Cardinal Rule

Successful high school football teams usually rely on the legs of a star running back, the arm of a stellar quarterback or the sure hands of a speedy wide receiver.

That is not the case at Santa Paula, where 38 players have bought into first-year Coach Eddie Gomez’s “Team Cardinal” concept and flourished.

That makes the Cardinals (6-0-1) about as rare as the 109-year-old school they represent.

Through seven games, no Santa Paula running back has rushed for 500 yards, no quarterback has thrown for 1,000 yards and no player has scored more than 10 touchdowns.

There are no high-profile transfers living outside Santa Paula who play for the Cardinals. No one has quit because of lack of playing time.

The players, most of whom have known each other since elementary school, aren’t interested in how many touchdowns they score or worried about impressing college scouts.

Their goal is much simpler.

“We’re all concentrating on the same thing and that’s winning a league title,” said Mark Rabago, a senior wide receiver and free safety.

A victory Friday night against rival Nordhoff would all but assure Santa Paula of its first Frontier League title since 1990.

“Every time I go in the gym, I look at that banner that says [league champions in] 1990 and I wonder why there’s not any more next to it,” Rabago said. “That’s our goal. We want to put one there ourselves.”

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Gomez, 32, does not take credit for “Team Cardinal.”

That concept and phrase came directly from his mentor, Mike Tsoutsouvas, Gomez’s coach when he was a 5-foot-9, 165-pound center at Santa Paula in 1985.

Cardinal assistants Eddie Hernandez, Chris Gomez and James Craig also played for Tsoutsouvas and have helped Gomez revive the ageless ideology with stellar results.

“He used to have little sayings all the time: ‘Achievement through preparation. Mentally strong, physically fit, never quit,’ ” Gomez said.

“He would hammer us with those catch phrases.”

Now it’s Gomez and his staff doing the hammering. And the Cardinals are eating it up.

“Everything coach has been telling us, ‘Work as a team, win as a team,’ I believe it,” said Xavier Ramirez, the team’s leading rusher with 477 yards.

So far, it’s been an easy sell for Gomez, who has guided Santa Paula to its best start in 34 years.

And he couldn’t have scripted a better first act to the Cinderella story.

The Cardinals trailed in each of their first three games. But Gomez continued to recite snappy catch phrases about the virtue of winning as a team. His players responded.

Against Kilpatrick in the opener, Santa Paula trailed by 12 points before rallying to win, 29-18.

A week later, the Cardinals were down, 9-0, to Lompoc Cabrillo before scoring 32 unanswered points in a 32-9 victory.

In the third game, Carpinteria took a 28-20 lead with less than two minutes left, capitalizing on a Jacob Macias fumble inside the Cardinals’ five-yard line.

But with Gomez’s words ringing in his ear, Ramirez returned the ensuing kickoff to Carpinteria’s 20. Moments later, Matt Martinez connected with John Wadkowski on fade route for a touchdown and subsequent two-point conversion pass to tie the score, 28-28.

“I make a point to point out to these guys that when you take away one guy’s contribution, we don’t succeed,” Gomez said.

Unlike many other football teams, a player’s individual contributions are not symbolized with stickers on helmets.

Gomez, an assistant coach at Santa Paula last year, terminated that awards show.

“We all want to look alike,” Gomez said. “We all want just one reward and that’s the ‘W’ at the end of the game.

“It kind of hurt me a few times last year when we would lose a game and guys were concerned if they were going to get a star for a play or not.”

Wadkowski would have a helmet full of stars.

Wadkowski, a 6-3, 205-pound linebacker and tight end blessed with massive hands, returned fumbles for touchdowns in three consecutive games this season.

But he only smiles at the mention of those plays, opting instead to credit his teammates who made the returns possible.

“Jacob Macias is always there stripping the ball and I’ve just been there to pick it up,” Wadkowski said. “It’s pretty much just working as a team.”

At Santa Paula, that’s the way football is played.

“As a kid, a lot of times you thought it was pretty corny stuff, but you went along with it,” Gomez said. “But as you grow up, you realized there was some sense to some of that stuff.”