Behind the scenes with Patrick Walsh’s Serra Padres
It is the day before the biggest game of their lives, the Super Bowl of high school football, as their coach, Patrick Walsh, said. The previous night, the Serra Padres arrived in Southern California on a charter flight, courtesy of anonymous donors.
It is the middle of the afternoon on Friday at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano. The air is chilly. The sky is blue.
Three buses roll into a back parking lot at the school's athletic facility.
Walsh, his coaches, and his players de-board and make their way to a softball field in the far corner of the complex.
It is the final rehearsal before the Open Division state championship game against Mater Dei-Santa Ana, the No. 1 team in the country.
Walsh's parents, Madeline and Chick, are with the team. They watch the workout, proud of all that their son has achieved in his athletic life — De La Salle multisport star in the early 1990s, football and baseball player at San Jose State, fan-favorite baseball player for one season at the University of Texas, and now ending his 21st year as Serra's head football coach.
The players speak about their season, their love for one another, their excitement about being on the biggest stage of California high school football for the first time in the program's history.
In less than 30 hours, they will be on the field at Saddleback College in nearby Mission Viejo to face a vaunted opponent that even Serra concedes has no weaknesses.
The Padres aren't worried about their heavy underdog status.
“We're not going to back down to these guys,” said Drew Azzopardi, a 6-foot-6, 312-pound tackle bound for San Diego State.
Star running back Petelo Gi is nostalgic as he thinks about all that is happening around him and how much he is going to miss this team.
“It's going to be crazy,” Gi says while his teammates go through warmups. “It's our last time. Our last week. Our last stretch. Last walkthrough together. Last everything.”
The final workout of the season lasts a couple of hours. When it ends, the entire traveling party from San Mateo makes a 10-minute walk from JSerra's athletic complex to the main campus across the street, crossing a bridge along the way.
The sun is starting to set, the air is getting crisper.
In Walsh's program, the chapel service is an integral part of pregame preparation.
This is no mass, at least not on Friday at JSerra.
The players walk into the room, grab chairs that are stacked along a wall and place them in rows for the team to sit.
Each player picks up a piece of white paper at the door before sitting down. On the sheets are the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's 1971 classic, “When the Levee Breaks.”
Walsh walks in, grabs a portable device, and starts the song. The players sit in silence as the music blares through the room.
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
When the levee breaks, I'll have no place to stay
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan, Lord
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
It's got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home
Oh well, oh well, oh well When the music stops, the speaking begins.
One after another, a player spontaneously rises from his chair, walks to the front of the room, and addresses teammates and coaches.
The players speak about love, brotherhood, humility — the pillars of Walsh's program. They speak about their belief that anything is possible because of the bonds they've built and the work they've put in.
They tell each other to follow the game plan, listen to the coaches and play how they've been taught.
Nicholas Walsh, a Serra assistant coach and the younger brother of the head coach, tells the players that when he played for De La Salle, he and his teammates faced similarly steep odds in 1998 when they played Mater Dei at the home of the Anaheim Angels.
To that point, De La Salle hadn't faced one of Southern California's top teams, Nicholas Walsh tells them. That night, De La Salle built a two-touchdown lead and then needed another touchdown after Mater Dei tied the score. De La Salle won 28-21.
When Nicholas Walsh finishes, his older brother rises and stands before the group.
Earlier in the day, Patrick Walsh is asked if he'd been thinking about a pregame speech. “Whatever is in my heart at that time,” Walsh says. “I don't think I've ever been a really good pregame speech guy.”
The coach's address at the chapel service isn't technically a pregame speech. But Walsh commands the room with his words, his tone, his passion.
All eyes are on the 5-foot-6 man who is so fired up, his cheeks turn different shades of red.
“There is no place I'd rather be than right here, right now with this opportunity with this … team,” Walsh says, his voice rising with each word as he tells the team he isn't afraid of anything. “You guys put your (stuff) on tomorrow and you lock arms and you say, ‘We are the Padres.'”
Walsh later adds, “I'm going to be there for you guys tomorrow night, and I am going to be there for you for the rest of your lives.”
The chapel ends with the players and coaches forming a circle around the room.
They shake hands and hug.
The following evening, Serra could not match Mater Dei's talent. The Padres fell 21 points behind in the first quarter and trailed by 31 when they scored their only touchdown.
Mater Dei won 44-7. Walsh stood at midfield after the game and answered every question from reporters. He then jogged off the field, saluting the Serra fans in the stands above.
The locker room doors closed behind Walsh.
When the doors reopened, the players hugged. They shed tears. They said they were proud of all that they achieved.
“What we did here, we set a foundation,” senior quarterback Dominque Lampkin said. “We made history. No other Serra team ever played in the Open Division.”
Walsh, as always, spoke from the heart postgame.
“We came in here to fight, we came here to win,” the coach said. “And clearly we weren't good enough to do that. But our spirit is not broken.”