Golden League Teams Take Two Different Approaches

Littlerock spent the dough, but poor Highland rode the bus to and fro.

The Golden League high schools took different approaches to season-opening football games Friday night in the Las Vegas area.

Littlerock, which played Valley High, spent the night in a downtown hotel after sightseeing Thursday night.

Highland, which played Silverado, took a no-frills approach, chartering two buses that departed from school at 10 a.m. Friday. The Bulldogs were scheduled to ride back immediately after the game, arriving at the school around 5 this morning.

While Highland, with 66 players, saved a substantial amount of money by not staying overnight, Littlerock’s booster club kicked in $4,000 to pay for its team’s trip.

No telling how much was blown in the casinos.

“I’m already down $40,” Littlerock Coach Jim Bauer said Friday by telephone. “And that was in about 10 minutes.”

Highland, which is spending about $1,500 for transportation, will be gone for 19 hours--including 10 on buses.

Perhaps searching for a silver lining, Coach Lin Parker says he hopes the long trip will be a bonding experience.

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Back to Basics: When he was hired a few months ago, Fillmore High football Coach Norm Andersen pledged to rebuild the Flashes’ bedraggled program from the ground up--even if it called for a simplistic approach.

“I’m going to give the team something they can succeed at,” said Andersen, a longtime assistant at UCLA and Iowa State before coming to Fillmore. “Even if we only know two plays by the first game, we’re going to run the heck out of those two plays; do them perfect. That’s my goal.”

Fillmore opens Friday night against Nordhoff, and from the sounds of thing, the Flashes will run. . . .

Well, let’s just say Andersen wasn’t kidding.

“We’ve spent more time on fundamentals than this play or that play,” Andersen said. “Lining up correctly, tackling, catching the ball, they’ve done them all enthusiastically. Hopefully [next week] we’ll get some team work in.”