Canyon Spurns Offer to Face San Fernando

After reading complaints from Golden League football coaches about the lack of willing nonleague opponents, San Fernando High Coach Tom Hernandez reported the following: The Tigers have three open dates on next year’s schedule.

Hernandez would gladly pencil in Canyon, which has won six league titles since 1982 and all but one its past 35 league games. In a recent Times’ story, Canyon Coach Harry Welch called the Southern Section league the “strongest in California” and complained that “people don’t want to play us.”

Hernandez, whose team competes in the City Section, is not one of those people.

“In a given year, they could probably beat us, but you’ll never know until we play,” he said. “We’d love to play them. We’ll play them anywhere. We’ll play them at College of the Canyons or Valencia Park or anywhere.

“They probably don’t want to come down here. They’d probably be intimidated.”

Hernandez laughed heartily after that last barb, indicating that his challenge was good-natured.

Welch took the challenge in that spirit but made it clear that there will be no Canyon-San Fernando game any time soon.

“Am I looking to play the five toughest teams in Southern California, absolutely not,” he said of his nonleague schedule. “Geez, I want more relief, not more misery. I’m not looking to add tough teams. I’ve already got them.”

Canyon’s preleague schedule includes such traditionally strong teams as Hart, Thousand Oaks and Mission Viejo. The Cowboys also will travel to Bakersfield and play Notre Dame, the second-ranked team in the Southern Section Division VII preseason poll.

Welch has reservations about playing a team from the City Section, which doesn’t field sophomore and freshman teams.

“It creates scheduling problems for us,” he said. “The freshmen have to have a bye, and their JV team has some juniors and seniors on it. When I mentioned that to the parents of our sophomore players, they got concerned.”

But the bottom line for Welch is the Tiger varsity--the team and coach are too good, he said, adding that he coached Hernandez at Valley College when Welch was an assistant and Hernandez was an offensive lineman.

“I appreciate his offer for a game, but I’m looking for some weak junior high team to play, not a San Fernando juggernaut,” Welch said.