Reseda’s Forgotten Player Waits Out Final Game

Reseda High quarterback Mike Lance took the snap, placed the ball on the kicking tee, and watched as George Konstantinopoulos booted another extra point for the Regents in their surprisingly easy 37-0 City Section 2-A championship victory over University.

And even though he played a little in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s game at Birmingham High, watching is something Lance has been forced to adjust to lately.

Since senior Donnie Grant returned to the Reseda starting lineup, Lance had been relegated to a backup role, despite compiling a 6-0 record in games he started for the Regents.

And now that Grant has returned, Lance just walks the sidelines and waits. Warms up. Waits. Holds on extra points. High-fives players. Waits. . . .

“I don’t even consider holding on extra points as playing,” Lance said. “Not after playing all those games at quarterback.”

His sentiments are understandable. In the games that Lance--also a senior--has started, the Regents have outscored opponents, 169-20.

When Lance filled out a football information card in the preseason, he listed his nickname as “The Phantom.” At the time, he never guessed that the nickname would prove to be prophetic.

The 6-0, 160-pound Lance has rarely been heard from in weeks.

But while the Reseda coaching staff may have forgotten about Lance’s contributions to the team, his teammates haven’t. Lance was elected team captain prior to the University game four weeks ago.

And neither have some of the Reseda fans. While Lance was walking the sidelines Thursday, assistant principal Dimitri Vadetsky remembered. Sort of.

“You got us here. Without you in there winning those five games, we would have never been here,” Vadetsky said.

“Six games,” Lance said. “Even when they remember, they forget.”

Lance finally entered the game with 8:21 left in the fourth quarter, and promptly engineered an 80-yard touchdown drive. The touchdown took a little of the sting out of his exile to the bench.

Not that Lance didn’t love almost every minute of the lopsided win, it’s just that being a bigger part of it was something he’d always dreamed of.

“I don’t mind going into the game behind Donnie,” Lance said. “But really I wish could have started tonight.”

Even though Lance hasn’t had much to do with the recent Regent success, in the overall Reseda equation, Lance definitely had to be factored in.

“It takes a whole bunch of individuals like Mike Lance to build a championship team,” Coach Joel Schaeffer said after the game. “He has accepted his role on the team and never said a word.”

But as the team converged in the center of the field to celebrate the win, reporters and writers circled players such as Donnie Grant, Ronald Wilkinson and David Wilson.

So while many of those who watched the Regents all year had forgotten the guy who helped take the team to the City final, at least Lance had the satisfaction of knowing that he got to play.

And the self-satisfaction of knowing that “The Phantom” was heard from, if not seen.