday Football Mania

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

We enjoyed a grand meeting today with our longtime financial adviser, Gary DeBuiser, who also was a crafty first baseman on the league championship freshman baseball team that I coached at Thousand Oaks High School H.S. back in 1972.

In a nutshell, we are staving off moving to the poorhouse and their renowned gruel for at least another year!

YAHOO!

With these glad tidings in tow, I gleefully headed to the evening's Pop Warner football practice for Jacob and his Camarillo Stingers Blue mates.

Pre-practice, Jacob working on his

long snapping skills

Jacob, on the far right, at DE

battling with his OT friend, Joey

 

Jacob now in a WR vs. DB

Stalk Blocking Drill

A WR here, I think that his hands are much too wide.

Jacob now employing a double hand

swipe technique  . . .

 

. . . which efficiently got him

past this blocker . . .

. . . and a good finish to the drill

making a tackle

Another rep, this time

working a high . . .

. . . too low technique . . .

. . . combined with another

solid finishing tackle

Playing DE in a somewhat strange

scrimmage situation

This scrimmage went on for about half an hour consisting of 11 Offensive players vs. just two Defensive Ends and a Free Safety. 

The outmanned three Defensive players never subbed out as the Offense somehow surprisingly ran and passed at will.

Jacob got a ton of opportunities to improve both his techniques and conditioning during this period to be sure.

Jacob beating the OT and making

a play on this ball carrier

Beating the OT by using

his speed and quickness . . .

. . . turning the corner trying to

pressure the QB

Unfortunately, the quick passing game is hard to pressure.

But it doesn't mean you can't

try to get to the QB on the next rep!

Jacob had a solid practice tonight. I am ever so proud of his efforts and mental toughness on a nightly basis.

First game for the Camarillo Stingers Senior Blue team is this coming Saturday night at Camarillo H.S. against the North Valley Bears. Kickoff is slated for 6:00 p.m.

College football notes . . .

Interesting Top Five that

includes all of the usual suspects

The Washington Huskies enter the 2025 season ranked #25 on this list with 781 all-time wins.

Of the West Coast teams on this list, the Huskies only trail USC whose 882 all-time victories ranks them #12 on the list.

The upcoming Labor Day weekend hosts a slew of interesting college football games.

These are just the televised college

games on view tomorrow

I will miss most of these games as I have opted to head into Los Angeles to watch a couple of high school games on Thursday.

With Monday being the Labor Day holiday, the Los Angeles Unified School District has decided not go hold school on Friday either to now make it a four day weekend.

Thus all of the C.I.F.-Los Angeles City Section schools are playing their football games on Thursday this week.

This opened up a myriad of games for me to watch. Thanks to some unusual starting times, a doubleheader is on tap for me on Thursday.

My first game of a twi-night doubleheader

Grant H.S. Lancers (0-1)

at

Los Angeles Romans (0-0)

Kickoff at 4:00 p.m.

The Reason Behind My Choice:

Los Angeles H.S. is the oldest public high school in Southern California having been founded in 1873. As a result, I just want to see what this venerable campus looks like.

By the way, Loyola H.S., a private Catholic high school, is the oldest high school in SoCal having first opened its doors in 1865.

The nightcap

Lawndale H.S. Cardinals (1-0)

at

Roosevelt H.S. Roughriders (0-1)

Kickoff at 4:00 p.m.

The Reason Behind My Choice:

As a child growing up, we first lived in East Los Angeles in a home where the ground floor housed my Father's medical practice. The local public high school was indeed, Theodore Roosevelt H.S. and their vaunted Rough Riders athletic teams.

Even when my Father moved to suburban San Marino, he would take me on house calls and hospital visits that often took us by Roosevelt H.S., which I quietly dreamed of attending one day.

It was not meant to be but on Thursday, after 78 years, I'll finally at least attend my first ever Roosevelt football game.

It should make for an interesting day of Thursday Night Lights!

Wish me luck.

Football Odds and Ends

Mon. & Tues., August 25-26, 2025

A quiet pair of days overall, so I surfed the net in search of football updates.

Huskies Game Day Indeed!

Michael hard at work

With the Camarillo Stingers' Senior Blue eleven's season opener scheduled for this coming Saturday vs. the potent North Valley Bears to be played at Camarillo H.S. with a 6:00 p.m. Kickoff, it was time for the application of the helmet decals.

This is a skill which Michael both excels and takes great pride in doing.

He would have to repeat this process 25 times before Saturday night. His goal was to finish doing the task in two practices. During Tuesday's practice, the first of the week, he finished over half of them. He should easily accomplish his goal Wednesday night.

Let's take a closeup look at his work on Jacob's helmet . . .

A really hard to apply scorpion

Stinger on the left side

Jersey number on the back

Camarillo Cougars homage

on the right side of the helmet

The Camarillo Stingers Pop Warner organization was founded in 2005 with their colors being brown and gold.

Camarillo already had a successful Pop Warner organization, the Camarillo Roadrunners, founded in the 1960s.

The demand for a second organization began when, in the early 2000s, the Roadrunners opted to join a new conference with significantly higher weight limits. This was a cause for concern for many parents, thus the Cougars program which operated in a different conference with lower weight limits.

In took a long time but eventually the Roadrunners organization folded in 2020 leaving the city of Camarillo solely to the Cougars.

In 2022, the Cougars leadership opted on a major change. In order to more closely align as a feeder program for the Camarillo H.S. Scorpions, the Cougars were changing their brand to the Stingers with the same colors as the high school, blue and silver.

One of the NFL's all-time greatest

pass catching duos

They are the two fabulous Los Angeles Rams Ends, please do not call them Wide Receivers, #40 Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch and #99 Tom Fears.

This is the first time that I've seen Fears wearing #99. I always saw him in photos and trading cards wearing first #55 and later #55 when the NFL started their position jersey number policies.

Hirsch played football in college for both Michigan and Wisconsin. He was my favorite Ram during my youth after interacting with him at a kids Summer Camp held at San Marino H.S., played for the Rams for nine seasons from 1949 to 1957. His best season came in 1951 when he caught 66 passes for 1,495 yards and 17 TDs. All three of those numbers led the league as the Rams won the 1951 NFL Championship.

Fears played his collegiate ball at Santa Clara and UCLA. He would also play for the Rams for nine campaigns from 1948 to 1956. His best season in Los Angeles came in 1950 when he led the NFL with 84 receptions and 1,116 yards.

The reason that both of these great athletes attended two universities had nothing to do with NIL or the Transfer Portal. Between their respective transfers, their respective college careers were interrupted by their patriotic World War II military commitments.

Hirsch and Fears are both members of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

While searching the net to decide which game to attend on Thursday, I decided on the Grant H.S. Lancers at Los Angeles H.S. Romans game starting at 4:00 p.m., I stumbled upon a disturbing tidbit.

I am a big believer in sports history and things like the rumors that the Notre Dame-USC rivalry that started in 1926 and has been played 95 times. There have only been three breaks in this continuous intense rivalry, it took World War II from 1943-1945 to stop it for three seasons. Notre Dame leads the series 50-37-5 with three games not counted in this total due to victories by USC in 2005 and Notre Dame in 2012 and 2013 having to be later vacated due to NCAA rules infractions.

My net surfing led me to consider a simple word.

TRADITION: The passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation, especially by oral communication.

I'm a big believer in tradition, and my game search led me to perusing the schedule of Simi Valley H.S. with a disturbing discovery.

There are two public high schools

in Simi Valley, California

Simi Valley H.S. Pioneers

Founded in 1920

Royal H.S. Highlanders

Founded in 1968

The Simi Valley-Royal Varsity football teams met for the first time in the Fall of 1969 and muddled their way to a 0-0 tie.

Then, as always, the stands, regardless of won-loss records, were packed for this battle for Simi Valley Pride and Bragging Rights.

I attended this game once while announcing the game for the Ventura County Star's streaming service, I was warned that because of the crowd size, I needed to arrive at the game at least two hours before the Kickoff if I wanted to find a parking spot anywhere near Royal's stadium. I did, and they were right, it was an early arriving overflow crowd. Royal won that one by the way.

Since then 1969, the Pioneers and Highlanders have played every season a total of 56 consecutive years.

Royal leads the overall series 31-23-2.

Royal's longest winning streak in the series is seven games from 2004 to 2010.

Simi Valley's best streak against Royal stands at six games and counting from 2019 to 2024.

Great, but why do I bringing all of this history up, you ask?

Because, in 2025, Royal and Simi Valley have opted to cease their rivalry and will not play each other on the gridiron for the first time since that long ago 0-0 tie.

For the Seniors on both squads and all of the fans and alumni of both schools, what a bitter pill.

So much for TRADITION.

The First Weekend of College Football 2025

Sat. & Sun., August 23 & 24, 2025

At last, college football, albeit in only a small and somewhat offbeat fashion, was back today.

My feeling exactly

ALL of the FBS was still undefeated

when we woke up on Saturday

By Saturday night, not so much.

Washington (6-7 in 2024) will not

start the season until next weekend

when they take on the Colorado State

Rams (8-5 in 2024) in Seattle

Note which team stopped the record

setting Miami Hurricanes Home Game

Winning Streak at 58 games in 1994

We almost went to this practice

Because of a predicted temperature of 96°F/35.5°C in Pasadena at that time we wisely made the decision to stay home and watch the limited amount of games on TV instead.

We do plan on being at the Rose Bowl

for the UW-UCLA game on Nov. 22nd

Michael and Jacob joined us at our home for a day of binge watching college football.

 

Watching the Fresno State at Kansas

game in the afternoon

The Jayhawks (1-0), about to score on this play, had their way with the Bulldogs (0-1), 31-7.

Before this game, we watched Iowa State (1-0) take the measure of Kansas State (0-1) in a rainy Big XII game played in Dublin, Ireland, 24-21.

Our evening game saw Stanford (0-1) lose on the road to Hawaii (1-0), 23-20.

We didn't watch it but the Rams

finished their pre-season at 2-1

Given the Rams' long standing policy of rarely playing any of their starters in these pre-season games, I once again did not watch a down of their three recent contests.

Up next for the Rams (11-8 in 2024) is the 2025 NFL season opener at home on Sunday, September 7th against the Houston Texans (11-8 in 2024).

The EFL's last hurrah?

The European League of Football's playoffs started today amid rumors of the league's imminent demise swirling all over the internet.

Regardless, the ELF's graphics department continues to shine.

This was the ELF's Wild Card Weekend, with the top two seeds, #1 Vienna Vikings (11-1) and #2 Munich Ravens (11-1), getting byes.

#6 seeded Madrid Bravos (8-4)

at #3 seeded Stuttgart Surge (10-2)

Nice statistical pre-game breakdown

The seeding stayed true in this

rout of a playoff game

 

Next Sunday, one IFL Semi-Final game

the #3 seeded Stuttgart Surge (11-2)

at the #2 seeded Munich Ravens (11-1)

#5 seeded Rhein Fire (8-4)

at #4 seeded Nordic Storm (10-2)

Another great ELF pre-game graphic

This was a close one

Next Saturday's ELF Semi-Final,

the #4 seeded Nordic Storm (11-2)

at the #1 seeded Vienna Vikings (11-1)

Only three more games in ELF history?

As of this writing, no score has been

posted anywhere on-line about today's

U16 game for our old Swiss club,

the Thun Tigers

If you happen to be in

Brussels, Belgium next Sunday

Team Norway will play against Team Belgium, the much feared and aptly named Barbarians, it should be a classic.

Finally . . .

A Celebration of Life

I attended this wonderful ceremony for one of Ventura County's best football referees on a warm Sunday evening.

The large crowd that gathered in Simi Valley to say farewell to Scott was a tribute to the many lives that he touched ever so positively in his much too short life.

Friday Night Lights Doubleheader

Friday, August 22, 2025

We start today's post with a blast from the past . . .

Wimpy was easily the character that

I identified with most as a child watching

Popeye the Sailor cartoons

Friday for the next four months will be a night to rejoice in watching high school football games.

Thus, Michael, Jacob and I attended not one but two games at two different venues.

First up . . .

Moorpark H.S. Musketeers Frosh

at

Newbury Park H.S. Panthers Frosh

Kickoff at 3:00 p.m.

This was a good old rock'em-sock'em

game between two physical teams

While yards were easy to come by for both teams, points were not.

Musketeer RB exploding

through a big hole

Surrounded . . .

. . . a pursing Panthers defense

 

NPHS QB rolls left . . .

. . . and throws a dime!

HALFTIME SCORE

Newbury Park - 7

Moorpark - 6

Another explosive play for Moorpark

Uh-oh, things are getting

INTERSETING!

Moorpark's running game was STOUT!

Another Panthers pass . . .

. . . another nifty completion

Somebody in black . . .

. . . PLEASE tackle #5!

The Panthers were clinging to a

14-6 lead late in the game with

Moorpark knocking at the door

An RB following big #74 on the Goal

Line seems like good coaching to me

The Panthers had the RB . . .

. . . and then they didn't

With this TD,  Musketeers were now just a two point PAT from a tie score with about two minutes left in the game.

Rather than go back to their highly successful ground game, the Musketeers used a roll out pass which was intercepted in the end zone to preserve the narrow NPHS lead.

After taking a bunch of time off the clock by running the ball, the Panthers had to punt the ball away to the Moorpark eleven.

It made for a hectic final 25 seconds but the Panthers' Defense came through in the end.

FINAL SCORE

Newbury Park (1-0) - 14

Moorpark (0-1) - 12

After this titanic Frosh game, I hustled down to the Camarillo Community Center to watch Jacob's Camarillo Stingers' Senior Blue team walk-through practice scheduled to run from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

As soon as the practice was over we all hustled over for another game, this time a Varsity level season opening contest.

Santa Barbara H.S. Dons

6-4-1 in 2024

at

Camarillo H.S Scorpions

2-9-0 in 2024

Kickoff at 7:00 p.m.

In 2024, the Dons won the season's opener at home vs. the Scorpions, 42-17.

These two schools have been playing off and on since 1962. The Dons have dominated the 15 game series by a tally of 11-3-1.

It was a BEAUTIFUL night for

American football!

The Scorpions had a hard time

with Santa Barbara's power runs

Santa Barbara used their big

RB as a devilish battering ram

Camarillo's relentless pursuit and

gang tackling kept them in the game

This was a must as the Camarillo Offense was struggling the the first 24 minutes of the game.

 

HALFTIME SCORE

Santa Barbara - 21

Camarillo - 0

Camarillo came alive after the

halftime intermission!

Unfortunately, it was a case of too little, too late.

FINAL SCORE

Santa Barbara (1-0) - 21

Camarillo (0-1) - 14

A wild but fun day of football to be sure.

News from the net . . .

Absolutely AGREE!

This is such a noble

reincarnation idea

Not an N.D. fan at all but

I like the old logo better

Especially the tacos!

And at least one fluffy

Cuban-American that I know of too

If I'm ever in El Paso, Texas,

this dining spot's sign looks to

me as just being grimy enough to

have FANTASTIC Mexican food!

Lots of college football on TV tomorrow, can't wait.