Joe Cortez: Selecting Players of the Year no easy task

After two trips to Southern California for state high school volleyball and football championships, two weeks of vacation to end 2014, plus another five-day weekend wrapped around the MLK holiday, I’ve been away from my keyboard for a big chunk of the past 30 days.

During my brief return in early January, I spent most of that time finishing up high school Player of the Year stories and the All-District football team.

The final Player of the Year awards were revealed Wednesday, putting a bow on the fall high school season.

I’m sure the football selections didn’t sit well with everybody, but that’s understandable. I just hope everybody realizes how much work goes into trying to identify the best large- and small-school football players.

It isn’t easy, and we do our best to make room for as many players as possible, shifting players around like chess pieces to make room for others: “Player A excelled at tight end and safety, and even though he’s probably a better tight end, let’s put him on the squad as a safety to open up a spot for another tight end who also had a special season.”

Those are the types of decisions we make in an effort to honor as many players as possible. And let’s be honest, we didn’t even come close to limiting the squads to 11 players per side, plus specialists.

I had one assistant coach tell me that we’re coddling kids by not limiting the team to 11 offensive and 11 defensive players, regardless of school size. He dubbed it the “Everybody Gets a Trophy Syndrome.”

To a large degree, he’s right. We want The Bee’s All-District team to be truly representative of the best football players in the area, but limiting it to one team would leave off far too many players who deserve recognition.

You’ve probably heard the old adage, “No cheering in the press box.” Well, when it comes to rooting for one team over another, we don’t. But in getting to know a lot of the young athletes we cover, it’s impossible not to care for them at least a little bit. And I don’t mind saying that I want to honor as many players as I can. Then again, I don’t want the All-District team to lose its specialness.

Have a question about our All-District selections? Hit me up on Twitter @modbeepreps and I’d be glad to answer in 144 characters or less.

The football coaching vacancy at Patterson may be filled as early as Thursday if I’m any good at reading the tea leaves. I played phone tag with Tigers athletic director Dave Klein on Wednesday, but his message on my phone said a lot more would be known Thursday at around 11 a.m. So, check back with modbee.com for updates.

Nick Marchy, who was 30-14 in four seasons at the helm, resigned following the season and will relocate to Memphis, Tenn., though he did not have a teaching job lined up at the time. His wife has connections to Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Summervillealso will be looking for a new football coach after Ben Watson announced his resignation following nine years in charge of the program. Watson, who went 49-46 with four postseason berths, will remain as the school’s boys basketball coach and will take on the responsibility of coaching golf.

Watson has been the boys basketball coach since the 2012-13 season when he took over for the late Marlen Ronten and led the Bears to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV championship.

This story was originally published January 21, 2015 at 4:09 PM with the headline "Joe Cortez: Selecting Players of the Year no easy task."