SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Eight years ago, Joe Cappelletti and his teammates essentially served as JSerra football’s sacrificial lamb.
In 2006, dizzying administrative and bureaucratic rigmarole thrust JSerra, just a 3-year-old institution at the time, into the brand-new Trinity League, an elite league of Christian schools that featured athletic powerhouses.
Some sports at JSerra were ready to at least be competitive at that level, but the football program was not on that list.
What came next had to be done.
In the interest of competitiveness, safety and morale, the school decided to forfeit the Lions’ first league season in football. Before they played their first nonleague game, they were already 0-5.
It hit Cappelletti, who watched all three of his brothers compete for Santa Margarita, especially hard. He was one of the best players on the team and wanted to prove it against the best competition. He was also, as a senior, getting ready to be a part of JSerra’s first graduating class.
“I was pretty upset,” Cappelletti said of the preseason decision to forfeit the entire Trinity League schedule. “I felt, watching my brothers play and be competitive and going through what they went through – I wanted to stick it out.”
What he didn’t realize then was, without that sacrifice of the first league season, there might not be a football program at JSerra, where, after a 9-1 season this year, the Lions are about to embark on their first playoff run in school history.
“At that point, if we don’t forfeit those games, there’s real talk of us getting rid of football,” said Eric Stroupe, the head of administration and faculty at JSerra, who has been at the school since its opening in 2003. “If we have to play that schedule, the families and the kids are going to bail, and once (that happens) … the reality of continuing on down the road is not very likely.”
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The 2006 football season was a reality check for many of JSerra’s early supporters, whom Stroupe said showed “hubris” thinking the school would be immediately formidable in athletics, but it was only the beginning of JSerra’s odyssey to football relevance.
The ignition of what is currently JSerra football began in the spring of 2007 with the hiring of Coach Jim Hartigan, who had similarly led a fledgling Santa Margarita program to success before moving north to Fresno to coach Clovis West. Having that experience was paramount.
“Jim didn’t come in with rose-colored glasses,” Stroupe said. “He wasn’t making statements of hubris, because he knows what it takes to make a winning team.”
What Hartigan experienced at first was startling. He had issues recruiting a coaching staff, simple football verbiage was unknown by players and the players were not in great shape. Clovis West was also reaching out in the spring to see if Hartigan would be interested in returning.
“I remember my first day of practice, telling a guy to run an out route and he says, ‘What’s an out route?’ It was that basic.” Hartigan said. “The varsity team when I got here was maybe seven guys. There was not a Trinity League-caliber player. The first time I took the field, I said, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’”
In the weight room, Hartigan said their best bench press was 125 pounds. Two offensive linemen had serious diabetes issues and another player had Crohn’s disease.
The physical hurdles were obvious, but what might have hampered the Lions more was the mental aspect of actually suiting up against Trinity League competition.
JSerra got out of 2007’s nonleague schedule with one win (it recieved another, from Village Christian of Sun Valley, via forfeit) against Estancia. The Lions’ first Trinity League game on the schedule was Mater Dei.
Before the game, Hartigan heard a knock on his office door. It was a concerned parent.
“A parent walked in and said, ‘Coach, I just want to let you know – the boys are scared. My son is scared,’” Hartigan said.
The coach’s response was sympathetic but direct.
“Your son doesn’t have to play tonight. He doesn’t even have to get on the bus, but I’m telling you – we’re getting on the bus,” Hartigan recalled telling the parent. “We were breaking the barrier of finally saying, ‘We’re doing this. This is not an option anymore. We’re going to play, no matter how bad it is. We’re going to show up.’”
The concern from the parent was valid. Mater Dei pounded the Lions, 56-0. The rest of the Trinity League did the same, outscoring JSerra, 279-28, in five games.
But the most important aspect at that point wasn’t winning, it was about showing up and building, and the brutality of those early Trinity League seasons (the Lions didn’t win their first league game until 2009 and won two games last season for the first time) is not lost on the people who experienced it.
The first year of forfeits was essential, but so was picking up the pieces from that point on.
“For those of us who have been here, you think about those kids who stuck through it the first couple of years, who knew they were going to get hammered and still made a good-faith effort,” Stroupe said. “If they don’t stick with it, we don’t have a program. … It was like David versus Goliath, without David even having a slingshot.”
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The early years at JSerra rightfully stung Hartigan, who still prowls the sideline with intensity, but they also made this season that much sweeter.
The standout moment was defeating Mater Dei, the same feared program that caused such concern in 2007, for the first time in school history.
“If you ask these kids in 30 years what their best memory was from high school – unless we win the Pac 5 championship – they’re probably going to tell you it’s the Mater Dei game,” Hartigan said. “Just like when we beat Mater Dei for the first time (when I was) at Santa Margarita. It’s just like – we’ve arrived.”
Cappelletti, from the 2006 team that had to forfeit its first Trinity League season, agrees.
For the first time, he’s become a fan. He’s attended every Trinity League game this season, but still remembers the early days, practicing on the fields of whatever local elementary school would have them.
“It’s crazy how far it has come,” Cappelletti said. “This is the first year that I’ve come to every game and been into it – watching the games, getting to know the players who our guys are. It’s fun to see them get on a roll. I’m in.”
Contact the writer: jbalan@ocregister.com
