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Southwest drops varsity football for coming season

San Diego Southwest football won't take the field in 2021, at least the carsity team won't.
(Luke Ramirez)

School will field JV team with eye toward returning in 2022

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The effects of COVID-19 are still having repercussions as Southwest High in San Diego canceled its varsity football program on the eve of the 2021 season.

“I’m totally responsible for making that decision,” said head coach Domonic Cruz. “We will have a junior varsity. The pandemic did a number on us and we only had 31 players out for football. I didn’t want to get to the end of the first quarter against San Ysidro and have to stop the game because we couldn’t continue. It’s better to do it now.”

Section Commissioner Joe Heinz agreed with the decision.

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“I know the challenges Southwest faces,” said Heinz, the former athletic director of the Metro Conference. “They’re concerned about the health and safety of the athletes first. It’s best for the kids and the program — I commend them for keeping the program.”

Alex Estrada, the current Metro athletic director, agreed.

“We understand what Southwest is doing, we know they have the right people in place to build the program in the near future.”

Cruz said the numbers just didn’t work for this year.

“We have nine seniors and they’ll be allowed to play, but we only had a few kids with varsity experience,” he said. “Injuries are part of the game and we couldn’t handle many of them. One of the players did transfer, which we understand.”

The Metro coach who probably best understands the situation at Southwest is Paco Silva, who was the head coach of the Raiders for four years and is currently at Castle Park.

“This is an extension of the problems brought about by COVID-19,” he said. “It’s a hard sell even in the best of times. I remember my first year the school was considering playing 8-man football, but we decided to stick with 11-man.

“Domonic is a great coach, a great guy, and he comes from a school, Mater Dei Catholic, that has an outstanding program. It’s a lot different at Southwest. I’m sure he’s seeing it’s a change in culture. They used to get kids from across the border that knew American football but now more of the students are coming from deeper inside Mexico where soccer is the only football they know.

“We all kind of knew this was coming.”

The Metro Conference decided earlier on a seven-team South Bay League for 2021 and now there will be two six-team leagues.

Cruz said he considered the situation long and hard before making the decision, which he said was mostly supported by all parties.

“When we told the players, not one of them winced,” said Cruz. “Most of these kids truthfully have never seen a football field (as a player). I feel it’s important to be a mentor as well as a coach. You don’t teach just football, you teach behavior and I just think building from the bottom will be more productive in the long run.

“I’ll be there for these guys. I want them to learn how to handle challenges and succeed. I’ll miss the Friday night lights. Right now we’re going to play schools like Hoover, Bonita Vista and Eastlake (JV teams) and we’d love to add Cathedral Catholic because I want them to see how other programs become successful.

“It’s only for a year, we’ll be back.”

Brand is a freelance writer.

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