The Streak

In sports, there are good streaks and bad streaks. To name a few good streaks: Tiger Woods' making the cut in 142 consecutive PGA tournaments; baseball legend Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak; the NFL's New England Patriots winning 18 in a row. Bad streaks: the 1899 Cleveland Spiders losing 40 of their last 41 baseball games; 80 consecutive losses in the '90s for Houston-area black college Prairie View (the Panthers had a good streak from 1953-1964, winning five black college national football titles); the Cincinnati Bengals' 15-year NFL playoff drought; all of Mike Tyson's fights dating back to 1997. (Tennis star Serena Williams' selection of form-fitting outfits falls into the streak-that-could-go-either-way rubric.)

Coming into last Friday's game against Durango High, the Clark High School football team was on a bad streak—losers of 27 straight games. Freshmen who'd joined the varsity squad as wide-eyed, optimistic newbies are now seniors who've never tasted victory. The losing has produced an attitudinal malaise in some corners of the campus on Pennwood and Arville. A magnet for titles in the early '90s—the men's basketball team was ranked in the top 25; the 1993 football squad won the state title—Clark has been championship kryptonite ever since.

But something happened on the way to being a trivia question.

Sure, the on-field futility tested the faith of supporters and challenged the team's resolve, but it also did something unexpected—teaching players that there's dignity in the humility that comes with losing, that losing only hurts for a time, that you only truly lose in sports and in life when you quit.

"With a couple of timely wins, the Chargers could find themselves playoff-bound. It's a stretch, but it's also the Southwest Division."

With a new coach plucked from defending state champion Palo Verde, 10 returning starters—five apiece on offense and defense—and a weak schedule, preseason prognosticators predicted Clark would break the slide this year and win its first game.

"It's going outstanding," coach Jason Klinger told the Sun of his team's preparation. "We've got a good group of seniors that have been there and just want to win, and we have a good group of juniors that have been through the same thing."

Starting the season 0-6 wasn't part of the plan.

Practices held the day before games are usually light—helmets and/or helmets and shoulder pads, no tackling. The offense, defense and special teams units run drills, plays and formations that'll be used in the upcoming game.

Last Thursday's practice doesn't begin in the super sharp way coaches like. Sophomore quarterback Brandon Weisenberger is underthrowing and overthrowing his receivers. There's a bit of a hitch in his delivery. When he drops back, the ball stays lower than shoulder height, which lengthens the time it takes to get into throwing motion—the same delivery used, albeit more effectively, by Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Byron Leftwich.

But Weisenberger's no Leftwich. The half-second he takes to cock back, aim and fire can be the difference between a touchdown or an interception, a completed pass or a sack. The sophomore is also struggling a bit with accuracy. One particularly flimsy pass prompts ribbing from a track coach: "Are we duck hunting or is this football, coach?" When Weisenberger does settle down, his receivers slack up, dropping catchable passes, adjusting poorly to balls, halfheartedly running routes.

As they fire from their stances, the offensive line looks rather ... small, about half the size of the college-caliber bulldozers (over six feet and 300 pounds) that perennial power Las Vegas High has fronted in recent years.

"We're just not very big or strong right now," Klinger says.

Defense's turn.

Coaches roam the field like drill sergeants, aligning players, giving pop quizzes (If the play is over here, where are you supposed to be?), barking orders. Clark's defense, a 4-3 alignment with four down linemen and three linebackers, isn't flying to the ball. No hustle, coaches chide, no glory.

"Get it in gear," one coach yells.

That there's as much coaching and learning going on six games into the season as there was when the season began is testament to Clark's youth; many of the team's 35 players are playing football for the first time. Not exactly a recipe for success.

"We have a whole lot of kids who are learning for the first time," says Klinger, who coached football for three years at Palo Verde under Darwin Rost. "We only have four kids who played football before high school, so we're teaching a lot of basics."

The kickoff and kickoff return units show some signs—good and bad. Good: decent reaction from the hands team to on-side kicks. Bad: a lack of blocking that elicits butt-chewing. Good: A strong-legged kicker who boots it deep after a bit of coaching (keep your head down and follow through). Bad: An errant kicker who can't get on-side kicks just right.

Klinger came into the year expecting huge turnaround, not so much in the win columns, but in attitude. So far so good, he says. Other areas have been more challenging. Clark struggles to field the traditional freshmen, junior varsity and varsity squads most high schools have—it has freshmen and varsity teams. Many kids who would come out for sports can't, Klinger says, because they have to work to support their families.

"Palo Verde kids don't have to have jobs," Klinger says. "Palo Verde has the best equipment. Here, we struggle to get footballs. Palo Verde has boosters. Fundraising at Clark is hard because kids don't have much time to go out and get money. Kids at Palo Verde can afford to go to skills camps—there, half the team goes. Here, we have about three or four kids that can afford to go. We need to get stronger, but we don't have a great weight room ... It really takes time to build a program."

The stratospheric growth of the school district has made it difficult for older schools and urban/inner city campuses to compete. Durango opened in 1993, siphoning half of Clark's student population and its athletic talent. (Athletic programs at Western and Rancho have been similarly affected as suburban schools mine their ranks). "Clark hasn't been the same since," Klinger says.

But it's not all doom and gloom in Charger land. Klinger is proud of his team's effort, proud they're taking pride in themselves, in their team, in their school.

"Who's house? Our house!!! Whose house? Our house!!!" the team chants at the end of practice.

When you lose as much as Clark has, little victories are cause for Olympian celebrations. Getting a new collegiate-quality field that looks as good as it performs has boosted morale.

"Before this, our field had more rocks and dirt than grass," Klinger says.

Football games are as much about the athletes as the atmosphere (where else will you have students, parents, faculty and boosters in one place?), as much about the on-field game as the off-field games (seeing and being seen, flirting).

Friday night, the parking lot at Collis Stadium, Clark's home field, is rapidly filling up. The band marches in with Army-like precision, causing shrieks usually reserved for the athletes. The bleachers are filling with Clark faithful. A few 1980 graduates, their letterman's jackets looking new as the day they got them, load up on baubles—Clark water bottles, Clark flags, Clark signs, Clark shirts and Clark programs.

"Maybe we can win a game tonight," a female among them quips.

Neither team seemed eager to win in the punt-filled, error-prone first quarter. The first few minutes of the second quarter amble along. To that point, the most exciting thing was the partisan announcer gloating over a Durango turnover. "It's a fumble," he screams. "Chargers recoverrrrrr." The band erupts in song. Charger faithful remain stoic. Seems people are more interested in the band—friends wave at friends; parents try to get the attention of instrument-playing children.

Around the six-minute mark, senior Chris Burns, Clark's star wide receiver, mishandles a punt, giving Durango possession at the Clark's 41-yard line. After breaking through the first line of defenders, Durango running back Louis Kimble gallops 41 yards for a touchdown, making it 7-0 with 5:37 to play in the first half.

Some Clark fans pack it in.

"There goes the game," one woman says.

"We were so close to winning," quips a student with a shirt touting Charger pride.

Later in the quarter, Durango returns the muffed-punt favor. Burns makes amends with a leaping catch near the goal line with 11 seconds before halftime, which leads to a touchdown with 11 seconds in the half. The extra point is missed.

Halftime score: Durango, 7, Clark 6.

Do the football gods have a heart?

"The Chargers' losing streak, now at 25 games, will end this year. So says the 8-ball. It's always right."

Chris Burns' 6-feet-2-inch, 180-pound frame has given opposing defensive backs fits. More quick than fast and more rangy than lanky, he can out-jump and outposition defenders. Last year, he torched Durango for 151 yards. This year, he's consistently rated among the top 10 or 15 pass catchers in the county. Burns is quick to tell you losing isn't in his, or Clark's, DNA. They've played with the best teams for half a game before folding. This year, they've taken teams deep in the fourth quarter before, ahem, choking. On more than one occasion, as if doomed to failure, he says Clark has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

"We beat Western in 2003," Burns says. This isn't true. "We had a touchdown catch that was in. The ref said it was out and that's what lost the game. As far as I'm concerned, we beat them. Earlier this year, we were down by five points and had the ball on the 10-yard line (ready to score) against Spring Valley and we fumbled and ended up losing the game."

Burns' outward nonchalance—he's got a smooth, almost Snoop Dogg-ish gait—belies intense competitiveness. The hardest part of losing for him is seeing people give up. Teammates quitting. Students complaining. Fans leaving. On multiple occasions, the 18-year-old wide receiver/defensive back has considered hanging up his cleats.

"I didn't see a point in quitting. If I quit one thing, then I'll quit other things in life," he says. "I hear all the comments from students about how we're not any good. But at least I'm on the team and we're out here trying. They (students) say they don't want to play for a sorry team, but if they're so good, why aren't they out here helping us? The losing has helped me to not let problems bother me. I have learned to leave things in the past."

When watching Da'Shawn Ashley run the ball, his legs tell the whole story. The 17-year-old senior running back keeps them constantly churning in the locomotive, defenders-be-damned-style that led Barry Sanders and Emmett Smith to NFL greatness. Of the handful of seniors who've endured the winless streak, Ashley is the most upbeat, moving through questions about Clark's futility as he would a hapless linebacker.

"I love playing football," he broadcasts.

Says he's also learned to create realistic expectations: "One of the main goals we had coming into the year was to be more competitive in every game. With the exception of the Western game (a 52-0 drubbing on September 30), we've done that—we've stayed in every game. I'm satisfied. A win would just be icing on the cake."

He's never thought about quitting. What kind of example would he be if he did, how could he continue to, as Klinger says, epitomize what a student athlete is all about? Ashley sports a 3.7 grade-point average and is being recruited by Ivy League schools like Brown, Princeton and Columbia.

"I'm being recruited for academics but I'm also fulfilling my passion (football)," he says.

Fernando Bonilla is at the opposite end of the spectrum—he still gets upset when the team is used as a punch line. Some of the sensitivity stems from the fact that this is his first high-school football season—and last. Always eager to play, the 17-year-old senior center didn't follow through until this year. He knew going in about Clark's ineptitude. Playing for a losing team didn't bother him—and still doesn't.

"People don't know how hard we practice," he says. "All they see is the scoreboard. We want to win games and I think we will. If we don't, at least I'll know I played my heart (out) and played my hardest."

The third quarter and the first half of the fourth quarter are uneventful—no points and even fewer fireworks.

Trailing 7-6 with less than five minutes remaining, Durango faces a fourth-and-two. If Clark holds, the offense gets the ball and a chance to score and tie the game with a two-point conversion. If they can tie it, they can push it to overtime. If they can get into overtime, who knows, maybe they can break this Chicago Cubs-like curse and finally feel the thrill of victory. No more losing streak, no more negative sniping from students, no more potshots from opponents.

Or not.

Kimble scampers 28 yards for a touchdown.

Score: Durango, 14, Clark, 6.

Down by eight, Clark teams of yesterday would've packed it in, with the fans following behind.

As the Chargers take over from their own 30, a group of parents begin zipping through the bleachers trying to rev up the Charger nation. It works. Fans stomp so hard on the bleachers that they produce a rumble akin to an airplane landing. Third-and-two. Two yards to keep the drive alive, to keep hope alive. Ashley, whose 140 rushing yards kept his team competitive all game, does the unthinkable. He fumbles. Durango recovers on their 40-yard line.

The football gods can be heartless.

Resilient most of the night, Clark's defense stiffens on first and second down—these aren't your grandpa's Chargers. Third-and-eight. A Durango player takes off before the ball is snapped. The head ref: "False start. Five-yard penalty." Makes it third-and-13. All Clark has to do is hold for a third consecutive down and the offense will get the ball back.

The ball is snapped. Clark defenders surge upfield, quickly collapsing the pocket. Despite the pressure, Durango's quarterback seems calm and lofts a pass that, from the looks, seems overthrown. As it spirals toward the right corner of the field, a Durango receiver adjusts, kicking into that extra gear athletes often talk about—a gear borne of angst and urgency that lets them jump higher, run faster, try harder.

He lays out.

Fingertip catch.

First down, Durango.

Game over.

Clark's losing streak continues for one more game.

In defeat, the Chargers carry themselves like champions. Chins up, heads high. As coaches are wont to, Klinger, whose face is shaded with disappointment, spins things toward the positive. He's got a good bunch of student-athletes. Eager. Hardworking. Dedicated. "We made some mental mistakes that really hurt us. But we're really making strides. I'm happy with the way we're running the ball and how we're improving on defense."

The losses, Klinger says, aren't indicative of any larger truth about the team's character, about the players, about Clark. What happens on the field, stays on the field. "Off the field, this experience is helping them understand how to cope with adversity, how not to blame other people for your situations and how to handle losing as men."

Two days earlier, when pressed after practice about the possibility of never winning a game, senior tight end/defensive end Alex Villalobos, 17, shot back: "You're not a loser because you lose."

Asked also about never tasting victory, Ashley sat silently, pensive for a moment, then spoke: "If we don't win a game, I'll still go out as a winner. I love football. There is nothing else I'd rather do."