Not all recruits take the same path

Alex Waked's story is a good one. His mother and coach are going to tell it here.

Some background first: Waked, a football senior running back at Marina who rushed for 1,003 yards this past fall, the second-highest total in the Sunset League in 2011, signed a letter of intent Wednesday with Holy Cross; hardly a football factory, Marina went 1-8-1 overall and its league losing streak moved to 36 games, although the losses were not as one-sided as before.

Still, Waked got recruited.

"It's been hard for Alex, because he's very competitive," said Alex's mother, Diane Waked. "It's not easy to lose every game. He could have gone to Mater Dei or Servite if he wanted to, but Alex wanted to go to Marina and stay at Marina and help make things better at Marina.

"I can't tell you how many kids around here decided to go to Edison instead of Marina, and I can't tell you how many kids who did go to Edison sat the bench behind the starter the whole time. You can't get anywhere in recruiting if you don't have game tapes to show the colleges."

Marina coach George Pascoe took a group of his better players on a tour of Southern California's smaller colleges that have football programs, places like Chapman, Redlands and Occidental.

"I just wanted the kids to know there are a lot of football opportunities out there," said Pascoe, who played his college football at La Verne. "Everybody wants to be in USC or UCLA mode, but most kids can't do that. If kids want to keep playing football, there are other places where they can keep playing football."

There is peer pressure to go to a big football college. But the peer group in which that pressure is happening most – parents.

"Parents are so weird," Diane Waked said. "We're all overbearing and we all think our kids are the best. Parents cause so many problems for the kids, when it would be better if we just let coaches handle things."

So the Wakeds put their trust in Pascoe.

"Alex is going to a great college we'd never imagined he'd be able to go to," she said. "I believe the reason he got recruited was because of all of the hard work by George Pascoe and the other coaches at Marina. It's very clear to me that you don't have to go to a high school that has a great football program."

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

•La Habra football coach Frank Mazzotta said he will not apply for the football head coaching job at Orange Lutheran, which moved Jim Kunau out of the position late last month (Kunau has coached OLu football for 19 seasons). Mazzotta, who has coached La Habra to multiple league and CIF championships, has a great all-around situation at La Habra.

•Even without Mazzotta's interest, the Orange Lutheran job has attracted 50 applicants including that of longtime Orange Lutheran assistant Mike Crawford. It looks like Brent Vieselmeyer, former Orange Lutheran assistant coach now the head coach Valor Christian in Colorado and still quite popular at Lutheran, and Valor Christian athletic director Rod Sherman, another ex-Lutheran assistant, did not apply and neither has highly regarded Centennial of Corona coach Matt Logan.

•Servite's football team was supposed to play Grant of Sacramento in the Friars' 2012 season opener in what was going to be part of a three-game season-opening event at Crespi of Encino. The deal fell through, so now Servite is searching for an opponent for its '12 opening football game.

•That rather ambitious and sensible (to some, like me) proposal that would create separate playoff divisions for CIF-SS private and public schools? Well, it was not submitted to the CIF-SS office before last week's deadline for playoff groupings proposals. The concept has only been sent to south county principals for their future consideration.

•With the South Coast League occupying three of the four semifinal berths in this past football season's Pac-5 semifinals, the timing is not the best for a south county-led decree that the private schools are moving too far ahead of the public schools.

•For the Celebration of Life for Garden Grove football coach Joe Hay, on Feb. 12 at the Newport Beach American Legion Post 291, resort casual wear is recommended. And the event is supposed to stop at 7 p.m. – an arbitrary closing time if there ever was one.

•Plenty of tickets ($12-$22) remain for the Nike Extravaganza on Friday and Saturday at Mater Dei, where many top teams and players will be on display. Parking is free Friday, and is $5 on Saturday. Foxsportswest.com will provide live streaming of Nike Extravaganza games Saturday, beginning with the Fairfax of Los Angeles-Eisenhower of Rialto game at 1 p.m.

•Mater Dei junior guard Jordan Strawberry, on guarding Orange Lutheran's high-scoring senior guard Gabe York on Wednesday night: "He's a tough player, a hard assignment, and all you can do is your best on him." York scored 28 points, with Strawberry and Katin Reinhardt taking turns guarding him, three more than his average, on 9-for-20 shooting that included 3 for 11 on 3-pointers.

•Jordan is not the first Strawberry to guard a high-scoring opponent. In 2003, his cousin D.J. Strawberry of Mater Dei was on LeBron James of St. Vincent-St. Mary of Ohio in the Pangos Dream Classic at Pauley Pavilion. James scored 21 and his team beat Mater Dei, 64-58.

•Reinhardt scored 21 or more points in eight of Mater Dei's nine games in January. And if he is covering York, you know Reinhardt has become a fine defensive player and the guy makes some great passes all game long, too. Reinhardt clearly is the leader for county boys basketball player of the year.

•Boys basketball coach of the year? So many good ones, but early leaders include Eddie Courtemarche at Los Alamitos, Bret Fleming at Laguna Beach, Troy Roelen at Mission Viejo, Scott Wilbur at Savanna and John Wooldridge at Sunny Hills. The co-coaching of Jimmy Harris and Tim Walsh at Ocean View, which has played well while still enduring the passing of longtime coach Jim Harris (Jimmy's father), has been terrific, too.

•Jack Renkens of Recruiting Realities will give a free presentation at Newport Harbor's gym Monday at 7 p.m. Renken is an author and former college coach and athletic director. More about Renken and his program can be found at recruitingrealities.com.