High School Football

You were certainly committed to a "winning culture" four years ago when you "brought in" Les Fifita and his national champion Buckeye team with deals that can only be described as sweetheart.  And Bick can expound in more detail than I can on what Servite did to the Los Alamitos program that summer.  Or maybe "winning culture" is just a relative term.

The transfer of several Los Al players to Servite in 2018 is a fair criticism, which is more than anyone at St. John Bosco or Mater Dei is willing to concede about their close to decade-long raiding of players from other schools and out-of-the-area regions. I won't deflect, as seems to be the habit with other schools' defenders. 

So, yes, the "winning culture" characterization is relative. Absolutely. As soon as we "bring in" public school 4-star transfers like Sean Dollars and Raleek Brown, and other #1 ranked position players like Miller Moss and Bryce Young, as well as a trove of IE all-stars year after year that, added up, has destroyed any semblance of competitive balance in the Trinity League and D1 football, then any criticism from Edinger Ave. might carry some weight. 

I recall hearing in January or February 2018, after Troy Thomas was re-hired, that some kids from Los Alamitos were transferring to Servite. And Servite had just lost its 4 best players (all D1 kids) to St. John Bosco and JSerra in the days after Scott Meyer departed as HC. That talented kids from Orange County, with the hiring of a coach with Troy Thomas's resume, would jump at the chance to re-ignite a historic program like Servite, which was in their area after all, shouldn't be surprising. Nobody twisted their arms to enroll at Servite .A couple of those new kids, like Zedekiah Centers and Noah Avinger, later were students of mine. All those Buckeye kids were from areas we would normally see at Servite and most never attended Los Al for a single day, being 8th graders at the time.  

That being said, we've lost a boatload of talented kids to other programs over the last decade--and it sucks. So for that, Griffin Nation can feel understandably bitter. That's fair. Los Al has seemed to rebound quite nicely and we were 1-9 last year, so perhaps there's a bit of Karma in that.

For all that that generational group achieved in 2021, Servite still went 1-5 against MD and Bosco that year and was outmanned at all but two positions on the field.  That we were competitive in almost all of those games might turn out to be fool's gold if it leads other programs to think they have a realistic chance to compete with those two.

What that experience confirmed for Servite, however, is that bringing in kids for football talent alone is not a 100% positive-only proposition. It carries its own baggage. Every school--public and private--needs to consider that. There's always going to be some measure of recruiting and effort to have a competitive team within one's league. To try to get to the level of MD and Bosco, however, would require a compromising of our mission as a Catholic school. We would become, as they have become, nothing more than a "brand name" that happens to be attached to a school, without any real connection to their Catholic mission, their history, or their geographic roots.

BTW, as you well know, Les and his coaches--and his other son--have now moved on to Mater Dei. They clearly found a better deal. Those being OC kids, I have no problem with that.

Look, I have no problem with getting outplayed, outcoached, or out-executed; or simply having a less talented squad at any time. Those are not permanent issues and can be fixed in-season or two or three years down the road. But when two schools have totally eliminated those factors by a ridiculous advantage in sheer size, speed, and talent--by admitting kids, who for reasons of distance and/or background simply have no business being at those schools--then what's the point? They are only preparing to play each other; all other games are merely glorified scrimmages to get some reps. They serve no competitive purpose.

The position of Mater Dei and Bosco seems to be that as long as they can point to any transfers or kids from outside OC that have at any time have gone to other schools, then they are absolved from addressing their decisions which have transformed them into entities that resemble nothing in the history of HSFB.

If not a single Buckeyes player had ever attended Servite, it wouldn't change that reality.

1. Scott Meyer didn't resign until January 19, 2018. Troy Thomas was hired January 30th. 

2. The 2nd semester, if I recall, starts in January. Thomas was hired after that, and, in fact was hired so late that Servite's 2018 schedule was never completely filled.

3. Again, from memory, I am pretty sure the Centers brothers and Fata (and possibly more) were already sitting in class at Servite for the spring semester, before Troy was hired.

If anyone recruited Los Al players, it wasn't Troy Thomas. I'm guessing the incoming frosh players that I mentioned, gave the Los Al players the encouragement to join them at Servite, though I am only guessing.

The main point of my last post was that the Los Al transfers, that Servite accepted,  although talented, weren't already established starters. If they had been, Mater Dei or Bosco would have snatched them up long before that could happen, and if they had...Fifita and TMac would have probably joined them there, instead of the other way around at Servite.

You don't think Troy and Les were talking before the hiring, and it was really just all one strange coincidence that every kid & coach that left Los Al for Servite was affiliated with the OC Buckeyes...and the OCB stopped using Los Al field and began using Servite's?

Sorry fellas. You're going to have a hard time convincing anyone not in black & white that you weren't trying to do the same as the 3 stripers and the spears.

Although it would be nice if a kicker decides to transfer in next season 😂

SK, we became a "destination program" in the summer of 2015 when J.T. Daniels enrolled at the school. I've written a lengthy disseration on exactly what happened that summer and you can go back and read it if you like. If we no longer rely on transfers, then why is the Professor still bitching about it?