Joan Didion, ‘The White Album’, The Getty Museum, Bethany Yarrow, Eugene McCarthy riff

Posted on April 28, 2021 by markweiss86

Joan Didion says that the Getty’s collection of antiquities says more about the 18th and 19th century craze for antiquities than it does about the periods from which the pieces emanate. (Didion, 1979/2009 p. 75).
Reminds me that I once saw Bethany and Rufus in Boulder Creek, followed them to LA, and ended up having dinner at The Daily Grill with 10 people most of whom met while working for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Eugene was the Bernie Sanders of his day. Peter Yarrow – Peter Paul and Mary – sang at a rally and that’s how Bethany’s parents, Mary Beth McCarthy and Peter Yarrow met. A guy there said he was dating Mary Beth – the senator’s niece – but knew he had lost her to the singer.
I recall visiting the old Getty with Brian Moore; and I gifted my Red Sox cap to a visitor from Italy — maybe that’s part of the exchange. Maybe I still have the snap shot, beyond the mind’s eye.
I had seen the new Getty when it opened. And then that concert, Bethany and Rufus. They were on the same label as then-recent former client John Ellis (whose brother is the visual artist Dave Ellis, sometimes also known as SQWRM).

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Bluegrass girl’s not grey

Posted on April 27, 2021 by markweiss86


Candice explained that the design on her arm referenced a song by AFI from their album “Sing the Sorrow.” The lyric mentions soft creatures draped in white and chrysanthemums. The design features a rabbit.
She said she is originally from Western Carolina in fact the town that hosts the famous Merlefest.

She came out here to work for one of the leading social media companies . My dog had been wanting to meet her dog for several months.
She said that it occurred to her that she was moving to a geographic region that she associated with Davey Havok and the band. (Although they are actually from Ukiah which is 130 miles north east of Palo Alto*)

AFI played my concert series almost 25 years ago.

About a year ago I met a young man in Target of Alameda and I asked him about his AFI shirt.

The manager of the Cubberley Center seemed concerned by the press photo and Davey Havok with his black fingernail paint job. A couple years later I remember a DJ at Live 105 back-announcing his set and then saying a Palo Alto mom had called in to win tickets for her daughter to go to the big AFI show at Shoreline.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world Candice, Davey, Hugo, Ryland and y’all .

Maybe Molly Tuttle can cover this song.

* I don’t know if people would agree that Ukiah is north-east of here, north of here or north-west of here. I was thinking that if you go up the coast you have to cut inland in Mendocino although more people would not hug the coast North Bay if they knew they were going to Ukiah. I don’t know the region very well although we did go to Sea Ranch recently and once specifically to hear Kronos Quartet; by the way I wonder how they would sound working with Davey Havok — OK, that would be kind of a dream gig commissioning Kronos and Davey Havok to work together, like Metallica and SF Symphony. Also regarding the geography I am recalling that my professor James Melville Cox pointed out that Detroit despite being in the Midwest is east of Atlanta. 

And1: My dear friend T—who used to hand stamp all the young kids and punks as they were coming to the Cub— although I specifically remember that Adam Mets did the box office that fateful night with AFI – – said that his daughter will attend Warren Wilson College in western Carolina although not the creative writing program. And he said they were going to stop off in Vermont on the way there. 

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Deep understanding of the intersection of media, community, technology, infrastructure, real estate, politics and policy

Posted on April 26, 2021 by markweiss86

Not necessarily in that order.
Not necessarily.

Ok, not.
Fine.

x

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Tootie Heath Vs Art Hirahara

Posted on April 26, 2021 by markweiss86

Art Hirahara, a Bellarmine grad, who plays with Stacey who acted in a Shakespeare movie, singing Marlowe lyrics, March 13, 2020 — and that’s Andy Heller in the background

Here are two photographs.

One is pianist Art Hirahara, in Palo Alto, on March 13, 2020; photo by Mark Weiss;

Two is Tootie Heath, or his brother, perhaps in Philadelphia, or maybe Denmark, known unknown photographer, courtesy Mark Christman of Ars Nova.

There’s more to the story, I’m sure. If I picture is worth one thousand words, I owe you 1,916.

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Donald Trump VS Richard III, and other personae

Posted on April 25, 2021 by markweiss86

James Shapiro claims that Donald Trump may be the only US President not interested in Shakespeare. (2020, p.203)

Someone else said he is the only president with no sense of humor. 

Reminds me that it must have been 1987 that my sister and I saw Ian McKellen at Marines Memorial, “Acting Shakespeare”.

He’d like this just for the action.

I actually don’t recall if I’ve seen this, but its in my queue. 

And I’m intrigued by the “Come Live With Me” song by Stacey Kent. It’s based on Marlowe (I met Shapiro when he taught Marlowe at Dartmouth; and by the way, I got a weird kick out of hearing “Dartmouth” in “The Crown” – – synecdoche for “military” like saying “West Point”). The song was a fake big band era tune by Trevor Scott but I don’t think anyone else has tried to cover it). 

Richard III: My kingdom for a horse.

Donald Trump: grab them by the p****.

I am also meaning to read more carefully the Playboy Interview with Trump, circa 1990.

he looks like he could play leer

 

and1: there was apparently a 1941 film “Come Live With Me’ with a version of a song by James L. Hatton. And that led me to something about Willoughby Weiss. And also back to Shapiro “Shakespeare in A Divided America” about Cushman girls “American Indians”.

Keep it together. I forget why there are USC Cheerleaders.

Shakespeare music for Charles Kean

From about 1853 Hatton was engaged as Director of Music at the Princess’s Theatre, London to provide and conduct the music for Charles Kean‘s Shakespearean revivals. In this capacity he composed music for Sardanapalus King of Assyria (the orchestra including six harps) and for Macbeth, both in 1853. He wrote an overture, and entr’actes, for Faust and Marguerite in 1854; his music for Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (1855) was dedicated to Mrs Charles Kean; in 1856 his music for Kean’s revival of Sheridan‘s Pizarro replaced the old score by Michael Kelly.[30] Only the glee by Kelly was kept. Kean sought authenticity: Hatton rewrote it completely, ‘based on Indian airs… founded on melodies published in Rivero and Tschudi’s work on Peruvian Antiquities as handed down to us by Spaniards after the conquest.’[31] He wrote music for Richard II in 1857, and for King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado About Nothing in 1858. Reference is also found for music to Henry V, for which several mediaeval instruments were required. The arrangement with Kean seems to have collapsed in a legal dispute of 1859. As the music for Much Ado About Nothing had not been published, Hatton sought to show that it remained his own property and could be adapted or performed at his discretion. The court, however, found that it was an inseparable part of Kean’s design, and ruled against him.[32]

grab them by the pompons

I also liked Leo doing evil hamlet dekato in quarantino

 

the tank from the R3 movie is now pubic art in uk

 

andand: Maybe Cushman sisters should have done the Tempest since their father was a succesful “West Indian” businessman:

SHEIR: So there’s all this criticism about Susan and Charlotte playing Romeo and Juliet. But once they got to London, it seems that criticism faded. In fact, and I think this is so funny, the fact that two sisters were playing Romeo and Juliet seems to have bothered people a lot less than the fact that they were performing Shakespeare’s original words.

MERRILL: Yes, and that was again Cushman’s, she initiated that. Much of the Shakespearean scripts that were used at the time were based on the Restoration rewrites, and, you know, there were productions of Hamlet with happy endings. Cushman never did those.

But over time, Shakespeare was starting to be restored, and the Shakespearean script had not been performed, the whole Shakespearean script of Romeo and Juliet, until Cushman did it in England. When Cushman insisted… Remember, there are no directors as such at the time, there are theater managers, but leading performers make the decision about the script that they’re going to use and the blocking onstage, all of that.

So, when Cushman decided to do Romeo and Juliet and she wanted to use the Shakespearean script, they reacted to her as though she was uncouth. They called her one of the “American Indians,” who wanted to use the earlier, less carefully wrought script instead of the improved version. But people who were purists, once they saw the entire Shakespeare script onstage, celebrated her for that. There was a movement just starting at that time, and she was really in the heart of that.

So in this use, “indians” is shorthand for uncouth. But are they saying that Cushman, though decendent from Mayflower stock, were also of mixed race? I’m out of bounds here, like a female lacrosse player in the 1980s Ivies, but I do note that the USC photo seems to show that half of the girls in white are actually non-Anglo. 

Lastly: I started to watch Anthony Hopkins as Philip Roth professor Silk, a Black man posing as a Jew but fired for using the word “spook”.  Haint miss bee hiving. Adieu. 

Reprise:

I really appreciate this. Art Hirahara played the last live music event I went to, March 13, 2020 in Palo Alto (with Akira Tana Otonowa), and I found this today because I am researching Shakespeare….by the way, Stevie Nicks went to high school near Palo Alto, though she is really from Arizona. In Palo Alto, our May Fete parade is being built around Louis Armstrong “What A Wondeful World” but I think Stacey with both “Three Little Birds” and “Landslide” captures the zeitgeist or the hope better.

Stacey Kent as a singer in Richard III movie

 

Come with me

And read my blog

And we shall all the 

synapse

fire/leap/jump — your choice

Art Hirahara, a Bellarmine grad, who plays with Stacey who acted in a Shakespeare movie, singing Marlowe lyrics, March 13, 2020 — and that’s Andy Heller in the background

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Who else noticed a kerning or spacing error in The Times’ obituary of Adobe founder Chuck Geschke?

Posted on April 23, 2021 by markweiss86
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empty ‘umpty

Posted on April 23, 2021 by markweiss86


Gregory Jacobs, 57 aka Shock G of Digital Underground
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George Floyd tribute, June 2020

Posted on April 21, 2021 by markweiss86

Artist unknown in front of the former Liddicoats

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Monday Morning Dang

Posted on April 19, 2021 by markweiss86

I woke this morning and the first thing I did was enter my studio, crack my Webster’s Eleventh and gloss the word “dang”.
I had thought of an edit to the previous essay, about football.
Yes, I am going to trim the list of teams.
Sometimes I compare the bits of ink in Webster’s Eleventh with those for the same word in Webster’s Ninth.
Oddly, I cannot recall the name of my professor who recommended this book. Not David Kasten. Not Jim Shapiro, Not Chauney Loomis, although maybe it was Chauncey Loomis. Not James Melville Cox. Not David Pease. Not Blanche Gelfant. Not Howard Porter (who I sometimes call Not Horace Porter — ok, Horace Porter). Not the guy who liked Dylan. Italian name. Not Nancy Friedenberg? Who said semantics sit too close, lexicons in the back.Not Judith a visiting philosophy professor who taught the one journalism class I took. Lichtenberg,I think. Daughter of Holocaust survivors. Saccio. Peter Saccio.
Or as Noel Perrin might have said: giving up the gummed.

It’s actually 12:30 already so the title fits not. All I’ve done is dictate to my smart, a private essay for my class secretary May Drake — not sure she will publish it but I will hold off for a bit to give her what Herb Caen would term “an excloo”. 

edit to add: I don’t have a “studio”. I have a “study”. My wife has a studio, to do art. Her previous studio was in the Nevada Building, corner of Bryant and University, next to that of the writer Al Young, the poet laureate. I am wearing a City Lights t-shirt that Michael Young sold me recently, using his discount. I went to the City to buy an autographed copy of Rachel Kushner’s “The Hard Crowd”. I actually texted, a bit quixotically, to mayor Tom Dubois, the full quote: in a white room, the hard crowd, she is kindness. No: at the party, she was kindness, in the hard crowd. Actually, my smart phone suggested a stare for a few minutes at a singer named Alinah singing a capella to various cues. Also: Lizzo did one. I want to count the number of times Doja Cat used the N-word. Better: short tape of parts of Ledisi doing Nina Simone, especially “Four Women”. Also: about to take flight or coming attractions from Aleta Hayes, a source for Lions With Wings. And: scissors or cleavers for mRNA or CRISPR. 

 

andand: I augmented the categories feature from “words” to “words” plus “sex” plus “ethniceities” which means “jewish”

andand but not Anand: I also was thinking, before rising, about the time a group of St. Francis boys within earshot said “don’t be a jew” — is this better or worse than a group of teens taunting or harassing Greg Tanaka about the Covid virus? 

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Undefeated Gunn wins mythical City Championship: ‘Big Red’ football goes 5-0 under coach Miller, with Jackson and Erlan

Posted on April 18, 2021 by markweiss86

Undefeated Gunn Titans win mythical City Championship: ‘Big Red’ football goes 5-0

Gunn after Cupertino game, April 17, 2021 including Erlan (79 second row, obscured) and Jackson #4, also obscured or his number is)


Gunn beat Cupertino 65-21 last night on the road to finish the season a perfect 5-0, its first undefeated league championship since 1971.

Paly lost to Los Gatos, to finish 2-3, a losing record. MaxPreps had Paly, in a stronger league, rated #16 in the CCS to Gunn’s #23, but I think the final results, however they are calculated, should show the Titans eclipsing the Vikings in the final tally for spring, 2021 football, and being a top 20 team in the 100-team CCS. Maybe Gunn is top 10, if this year, without playoffs, can give the benefit of the doubt to strivers and dreamers.

Gunn’s result pops in the sense of the futile history of Gunn gridiron. Also, I would argue that if Paly is known as a sports miracle part of the success story is at the direct expense of Gunn; the fates — doormat on one side, exemplar on the other, are linked. So beyond just the result of a rare championship, I think the significance of Jason Miller’s 2021 squad is that it seems to have put to rest the Viking football dynasty. In fairy tale terms, he kissed the sleeping beauty and broke the curse.

Gunn’s football 2021 El Camino Division Santa Clara Athletic League undefeated champions might qualify it as one of the top ten sports results in school history.

If you flip a coin five times the odds of getting heads five times running is one-in-32. That is, given that there are only two outcomes in a high school football match, if if were pure chance to go 5-0 in even a short season, this year’s outcome would be expected every 32 years or so. But Gunn’s football aggregate over 55 seasons is more like 33 winning percentage than 50-50, so a 5-0 undefeated season is more like a 1-in-300-year event. Think: 1969 Miracle Mets, Leicester’s EPL championship, the Miracle on Ice. As in, it’s a good thing that the 2021 team does not use randomized features from its history, say, a guard from the 1982 team and a outside back from the 2008 team. Gunn did and did not play last night with history lining up in the double wing-T backfield.

Jason Miller’s 2021 football champions deserve a mayoral proclamation from Palo Alto’s Tom Dubois, a former Gunn dad — his daughter played for one of the best volleyball teams in school history. Gunn also had an outstanding result from soccer in 2020 – -being the first team from a relegation league to win the overall CCS championship. There’ve been results from water polo, wrestling and swimming, girls and boys, in recent history.

It is not true that Gunn is good in academics but bad in sports. Gunn is more like Stanford which wins the Directors’ Cup for overall excellence in sports numerous times. Matt Maltz’s softball teams finished beyond expectations. (he is my Gunn classmate and was a standout in football and swimming). Chris Horpel built a wrestling program beyond just a team. 

Richard Jackson led the CCS in rushing and touchdowns. Lineman Ken Erlan is also considered a D-1 college prospect, although he’s only played football for those three years at Gunn. Evan Webeck of the Mercury, in a wonderful profile, said that another player was a concert pianist.

I’ve watched Gunn football on and off since 1979, and every game of the 2014 season. That team had eight excellent players that played every down and another 16 who subbed in to make contributions. Nozo, Sweat and Kasznik could have started on any team in Gunn history, but the story became would they finally win a game or would they forfeit for lack of bodies?

Gunn has 28 players this year — Paly, which used to suit 40 or more – -had about the same. Besides knowing the game — for example, choosing a run-oriented offensive scheme that suits his lineup; and using the internet, he says, to borrow a defensive scheme to shore up his weaknesses there — Miller is known as a leader, teacher, role model and, fitting with the times, an anti-racist. He said that he was proud of his players attending Black Lives Matter rallies even though he may be the only Black person they know.

I think in recent years, especially when Earl Hansen coached at Paly, a Black South Palo Alto athlete like Richard Jackson might have enrolled at Paly. Its a trivial example, but Miller’s presence on Arastradero restores my sense of social justice a propos the local sports rivalry; it eliminates the temptation to go turncoat, as many kids have done. (See: Jim Harbaugh, Jeremy Lin, for example and maybe Davante Adams — he attended elmentary school near Gunn before enrolling at Paly for high school).

Maybe there could be a parade for these champs; maybe John Anderson could make available some Chevy convertibles to ferry the fellas around town, the way Tara’s NCAA ladies just did.

Gunn under Miller is 17-8 and has won 13 of the last 15. Will there be a parity reset from creek to creek, or is this an abberation? At the very least, I think this is a man who impacted dozens of young men, and —like Hans Delannoy’s hoops granfaloon of which I count myself a member— there will be gain after gain, on and off the grid. Kudos!

II.

To Darren Sabedra of the Merc (4/16/21):
I don’t believe Gunn has ever been ranked by the San Jose Mercury in football.
If Gunn beats Cupertino Saturday to finish the season 5-0 it will be its first undefeated season since 1971 when it won SPAL. Winning El Camino division is somewhat tempered by the fact that it’s a relegation division.
What I am keeping an eye on is that if Los Gatos predictably beats Palo alto maybe Gunn will finish the season ranked higher than Palo alto likely for the first time since 2002. Or since like I said 1971. (for example in the MaxPrep rankings however those are calculated).
There’s a discussion here about the preseason scrimmage with varying accounts the two teams. Kyle Martin of the Palo Alto Post covered the event but he is not a sportswriter.  Only some accounts say Gunn was outplaying Paly when it pulled its team.
If Gunn finishes 5-0 to Paly’s  2-3, Gunn wins the mythical City Championship.
(This reminds me that in 2009 when Gunn won it’s first basketball championship in 28 years that Gunn and Paly were the only two public schools ranked in the top 10 in the CCS).
Jason Miller is obviously doing a great job…(something about Gifford that is not true…he’s actually 19-10 in three seasons)
Paly used to dominate or recruit Black athletes from the Ventura District near Gunn which should’ve fed Gunn.  Most children of Stanford staff attend Gunn but in recent years the athletic department sends its kids to Paly. Tinsley transfers from East Palo Alto if they were athletic would choose Paly but seems now there’s a distribution of them to Gunn as well.
Earl Hansen, the long time Paly coach and California coach of the year and state champion was actually from South Palo Alto, a  Cubberley graduate. Gunn’s under-achievement in major sports and football is related to Paly’s over-achievement; it was a de facto sports magnet. (Slightly off-topic but Jim Harbaugh and Jeremy Lin are prominent  examples of Paly poaching Gunn enrollment; Davante Adams supposedly attended Barron Park Elementary which is near Gunn).
Mark Weiss
Gunn ‘82
Plastic Alto blog

(Sabedra actually wrote an excellent story in June, 2020 about Palo Alto’s two Black coaches and their outspokenness during Black Lives Matter activities).



III.

Gunn is 4-0 entering the final week of the season and ranked #23 in the CCS (out of 95 teams, according to MaxPreps).
Paly is 2-2 but ranked #16 due to playing in a tougher division. Gunn’s league, El Camino, is a relegation league to that of Paly.
Minpeninsula Schools ranked ahead of Gunn include Paly, Menlo, Mountain View, St. Francis, Sacred Heart and M-A.
Public schools ranked ahead of Gunn include only Los Gatos, M-A, Wilcox, Aptos, Mountain View, Half Moon Bay, Oak Grove, Burlingame, Paly,, Live Oak of Morgan Hill, christopher, Leigh of San Jose — ie. Gunn is the 13th best public school in football in the CCS.

IV:

Hey, my name is Richard I’m a senior running back/safety at Gunn High School in Palo Alto CA. I think I’d be a great player to pick up because of my work ethic and leadership within a team. I’ve been the captain of my varsity team all four years because of my leadership skills. I create zooms to update the new players on plays. I also invite players who don’t have much motivation to work outside of practice over to my house to lift or to run routes at the park. I mainly work on building a team that I can depend on rather than just myself. I also put in a lot of individual effort. I currently do two practices a day. One with my actual team which is 2 hours then the second with a personal trainer for 2 hours. I also understand academics come first. I finished this semester with a 3.2 GPA. I believe that I will always have ways that I can improve my game!

From Mitch Stephens, 4/15/21 Chron: 

Richard Jackson, Gunn-Palo Alto: He has contributed greatly on offense and defense; he leads the CCS with 648 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns for the surprising Titans (4-0), and is also a force from his middle-linebacker spot. MaxPreps says he added 206 yards and 4 tds so by my math that’s 854 yards and 15 tds. QB Lambert led the team with 220 yards rushing at Tino. 

V.

My Plastic Alto Top 20 CCS: (partial scoring as of this morning)

1. Serra 5-0
2.Los Gatos 5-0
3. Menlo-Atherton 5-0
4.Valley Christian 3-1
5. Wilcox 4-1
6. Sacred Heart 4-2
7. St. Ignatius (San Francisco) 4-0
8. Gunn 5-0
9. Aptos 4-0
Oak Grove 3-0
Menlo 4-1
Leigh 5-0
Riordan 2-2…..
Dang it: as I am plotting here, the Maxpreps rankings updated to drop Gunn from #23 to #24 and keep Paly at #19. Let’s see if the Mercury or the Chronicle gives us any more love than that!

So the reality is that Gunn has never finished ahead of Paly in the CCS, nor been ranked in football by the Merc; it finished ahead of Paly in both 1969 (with Akira Tana as QB) and 1971 (with Don Briggs as QB) but before the establishment of the CCS, in the old SPAL. I found an archive story that said that Justin Silverman’s 1998 team was the first winning season for Gunn since they entered the SCVAL. 

Re-ordering the MaxPreps top 25 by strict won-loss and no “strength of schedule” pseudo-algorithm:

1. Serra (San Mateo) 5-0
2. Los Gatos 5-0
3. Menlo-Atherton 5-0
4. Leigh (San Jose) 5-0
5. Gunn (Palo Alto) 5-0
6. Aptos 3-0
7. Oak Grove 3-0
8. Christopher (Gilroy) 3-0
9. Sacred Heart (Atherton) 5-1
10. Wilcox (Santa Clara) 4-1
11. Live Oak 4-1
12. Menlo 4-1
13. Valley Christian 3-1
14. St. Ignatius (San Francisco) 3-1
15. Salinas 3-1
16. Mountain View 3-2
17. Half Moon Bay 3-3
18. Burlingame 3-3
19. Palma 2-2
20. St. Francis (Mountain View) 2-2
21. Bellarmine (San Jose) 2-2
22. Palma (Salinas) 2-2
23. Palo Alto 2-3
24. Kings Academy 1-3
25. Riordan 1-3
also: Mitty(San Jose – #28) 0-3; Scotts Valley (#31) 6-0; Piedmont Hills (San Jose — #32) 2-0; Carlmont (Belmont — #40) 4-0; Prospect (San Jose – #43) 5-0; Hillsdale (San Mateo – #36) 4-1; Sequoia (Redwood City – #62) 3-2; (Bellarmine vs St Francis is 4/26 — i.e. this is not final rankings) Arguably, Gunn could by as high as #5 in CCS and Paly as low as #40. There were 55 teams with two or more wins in CCS and only seven with five or more wins. Eighty-four teams competed enough to be ranked in football.

Pick 6 or VI: I will say it: Gunn Football, in this most unsusual year, is the CCS Champ in Football, according to Plastic Alto. I.e.: Gunn, #1; Serra, Los Gatos and M-A tied for second. Stick that in your arm, peoples!

GUNN WINS CCS FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP!!! GUNN WINS CCS FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP! (It’s been a weird year….)

vii: Rick Eymer has a summary in the Weekly or on their website. I sent this note to him directly (it was rejected as a comment per se — as are all my comments):

The 2021 Gunn Titans football are not just El Camino League champs, they are City Champs and arguably co-champions (with Serra, Los Gatos and Menlo-Atherton) of the CCS.

viii: This is from “EVA-PA” to the Weekly, who I believe is also mother of one or two of the players: The Gunn Titans were a super good team this (short) season. Such an amazing shift from a few years ago. Richard Jackson IV was not only ranked in CCS, but is ranked state-wide: #7 for Scoring, #7 for Touchdowns #12 for Rushing. His teammates really gave it their all to deliver an undefeated season including James Lambert “Lambchop” (rated #5 in CCS for rushing yards and #11 for touchdowns) and Kicker Joaquim Bonnet who is #17 for Scoring in CCS (by kicking extra points). A big turnaround in a few short years. This combined with other Gunn D-1 champs (Boys Soccer, Girls Soccer, Girls Water Polo, Girls Volleyball) show that there is more than one “sports” school in Palo Alto. So exciting for the Gunn community. Word!

ix: more from Eymer: 

Gunn decided to honor its sports team the same as if it were any other year, which means the school recognizes the football team as league champions.

Exactly. And PAUSD board, plus Superintendent Don Austin — a former D3 lineman — should lobby CCS to have Gunn declared sectional co-champions. And leaders in Los Gatos, Menlo Park and private Serra should joinder or do likewise. There is no playoffs to refute such a claim. Maybe the stats show that Gunn finished ahead of Los Gatos, M-A and Serra. 

x.

• Unbeaten football teams that didn’t make the final Top 25 rankings: Gunn-Palo Alto (5-0), Piedmont (5-0), Carlmont-Belmont (4-0), Mount Diablo-Concord (4-0), Tennyson-Hayward (4-0) and Maria Carrillo-Santa Rosa (3-0).

• Overall Metro season football leaders: Passing yards — Brady Huchingson (Acalanes-Lafayette), 1,381; rushing yards — Devon Rivers (Heritage), 911; receiving yards — Jake Calcagno (California-San Ramon), 607 (56 catches); touchdowns — tied, Dylan Smith (Vintage-Napa) and Richard Jackson IV (Gunn), 16; tackles — Jake Ripp (Los Gatos), 69 (13.8 per game); sacks — Elijah Satcher (Salesian-Richmond), 15; interceptions — Josh Gerlach (California), 6.
Mitch Stephens, Chronicle, 4/23/21 — who also hinted in an email that RJIV would likely make the All-Metro team. [Update: Jackson, 2nd team all Metro, RB; Erlan, 2nd team all-Metro defense]

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