Family, and the brotherhood the undefeated Strathmore High School football team share, is a big reason behind the team playing in the school’s, and Tulare County’s, first-ever CIF State Football Championship Bowl — Division 6-A game at 6 p.m. today. The Spartans (14-0) host St. Patrick-St. Vincent (12-3) from Vallejo at Spartan Stadium.
But family, and a sense of duty to his own, is also the reason why starting center Jose Magana almost wasn’t a part of the team’s historical run.
Only a few weeks into the Spartans’ season, Magana quit the team to help his parents out with bills.
“Coming from a working-class family,” Magana said, “I wanted to contribute and help my parents, pay their bills and stuff. I know it wasn’t easy for me. I remember crying after I quit because football means so much to me. It was a hard decision and I just had to quit to help out my family with my bills.”
Magana felt he had no other choice but to quit. The senior took up work as a butcher for three weeks but after his parents saw how unhappy their son was, they sat him down and assured him that it was OK to return to football.
In a town, where using the term “blue collar” to describe the community and the team is more a sign of respect and admiration than a slight, the love and support from the families of Strathmore football players is overwhelming and the sacrifices they make are understated.
Defensive end Andres Lara’s dream is to one day play in the NFL. So it was important to his mother, Anabel Morales, that he and his brother Jose Lara, attend Strathmore High and have a better opportunity to get playing time.
For the last three years, Morales has woken up at 5 a.m., gotten ready and made sure that her boys had breakfast before taking them to their 7 a.m. practice in Strathmore. She would then head to work in Porterville at the packing house at 7:30 a.m. and wouldn’t get off until 8 or 9:30 p.m.
“It was kind of tough for me,” said Morales reflecting back on how hard it was to make time for everything. “Really, really tough but thank God I did it.”
After a time, Morales had trouble finding people to help pick up her sons, so she switched her hours to 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. so that she could support her children and their dreams
Morales, has yet to miss a single one of her sons’ games.
“I miss no games,” said Morales, smiling proudly. “No games. I’m in the stands at the top, I like to see everything.”
Fatherly advice
Larry Raya, father of nose guard Luke Raya, has never missed a game either. An orange farmer in Strathmore, he’s also at almost every practice, talking to the boys and offering advice. Even Luke’s 91-year-old grandmother was watching practice from the car on Wednesday afternoon.
Luke, was born in America but soon after his birth, his mother took him to Mexico. When he was 12, Luke decided to return to America and be with his father. But first, his father told him to live with his aunt and uncle near Turlock to prepare for the culture shock.
Just shy of being a teenager, Luke came to America without knowing any English. Using Rosetta Stone at the middle school, he learned English and flourished.
With 52 tackles, the second highest on the team, Luke admits that things weren’t always going so well and he nearly quit. That’s where his dad came in.
“Last summer he wanted to quit football and I said he can’t,” said Larry. “Well he goes ‘why can’t I quit?’ And I said ‘well…’”
Larry chokes up before finishing his sentence, briefly before he speaks again, voice still wavering.
“Because you’ll regret it. I quit football when I was a senior, and I regret it. The team I was on went undefeated and I could have been on it and I wasn’t. I don’t what you to do the same thing,” Larry recalls saying to his son.
Instead of letting Luke quit and farm oranges with him, Larry invested even more time into Luke and his football team. He taught his son technique and even came onto the sidelines during games to have a word with him when he thought Luke could be doing better.
Working in the fields
Larry and Luke are the embodiment of the family bonds and blue-collar work ethic that Strathmore prides themselves on.
“It’s hard working, kind of like an unparalleled work ethic that these kids have,” said Leo Flores describing what blue-collar meant to him. “And it’s because a lot of their kids, a lot of the parents here in this community, they’re farm workers. Eighty percent of the town of Strathmore is out working in the fields.”
Leo is the older brother of corner Erik Flores, and a former Spartans football player. He said to help his family out, he and his brother would pick oranges on Saturday’s the morning after games.
“Me, my brother, [other players,] we’ve all done it,” said Leo. “We go to work the next day on Saturday, we’re all tired. We have bruises, we’re sore from the football game. And we’re out there working because sometimes for a family — sometimes they rely on [the money from what we pick].”
Leo said that the boys were even picking oranges up until last week when the games were moved to Saturdays. Asked about it at practice this week, Erik shrugs his shoulders and with a shy smile just says “Yeah.”
To the boys, it’s no big deal because it’s something that they must do to support their families. The back-breaking work of carrying a 75-pound bag full of oranges and a ladder from 6 a.m. to noon, the day after a bruising game of football is just life.
The Flores brother’s do it to help their mother out. She works everyday, except Sunday, picking oranges and is rarely able to make her son’s games due to the tiring work. That’s why Leo makes sure to never miss a game.
“I’ve been to every single game that he’s played in,” said Leo, “I’m always there. Since my mom is always working, she doesn’t really have time to go to the games or stay up late at night and then go to work in the morning.”
Family bonds
Family is an important part of Strathmore football. Many of the boys have played together since they were 7 and 8 years old and their parents provide dinners for the boys every Thursday.
“We have a huge network,” said head coach Jeromy Blackwell. “It starts with, every Thursday we do these team dinners. We have all these parents in there and they’re serving kids. It’s like a first-class banquet every single Thursday. After the game, you see this whole network of parents and they pull out these Igloos and they have all these little sack lunches and their feeding these kids.”
Blackwell said that you can really tell that the parents care because they call him and the other coaches asking how they can help before Blackwell can even call and ask them for help.
From quitting to help pay bills to picking oranges in the field, both the families and the teams operate the same. Not the richest community or a team with a multitude of players, both families and team have a love and bond between them that allows everything to run smoothly and for success to happen.
“We’re not going to pretend that we’re victims of a situation that we’re in,” said Blackwell. “We’re going to start working to get out of a bad situation. This is not a bashing of wealth, they’re blue-collar families so we have to work for whatever we get. Our facilities are probably…that’s a Spartan facility right there in more ways than one. But it’s ours and we take a lot of pride in that field. They’re going to play hard on that field. In Strathmore, they’re not making excuses. They’re not victims, they’re finding ways out of situations.”
Originally published in The Porterville Recorder on Dec. 17, 2016.
Nayirah Dosu 