By Chace Bryson
The sun still rose over Winton Drive in Concord on Saturday morning.
That was the sentiment shared in an emergency recording of SportStars Magazine’s 7 Friday Night high school football podcast in the wake of Mountain View’s St. Francis football team pulling off its seismic 31-28 victory over De La Salle-Concord on Friday night — ending a 318-game unbeaten streak against NorCal opponents.
Hosts Chace Bryson and Ben Enos welcome an old friend and colleague, Damin Esper, who has spent the past three seasons as the primary color analyst on the De La Salle TV internet broadcasts. Esper shares his take on the game and what the atmosphere was like at Ron Calcagno Stadium.
The three guys also share thoughts on the West Catholic Athletic League finally getting its upset, how the NorCal pecking order shakes out in the aftermath, and what’s next for the North State’s most famous program.
Props are given to the St. Francis offensive line’s performance — among many impressive efforts for the Lancers on Friday. There’s also some fun factoids thrown out about De La Salle’s long history of dominance.
Also: Pssssssst, not all the streaks are over, either. The Spartans will put a 253-game North Coast Section unbeaten streak on the line when it faces California-San Ramon on Oct. 15. The Grizzlies will be the first of four East Bay Athletic League opponents to round out the regular season. Those four teams are currently a combined 8-2.
7 Friday Night posts every Wednesday or Thursday over the length of the high school football season. It features analysis and interviews of teams and players from across Northern California. The weekly episodes also feature retired legendary De La Salle coach Terry Eidson as a recurring guest.
Various listening platforms include Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Pocket Casts and Radio Public.
Find more completely free local sports content at SportStarsMag.com.
10 comments
I always got 1st place in cross country. The only time I got attention was when I lost. I was expected to win.
Lol! I always finished about 3/4 of the way back. I was no good in competition, but I loved to run! Still do, or still would if my knees didn’t retire. I’m probably better built for football, and was expected to follow my older brothers, but looking at the coaches, limping around with their blown out knees, their fused vertebrae, their alcoholism, no thank you!
In the real world, you loose or you win. Coaches need to teach these boys that you’re not always going to be first so they can grow up to be real men.
Overrated team. It’s only football. Nice to be able to handpick your students. And an emergency podcast. You’d think there was a national disaster.
Why would a podcast named sportsstars magazine report on a national disaster? This is huge news for anyone that follows NorCal sports. Also, if I’m not mistaken De La Salle doesn’t really produce NFL players. I think there’s only been a dozen or so players that went on to have an NFL career. They don’t pick for raw talent or size but for what fits their program.
With that said, it would still be nice to see a public school beat them instead of another private school.
I agree! Hand picked team, never been fair. Money builds the team.
@Pyrrhus,
It wont be easy for a public school to beat them. Public schools typically have boundary rules whereas DLS pulls from a much larger, hand-picked area. Their winning streaks are due to having the scale tipped heavily in their unequal, unfair favor.
That has to be stressful for the players. A friend’s cousin who payed baseball for De La Salle seemed to be very stressed out at all times because of the thought that he could cause them to lose.
It is just a game, in a few years no one will remember the loss. KT said it best.
If anyone has ever followed high school Football at the State Level, they know full well that the teams that more often than not appear in the CIF State Finals are PRIVATE schools like DLS, St. John Bosco, Mater Dei, Cathedral Catholic, St. Francis, etc.
It comes down to the ability to recruit.
Public schools dont enjoy that benefit due to their boundary rules.
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