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When Amador Valley football coach Danny Jones decided, after 10 years of building the program into one of the top in Northern California, to move his family to Idaho, it left the Amador administration in a precarious position.
Whoever they hired to take over from Jones needed to be the perfect coach. With players moving from school to school as transfers have become as commonplace as finding a Starbucks in your town, the wrong hire could be disastrous to the program.
There was much speculation and certainly plenty of interest in the job. In the end the Amador team made the choice of Duncan Burgermeister to lead the program.
Touchdown, Amador!
It was the perfect hire for the Dons as Burgermeister, in my mind, was a no-brainer. But it wasn’t where Burgermeister figured he’d be a decade ago.
“This wasn’t on my Bingo card when I started coaching the freshmen team 10 years ago,” Burgermeister said with a chuckle.
He is the associate vice president of the Children’s Fund at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. The job affords him the luxury of coaching, but he will not be on the campus during the day.
“It allows me to do my coaching thing,” Burgermeister said. “There will be a few challenges not being around during the school day, but we will be fine.”
Seeing that he was the offensive coordinator this past year, I don’t expect a major overhaul.
“Danny had a good thing going and I’d like to think I was a part of that,” Burgermeister explained. “It’s all about making it fun for the kids. I was running the offense so that will stay the same.”
When you make the jump to running the program from coordinator, there are more than a few responsibilities that will be new.
“I’m trying to learn the transfer rules. (College transfer dynamics) are starting to leak into high school. It’s crazy – I never would have thought it would get to this,” said Burgermeister. “Other challenges are putting together a staff – most are remaining which is nice. We don’t have a full schedule yet either.”
Which is a major issue concerning teams in the East Bay Athletic League’s Mountain Division. With teams like San Ramon Valley, Monte Vista and California as opponents a team could play well in every game and go 0-3. That leaves non-league games vitally important.
You don’t want to schedule cream puffs as that does not prepare a team for the rigors of the EBAL, but you must get some wins for the overall record so you can make the postseason.
“There are no gimmes in the Mountain,” he said. “You’ve got to have some games where you can have some success. Making the playoffs is a big key. The parents want to win.”
Ah, the parents.
Burgermeister does have the added experience of coaching in the Pleasanton Junior Football League for years.
“All you do is deal with the parents in PJFL,” Burgermeister said with a laugh.
I had the pleasure of coaching PJFL one year against his team and can vouch for two things. One, it is all about dealing with then parents, as you have 23 quarterbacks on your roster.
Two, coaching against Burgermeister you got to see how great a coach he is. I put in more film work for his team than I have ever done.
We split games in the regular season, then got an overtime win in the championship game thanks to a late-game miracle. Ask Duncan if that loss still pains him as if the game was televised; they probably had a 99% win chance when the miracle occurred.
The bottom line is Amador leaders needed to make a perfect call for the new coach, and they did just that.
I am looking forward to watching the Dons play next season and watching the magic Burgermeister will bring to the table!
EBAL regular season ready to wrap up
We are down to the final week of the regular season for the EBAL basketball and soccer seasons, and there’s still plenty of drama left to play out.
Like I mentioned before, the only league with little to no drama is the EBAL girls’ basketball where barring a major miracle will see San Ramon Valley finish first in the regular season with Carondelet second.
The two will meet again in the EBAL playoffs. There is a big game on the final night of league as Dougherty Valley and Dublin, both 5-2 in EBAL, will meet.
EBAL boys’ basketball sees De La Salle as the lone unbeaten team in league with the Spartans closing the season hosting California.
The Grizzlies are down a bit this year with an overall mark of 12-12 and are 3-4 league. But they did play Dougherty Valley to a 55-53 final, and if the Spartans are looking past the game, Cal could pull off the upset.
Cal has two key games this week as they play host to Amador Valley on Tuesday night. The Dons have as much talent as anyone, but they have been inconsistent all season.
One fun game for the week will be Dublin at Dougherty Valley. A great rivalry with two great coaches that have been at it for some time now.
The EBAL boys’ soccer race is Monte Vista’s to lose as the Mustangs are the only unbeaten team at 7-0 in league. Win twice and the title is theirs, but how fun is it that their last two games are hosting De La Salle and then playing at rival San Ramon Valley?
The Spartans sit at 6-1, while San Ramon Valley is at 6-0-1. If the weather cooperates, which at this point it appears it will, there are some games to be seen.
The EBAL playoffs feature only the top four teams so there is some intrigue for the fourth and final spot. Granada, Amador Valley and Livermore are 3-4 with the Mats having the tiebreaker at this point.
Granada and Livermore close the season facing each other so there is less margin of error. Amador if they win both games they have left – California (0-7) and Foothill (2-4-1) – and Granada or Livermore lose or tie a game; the Dons will slide into fourth.
Finally, there’s the EBAL girls’ soccer race. Carondelet is 7-0 and on top of the EBAL, but there are some interesting games left and could shape the regular season finish.
Amador is 5-1-1 and has games at Cal (6-1), then close at Foothill (3-4) and nothing is safe with rivalry games.
Monte Vista is 4-3 in league and much like the MV boys’ team, has a daunting final week playing at Carondelet on Tuesday, then hosting San Ramon Valley (4-1-2) on the final night of league.
The top four appear set, but a pair of Monte Vista wins would throw everything up in the air.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. This column originally appeared in Tri-Valley Preps Playbook, a weekly sports e-newsletter published by Embarcadero Media Foundation. To sign up for free, visit here.
