Chaminade Sneaks Away for Game on Artificial Surface

Football players from Chaminade High are taking sneakers to their nonleague game Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Not because they’ll be in a city notorious for night life. Coach Rich Montanio won’t allow his players to prowl the strip in any kind of footwear.

The cleatless shoes are necessary because the game will be played on the artificial surface of UNLV’s Silver Bowl.

“They’ve heard the horror stories about injuries on artificial surface,” Montanio said. “But they want to play on the stuff. It will give them a different experience, one they’ll remember forever.”

Chaminade (2-3-1), which has a bye in its Santa Fe League schedule, is saying goodby to the Valley for the weekend and will face Tonapah, Nev., in a stadium that seats 32,000.

“Chaminade athletic teams traditionally take trips,” Coach Rich Montanio said. “Our basketball team has been to Las Vegas, San Francisco and Hawaii.”

There is a big difference, though, between a dozen basketball players packing shorts and sleeveless shirts, on the one hand, and a troupe of 83 (including players, coaches, cheerleaders and trainers) hefting helmets and shoulder pads. And extra shoes.

“We’re taking two vans full of equipment,” Montanio said. “And many parents are driving along.”

The team will arrive Friday night in Las Vegas and stay at a hotel on the strip. “We’re staying right across from Circus, Circus,” Montanio said. “You know what a great buffet they have.”

Tonapah is a public school of 400 students in a mining town of the same name about 200 miles north of Las Vegas. A drive won’t bother this team; Tonapah (6-1) traveled 320 miles to Needles last week.

Chaminade is matched against Tonapah because the Nevada team also has a bye. About $4,000 for the trip was raised through a giant garage sale and concession proceeds from a basketball tournament at Chaminade last December.

Montanio said that although everyone on the team will get to play, the approach of the coaching staff is no different than for any other game. “The first message we gave the kids this week was that we are going there for a win, not for recreation,” he said.

The players won’t be getting out of any class time, either: They return Sunday.