Mazzola announces addition of football to Thacher's fall season
by Misty Volaski

The Thacher School will join the growing Condor League trend of adding an eight-man football team to the school's fall sports season.
They follow competitors such as Laguna Blanca and Villanova Preparatory in adding the team to the school's already-large array of extracurricular activities.
The change came when several other teams in the Condor League changed their boys' soccer teams to the winter instead of the fall. As most CIF Southern Section teams play soccer in the winter, moving the sport would provide more competition for Thacher's team, said Thacher's athletic director, Rich Mazzola.
"It made sense for us to look at moving our sports around because lots of other teams in the Condor League already have," Mazzola said.
"The move left an opening in the fall, and it left 70 boys with no sport to compete in," he added. "We looked at many other options, like expanding our rock climbing or horse programs. We also looked at water polo as an option. But the majority of the students expressed a desire to add football," Mazzola said.
Thacher will only have one team to start out with, but may add more if the demand is large enough. Head coach Jeff Hooper and assistant coaches Fred Coleman and Bill Rexford held a meeting in the spring and handed out a suggested workout regimin to the 40 prospective players.
"It's tough because we have kids come here from all over the world. So we can't practice in the summer," Mazzola said.
The addition of the football team and the soccer move does create some conflict. Along with a shift in the soccer season, there will also be a shift in the boys' lacrosse season.
Several starting baseball players also play lacrosse, said Maszzola.
And after such a successful baseball season this year - the squad made it to the CIF finals, where they lost to Grace Brethren - several baseball players could be lost to the lacrosse team.
"There's baseball, lacrosse, rock climbing, kayaking, our horse program and track all in one season," Mazzola noted. "Lots of kids will have a tough decision to make next year."

© 2002 The Ojai Valley News

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