De La Salle Quickly Loses Luster

De La Salle High, widely considered the No. 1 football team in the nation five of the last six years and previous owner of an unprecedented 151-game winning streak, enters its fifth game of this season as a huge underdog.

With consecutive losses and a tie to open the season, De La Salle is, by its standards, little more than a footnote in the national rankings. The Spartans (1-2-1) command respect based on tradition, but the No. 17-ranked team in the state hardly seems a factor against tonight’s opponent, Mission Viejo (4-0), which is ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 2 in the nation, according to Cal-Hi Sports and Student Sports Magazine.

With the Spartans having only three returning starters, this year’s struggles weren’t a surprise to insiders.

“We knew two years ago that it was going to shake down like that,” said Terry Eidson, athletic director and defensive coordinator who has been with Coach Bob Ladouceur the last 21 seasons. “We knew it was going to be a tough gig, and we were going to have to play very good ball at a very early age. We knew this could happen.

“We could have taken the easy route, taken lesser games and been 4-0.”

Instead, the coaching staff had its biggest challenge. An opener at three-time Class 3-A champion Bellevue (Wash.) became a 39-20 loss that ended the winning streak. Then came a 30-12 loss and a 7-7 tie to regional Division I powers Fresno Clovis West and Salinas Palma, respectively. De La Salle had 14 turnovers in three games.

Finally a breakthrough came two weeks ago with a 49-0 thumping of San Jose Mitty. With last week off, Ladouceur and his staff had two weeks to prepare for Mission Viejo.

“Very few of these kids knew what it took to be a starter in our program and play against the best competition in the country,” said Ladouceur, who has amassed a 288-16-2 record and has more undefeated seasons (17) than losses.

“I don’t think we match up well with [Mission Viejo], but I’m going to get a good idea of what I’m looking for: heart, desire, grittiness and discipline. If we show those things, Mission Viejo is going to have a tough time with us.”

Next comes the challenge of qualifying for the North Coast Section playoffs, which requires the Spartans to win four of their next six games to finish at .500 to earn an at-large berth. De La Salle, since a 1998 equity complaint by Bay Valley League member Brentwood Liberty, only annually schedules league opponents who want to play; the others rotate in every other year.

But with De La Salle’s cloak of invincibility torn away, teams such as Pittsburg (4-0), the Bay Area’s top-ranked squad and No. 10 in the state, are eager for the opportunity to play.

Pittsburg, which plays De La Salle each year, is coached by Victor Galli, who played on Ladouceur’s first undefeated championship team in 1982 and was a junior varsity coach at De La Salle three years ago.

“We’ve always had athletes that could compete with them,” Galli said of Pittsburg, the last team to beat De La Salle in a section final (1991), “but the mystique of the streak -- you’re trying to talk the kids into believing they could win. Now, my kids have a totally different attitude. They know [De La Salle] can be beat. The mystique is gone. Not only can we play with you, but we’re coming to get you.”

De La Salle’s players understand their position. They say they accept the challenge.

“I’m not knocking anybody’s work ethic because we all worked our butts off, but it took that loss to see we needed more intensity, we needed to step it up in practice and get more excited,” said Anthony Gutierrez, a senior quarterback and safety whose brother, Matt, quarterbacked the team before heading to Michigan. “A lot of kids were lolly-gagging. It took those losses for us to learn the lesson the hard way.

“Some people just don’t get it. They expect to put on the jersey and roll over the team in front of them, but that just doesn’t happen.”

This team’s legacy certainly will be different from that of its predecessors.

“A lot of people from out of town, out of state, will say we’re the team that lost, we’re the team that broke the streak, the team that ruined the De La Salle tradition, but ... that’s not true,” Gutierrez said. “Around here, people know you can’t always win.

“Our legacy will be the team that got through it. We don’t have the best record, but we still play good football. It will be the team that didn’t let the breaking of the streak get to us.”

And that’s all Ladouceur wants.

“I don’t care how talented a group is, when they live up to their potential and show improvement as the season goes on, it’s very rewarding,” Ladouceur said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re winning national championships or a few games, the season is a success.”