By TOM HICKEY
The year 2004 was a special one for the Valley Center football team. But, from the beginning, this year’s offense didn’t earn anyone’s respect.
Last season was supposed to be the golden season for the Jaguars, due mostly to the arm of Kevin Craft and the athleticism of his receiver, A.J. Reilly. They were the stars of the team.
Now, jump to the beginning of this season. Our quarterback Dustin Aschbrenner was an undersized junior that nobody had heard of before, with a group of unseasoned receivers and a new running back in the backfield.
The critics thought this team wouldn’t make it out of the Valley League with a winning record, much less to the Div. III championship.
In the end, the Jaguars found out that they didn’t need a superstar to win the Championship. They only had to look at one another and rely on the fact that the guy next to them was going to do his job.
This year’s team was made up of players who played as a team.
For example, in the second game at Serra High School, Shawn Dunham took a hit that knocked him out of the game. The hit knocked him out of the starting running back position opening for the rest of the season. This opened the door for Tyler Harding to run for a school record 365 yards against Serra.
As for Dunham, he healed and found himself as a starting outside linebacker on the defense. Whatever the team needed, he was happy to do.
Harding went on to rack up 1447 yards in 212 carries this season.
The closest person to a superstar was left tackle Doug Crawshaw. At six foot four inches and 280 pounds, he is a mountain of a player who is getting looks from a number of Div. I NCAA teams including Washington, Utah, UTEP and UNLV.
Like the rest of the team, he realized that without his teammates on the line, his size and abilities alone were not enough to win games.
The offensive line of right tackle Alex Marek, right guard Temet McMichael, center Dayne Harding, and left guard Crawshaw worked in unison to open the holes for Harding and to protect Dustin Aschbrenner.
Left tackle Daniel Holtz, who has a 4.3 grade point average and is the ASB President, summed up his experience for this season:
“I believe the lack of superstars made our team play better. We enjoyed having everyone go out there and get playing time. With an individual or a couple of individuals stars, it would have separated the team,” said Holtz. “Without those individual we enjoyed playing as a unified team.”
Asked if the team was confident going into Qualcomm for the Championship, Holtz replied, “It was interesting because it was a whole different aspect of the game going into the Stadium. We stepped out in the huge stadium with so many fans, especially with Brawley having what seemed like twice as many fans as we did. We weren’t ready for being booed as we came onto the field. No, we were not confident, not at all.”
Holtz, who has only played football for two years, hopes to be accepted into Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Engineering program next year.
Starting as the Jaguars’ quarterback with no previous varsity experience, Aschbrenner credits the play of his receivers for his success.
“Kevin Schwerdtfeger, Mario (Mendez), Paul (Gilster) and Trevor (Reilly) played great this season and will be coming back next season,” said Aschbrenner. “Dayne Harding, my center, will also be coming back.”
Aschbrenner plans on playing basketball for the Jaguars and will be hitting the weight room with the Breakfast Club in the off-season.
“I would like to increase my arm strength and get a little bigger before next season. I will also work on getting the ball in the air a little quicker,” said Aschbrenner.
Special teams were also critical to the Jaguars’ success, with kicker Hector Carrillo and punter Greg True doing their jobs very well.
At 5-5, Carrillo was the most unlikely football hero on the Jaguars squad. But, in the end, he became the hero when he kicked the winning field goal with 1:49 left in the fourth quarter.
At the beginning of the season, he got the starting kicking job because no one else could kick PAT (points after touchdown). He ended the year as the Jaguars’ second leading scorer with 81 points.
He was surprised when he returned to school by the reception that he received.
“When I came back to school everybody was saying ‘Yea Hector, great job!’ and stuff like that. They were all cheering,” said Carrillo. “It felt so good to help the team and community win.”
After high school, Carrillo hopes to go to college at Humboldt State or CSU San Marcos.
True started on defense as cornerback, caught 23 balls for 386 yards as a receiver, and did all of the punting for the Jaguars. He also returned kickoffs for the team.
The critics may have spent this season calling the Valley Center Jaguars underdogs.
After beating Brawley at Qualcomm, we can call them the Div. III Champions.
By DAVID ROSS
As a cynical, hardboiled newspaper editor who spends his life questioning the motives of others, stomping on feet of clay and looking for flies on every birthday cake, it was a bit of a transformation for me to become one of Santa’s helpers.
For me, it was a proof of Francis P. Church’s famous editorial in 1897 in which he declared, “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.”
The New York Sun editorial, which became celebrated worldwide, was reprinted every year until 1949, when the paper went to that great printing press in the sky.
Church had been written this letter by a little girl:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
Church wrote,
in part:
“Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. . . .”
He added, “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.”
He ended with “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
Church’s reply has been made fun of over the years as being overly sentimental and mawkish, yet in our new skeptical age, where you can’t even say “Merry Christmas!” without being accused of ignoring the sensibilities of the easily offended (you’ll notice that we don’t fall into that trap. If you don’t like reading “Merry Christmas,” just wait a while and maybe you’ll read something else you like instead, such as “Happy Easter!”
Well, sentimental it may be, but I’ll be darned if it’s not true. I know, because I saw the Jolly Old Elf out performing his rounds last week.
I saw him at a fund-raiser at the middle school, where the eyes of little children lit up like holiday candles as he was delivered to them by a Valley Center fire engine.
They ran forward and clasped his knees and demanded to be hugged. Later, they told him their heart’s desires. One little girl sang him a song.
I heard one little girl whisper. “Are you the real Santa?”
“As real as it gets!” he replied, and her eyes shone twice as bright.
I later saw him at a private party where he stopped for a few minutes to hand out presents.
I saw him again at a Kiwanis Club meeting where migrant education students often didn’t speak English, but still had no trouble communicating with St. Nick.
But what astounded me is how the adults’ eyes light up when they see the red suit, beard and hear the hearty “Ho, ho, ho!”
Sure, they are too old to totally surrender logic, but their hearts eventually overpower their brains, and, for a few magical moments, they believe.
So, yes, Virginia, Chuck, Tommy, Samantha and all the rest. There is a Santa Claus. I know, because I saw him last week in Valley Center. And you saw it in The Roadrunner, so it must be so!
Have a happy holiday, eh, excuse me: Merry Christmas!
“When we first built here in 2002, it wasn’t big and it wasn’t small. This is BIG!” commented Philip G. Satre, chairman of the board of Harrah’s Entertainment Monday, just before the ribbon was cut officially opening the new 22-story hotel at Harrah’s Rincon Casino and Resort.
The new resort and casino is as big as almost any Indian gaming palace on the West Coast, and is comparable to many such facilities in Reno, Las Vegas, and Laughlin.
Just two years after its first grand opening Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort celebrated its second as it opened the doors of its new $168 million expansion at a special ribbon-cutting ceremony in the new hotel lobby on December 20.
Taking part in the morning grand opening ceremonies were executives from Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc., members of the Rincon Band of San Luiseño Mission Indians’ Tribal Council, and local political and business dignitaries.
“We think it’s the best in California,” commented recently reelect tribal Chairman John Currier, as he related how the tribe’s business committee and Harrah’s had agreed last year on the need to build the expansion.
“In August of 2002 we celebrated the grand opening of what I now consider to be Phase I of the first and best Las Vegas-Style Casino Resort in San Diego,” said Currier. “Since the day we opened we have averaged a 96% occupancy rate or above in our original 201 room hotel casino so the Rincon Band decided to protect our long-term economic interest, by further investing in our growth and proceeding with the construction of our new $165 Million Hotel and Casino expansion.
“Today we not only celebrate the opening of a new hotel tower, spa, and restaurant –but even more importantly we celebrate new doors of opportunity for our Rincon people. . . . It’s not if you build it they will come, it’s if you build it WELL, they will come,” said Currier.
“With the addition of our 21-story hotel tower, The Spa at Harrah’s, the magnificent tropical pool garden, and the new restaurant Cabana Cove we feel that we have accomplished our goal of creating a world class resort that will provide guests with an ultimate getaway that offers them Las Vegas excitement, San Diego style,” said Janet Beronio, senior vice president and general manager of Harrah’s Rincon Casino and Resort.
Other speakers included Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. Western Division President Tom Jenkin, and the resort’s architect and designer, Paul Steelman, president of the Paul Steelman Design Group.
The ceremony opened with the playing of a video showing the construction of the expansion and all of its amenities. The speeches followed and then Currier, Beronio, Satre, Jenkin, Steelman, and the entire Rincon Tribal Council joined in cutting the ceremonial ribbon while balloons dropped signifying the opening of the new 21-story hotel tower, 7,500 square foot spa, tropical pool garden, and the resort’s eighth restaurant, Cabana Cove.
Helping to inaugurate this second grand opening was one of the last official acts of Satre, who is retiring at the end of year. However, since he was present when the Rincon tribe first agreed to partner with Harrah’s, he wanted to be in at the opening of the fifth phase.
Following the opening ceremony, invited guests were given guided tours of the hotel tower (including the opulent Presidential Suite), spa and pool garden before gathering at Cabana Cove for a private luncheon. Some of the guests in attendance included Karen Prescott from the office of U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa; Chantal Saipe, tribal liaison officer with the County of San Diego Land Use & Environment Group; Norm Davidson of the North County Fire Protection District; David Nydegger, executive director of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, members of the Del Mar Chamber of Commerce; members of the La Jolla Tribal Council of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians; and members of the San Pasqual Tribal Council of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians
By DAVID ROSS
Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men is a wonderful sentiment for the Christmas season.
But how about something a bit more modest? How about peace in a small part of the world, say, the Holy Land?
That’s the goal of three Valley Center residents, all members of the same church (St. Francis Episcopal Church), who have formed a web site called Peace Is Possible (www.peacemark.org), with the goal of doing their part to bring peace to the Middle East.
Hank Kraus, Su Kraus and Roger Ingraham have decided that the Christmas season, with its message of love and peace and tolerance, is the perfect time to “hold a coming out” for their new organization.
Since this is their hometown, they decided to unveil their organization and its mission in the local paper.
Peace is Possible began with Hank Kraus, who describes himself as a “Republican and a businessman,” and certainly not an activist of any sort.
“We are trying to find a way to promote peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he told The Roadrunner.
“Insofar as this is Christmas, we are talking about an element of peace on earth, which is always a difficult proposition. Yet it is a proposition worth pursuing and maybe for a considerable moment that particular conflict seems necessary of some understanding, by not just the media, but the people,” says Kraus.
The goals of Peace is Possible are these:
1) To provide a way for people to acknowledge the need for peace. (Which explains the bumper sticker which you see reproduced here on the page).
2) To educate. To talk about the issues and communicate the fact that there are two sides.
The Krauses and Ingraham think that the media is too one-sided in its reporting of the Palestinian and Israeli sides.
Hank Kraus had his eyes opened, he says, in 1996 when he first traveled to Israel and then Palestine on a business trip.
“When I was there I learned a different truth about the conflict,” he said.
“We tend in this country to receive a message that is very pro-Israel. There are two sides but we hear about the bad things from only one of the sides.”
In 1996 when Hank, who sells medical equipment, arrived in Tel Aviv, he took a side trip to check up on a medical device in Nazareth, the birthplace of Jesus.
He met a man named Naser who had grown up in Palestine, but was educated in the U.S. where he obtained a doctorate from Duke University.
Naser had just returned to his homeland two weeks before. Hank spent a day with him and gained new insights into the area from a duel American-Palestinian perspective.
During that day he drank perhaps 20 cups of coffee from 20 different people.
He told Naser he was planning to travel to the West Bank, the home of the Palestinians.
“He told me that ‘When you go to Jerusalem you will be told that you can’t go to the eastern part because you will be killed. Your throat will be slit. They will tell you that it is unsafe, and that it is dirty and filthy.”
When Hank arrived in Jerusalem and prepared to visit the eastern part of the city, “I’ll be darned if I didn’t get on that bus and that’s what they said.”
Another man who challenged Kraus’s preconceived notions was Father Elias Chacour of the Melkite Catholic Church.
Father Elias operates a school in which Moslem, Druze, Jewish and Christian students study together in peace. He has written a book called Blood Brothers.
This memoir chronicles his early years as a 12-year -old Arab Christian in Galilee at the time of the founding of the State of Israel. It also tells of the destruction of his village and his education and ordination as a priest. He was later sent to the Arab village of Ibillin in 1965, where he founded his school.
Father Elias, said Kraus, “ is a loving man recognized by Jews, Moslems and Christians alike.”
This whole experience disquieted Kraus.
“Between Father Elias and my experience in Nazareth I became uncomfortable, but did not feel the need to proactively participate in the peace process. It was not until the events of 9/11 that things changed. Suddenly it became clear that the problems in Israel/Palestine had arrived on our shores and it was time to act.”
Do Hank, Su and Roger believe that they will achieve peace by distributing bumper stickers that say “Peace is Possible!”?
Of course not. But they do hope to get more people committed to the idea of working for peace.
“The concept [of the bumper sticker] was to create a universal symbol of peace that could be adopted by all of the people who are interested in peace in the region,” said Hank Kraus.
He and his wife, Su, have discovered at last 60 organizations dedicated to peace in Palestine.
“Our role is to support the peace groups,” he says.
They have filed for a 501 (c) non-profit tax-exempt status. But they are not about raising money (except to pay for more bumper stickers).
On their advisory board is the Rt. Rev. Samir Kifiti, retired Anglican bishop of the Jerusalem Diocese, which includes the Middle East. He has been very helpful to the fledgling group.
They hope to be invited to speak at churches and in front of service clubs, etc.
Although they don’t take sides, the fact that they don’t take sides will probably make them somewhat controversial.
According to Ingraham, “Generally, people in the U.S. envision the Palestinians as Moslems and terrorists. We are not interested in being involved in the politics of that. We are trying to promote any group that promotes peace.”
“Our intention,” said Hank Kraus, “is to get people to say, ‘I think peace is important in the region.’ I can think of no more important priority than to have peace in the region, and that will require honest objective understanding of the issues.”
Their bumper stickers are available at the following businesses: Country Junction, Animal Medical Clinic, Terry’s Hay & Grain, and The Roadrunner.
Or you can called Hank and Su at 751-2134 and Roger at 855-0523.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
Copyright © 2002, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.