1994 Ponderosa Bruins High School Football Team

I've decided to compile information here from my Sr year of Football. Our team was good, we just under-performed in a few games to not make the playoffs. We lost a couple of games we should not have and we finished 4-6. The highlight of the year was our win over our Rival, Eldorado High School, 40-0.

As I do this, people may think I'm obsessed with my "high school days" and maybe I am in some ways, but I can't deny myself that they were fun times and I learned many valuable lessons in this great game of football. I now teach the game to other high school kids and I love learning of it and the many ways it can be used for good. The one thing I'll always remember is how confident it made me feel about myself. My story with my introduction to this game is not unique.

I played as a 10 or 11 year old, but didn't have a clue what I was doing. My dad loved watching football, but I was always more into basketball, but I sucked at that sport too (as I did at pretty much everything I tried). I tried out for the 7th and 8th grade flag teams, but was cut. Then one day in May of 1991, the head coach at Ponderosa called my house and invited me to come out for the freshman team. He said if I showed up every day that I would not be cut. I felt so honored to have THE head coach of the varsity team calling me to ask if I was going to come out to football. As if he had seen some un-seen potential in myself. Little did I know that he was a first-year coach and was calling EVERY incoming male 9th grader to encourage more numbers out. Even so, without me knowing, it made me feel special.

I played sparingly as a freshman, not having a clue what I was doing, but it built my confidence and lead me to a starting position as a Sophomore, most of my Jr year and all of my Sr year. I learned all 5 offensive line positions and I grew to really love the game, my team mates, and my coaches. It was a fun time, despite our team losing games we shouldn't have. I hope there are others I played with that look upon it at least somewhat the way I did.

I was fortunate enough to have been able to save all but one of the newspaper articles from that season.

1994 Game Summaries

Click on any link below to see the photocopied articles from every game this season. This will include pictures from the original newspaper articles. In order to read the article, you will need to click on the picture and it will "zoom" in.


Ponderosa Bruins 14 Oakmont Vikings 7 (@ Ponderosa)
I remember being really excited for this game. As freshman we were destroyed by this team and it continued as we were Sophomores too. Our Jr year we beat them, but this was the year we were to do it with our class in control. As the article says, Drew Shelstad's interception really sealed this game. We actually could have goose-egged them, but their one TD was scored earlier-on because on an identical play to the one Drew intercepted on, Drew stepped up to pick off the pass and slipped and fell, which left the WR wide open and gone for a TD. Other than that our defense played great and our offense did enough to win.

Ponderosa Bruins 13 McClatchy Lions 33 (@ McClatchy)
This one was ugly (as the score indicates). I remember us being able to run all over them, but we fumbled a ton in this game. As an offensive lineman, there is nothing more frustrating than having a RB fumble while you're blocking your guts out. There is also nothing more frustrating when a RB doesn't read your block too. However, I'm sure there is nothing more frustrating for a RB when nobody blocks for you :) (it goes both ways). I remember this team having ridiculous speed with a HUGE fullback and a super-quick tailback (he was an all-city type of player). It was a horrible feeling, but I think it made us focus for the next game...


Ponderosa Bruins 32 Tokay Tigers 13 (@ Tokay)
Tokay was supposed to be this big bad beast. They had a HUGE OL and a QB (Lenzi) who was big too and being recruited by a few colleges to play football. I remember our defense playing lights-out and our offense playing a solid game. I was most excited because in the 4th quarter my best friend Roman got to play running back a lot. I kept telling him to just follow me. He had two carries for 22 yards. Whenever we talk about our playing days, he says "I averaged 11 yards a carry one game" as a joke. We get some good laughs.

Ponderosa Bruins 21 Folsom Bulldogs 13 (@ Folsom)
This was another "statement" game for us. Folsom was pretty good and as a school, we had history with them. As a class, we had never played them, but they were new to our league and we knew they were a tough team. They had a great little league program, so these kids had played football a lot longer than we had.

Ponderosa Bruins 7 Placer Hillman 27 (@ Ponderosa)
Another horrible game. It was our homecoming game, which is the game we are supposed to come out and dominate. This team was another HUGE team (big OL, big RB's with speed, quick/tough QB). We got destroyed by them as freshmen and sophomores AND as Jr's. I hated playing them. I remember knowing their JR class went un-defeated as a JV team the prior year and they featured a 6'2" 235 lbs tailback (not a fullback). Dude was fast, but wasn't much trouble for us for some reason. Still, the most frustrating part of this game was the play of our offense as a whole. I remember our running game was not doing very well and the RB's were having a hard time reading our blocks. I remember the coach tearing into the OL after the game, ranting about how horrible we played, but then come Monday he apologized to all of us and said we actually blocked quite well and he laid into our RB's. I felt bad for them because I feel, as a whole, it's a team game. I think as a team were getting a big head at this time because we were 3-1 and had beaten a couple of teams we, as a class, had had a hard time beating in the past years and we figured Placer would be easy too.

Ponderosa Bruins 40 Eldorado Cougars 0 (@ Ponderosa)
Also a second and third article HERE and HERE What can you say about a major shut-out over your rival team? Eldorado was a long-standing rival to us and I remember we were really jealous as Freshmen because they had a little league feeder program, so most of their kids were well-versed in playing football. We got beat by them as Freshman, but we beat them as Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors. It was a great feeling of just flat-out dominating this team. I remember Zach Hatch going crazy against them, rushing something like 10 times for 110 yards and also catching for around 70 or 80 yards. I also think I set a team record for most positions played in a game. I played all 5 offensive line positions in this game. It was a blast.

Ponderosa Bruins 21 Mesa Verde Mustangs 49 (@ Mesa Verde) Ugly, Ugly, Ugly. I thought for sure we were going to beat these guys. I remember playing them somewhat close as a JV team, and our Jr year we beat them pretty good, but they absolutely stomped us our Sr year. It would pretty much set the tone for the rest of the year. They had a RB that flat-out dominated us and they had a HUGE fullback who's name I remember pretty well: Shawn Thornton. His name is burned into my memory because I remember our teams "shared" a locker room with the only thing separating us was a chain-linked fence. After the game, this Thornton dude (who was 6'2" and 230 lbs of muscle) was mouthing off to us and then he turned around to walk away and dude had "THORNTON" tattooed all across his back in Olde English. I had NEVER seen a HS dude with a tattoo, let alone a HUGE one like that. I knew that dude was hard. Anyway, we were dominated and our coach really gave us a butt-chewing for this one.

Ponderosa Bruins vs. Oak Ridge Trojans (@ Oak Ridge)
This is the only game that I forgot to save the article on. I really wished I had it. I'm going to attempt to contact the Mountain Democrat and see if by chance they have archives, but I doubt it. I can't remember the score to this game, but we did lose by a few TD's. I remember this team having a HUGE line (one of which signed to play college FB at BYU) and too much speed for us to handle (typical). It sucked because Oak Ridge was also another Rival to us (our HS was situation between Eldorado and Oak Ridge, so they were both Rivals). Oak Ridge was pretty "revolutionary" at the time because they were the first of the "spread" type of offenses you see so commonly now days. They usually only had one RB and 3 WR's. We were so used to seeing power-type teams (I-formaiton, wing-t, double wing, etc.) that having to match up against a team with a spread mind-set was difficult. I think our score was something like 13-28

Ponderosa Bruins 23 Valley Vikings 27 (@ Ponderosa) Valley was a team on the rise. They had a lot of athletes on the team (two of which went on to play in the NFL) but as you can see from the score and the article, we took them down to the very end and almost pulled it off. This is the only game from my Sr year that I actually have film of and I love seeing the first play of the game, where I pull and block their all-section DE Jerry De Loach. This dude went on to play at Cal and then in the NFL, starting for the Houston Texans. They also had a Jr Lineback named Jeremiah Pharms, who went on to star as a LB with the Washington Huskies, then get drafted to the NFL, only to never play a down due to murder charges. This dude was pretty good too. They had some great RB's and DB's too, all of which went on to play college FB.


Ponderosa Bruins 6 Del Oro Golden Eagles 33 (@ Ponderosa)
This was our last game of the season. Del Oro was a dominate program, always finishing with only one loss, maybe two sometimes. Their QB was a Sophomore, who went on to play at Stanford, then in the NFL for a few years. He was a great athlete. He wasn't the big player in this game though, it was their RB Anthony Floor, who ran all over us. Del Oro also operated out of a "spread" set, which was so hard for us to defend. Their defense was really good too. If it wasn't for our Kicker being so good, we would have been shut out. Anthony Floor also went on to play college FB at Oregon State I believe. He wasn't the biggest guy, but he was stronger than an ox and so fast.

It sucked losing our final game at home and ending our season so lousily, but it still felt good for me on a personal level. There were so many times I questioned why I put in so much work, figuring in the end that I would not get anything out of it like a college scholarship. However, I learned so much more about commitment, about team work, about working hard and not worrying about the lime light (that's an offensive lineman's perspective), and about respecting authority. Quite a few of the guys on our team did not like our head coach. I learned to really love and respect him. I can only hope as a coach that I represent my mentors the way I was taught.

Here is the list for the All Sierra Foothill League team. These were the kids from the 3 high schools in our county only, so it did not show all the other kids from the other high schools out of our county.


All Sierra Foothill League

Here is an article by our school newspaper that talks about how our season is going. Notice the underlined section that mentions my brother Russ as a RB on the JV team and a game he had against Placer. Russ is by far the best athlete in our family, but he didn't care much for football. He was a dang good RB and LB though.

Paw Print

Here is the team picture of our Jr year as Varsity players: Junior Year

Here is the team picture from our JV year: JV Year

Here is the team picture from our Freshman year: Freshman Year

Here is my Sr, Jr, Sophomore, and Freshman pictures (respectively):

Sr

JR


Soph (JV)

Frosh

Here are a couple of "action" shots from my JV and Varsity years. I was a lineman, so the "action" shots aren't that cool.

JV


Varsity

Lastly, here is a picture of my two best friends and I from our Sr year

Roman, Tyler, & Brian