40-year-old Casa grad living the dream, on 0-51 team

KENTFIELD

This is like choosing between the remarkably incredible nad the astonishingly implausible. I can’t decide. Maybe you can. What is the more impressive?

The College of Marin football team is on a 51-game losing streak. This is a national junior college record for most consecutive defeats, amazing indeed, for half the potential roster is replaced every season. Which means COM is not gifted with the most ordinary of presents, that being dumb luck.

“It (streak) is kind of mind-boggling,” said first-year coach Gary Garabato, who was coach and athletic director at Mendocino College over almost a four-year span.

Or how about what’s behind Door No. 2? Steve Cade Sr., 40-years old, a carpenter from Rohnert Park, a family man, is on this team, is older than six of the seven coaches and, get this, is proud to be here.

“It’s not like if I have a good year, I’m going to be picked up and go to a four-year college,” said Cade, a 210-pound safety/defensive lineman who played for Casa Grande and graduated there in 1987.

All of which had led Garabato to ask Cade this very simple question: “‘How can you do this?’ I mean, I played college football at Chadron State (Nebraska) and at 23 I was sore all the time.”

And things get curioser and curioser: Cade once coached Zack Zell and Dominic Pardini in Pop Warner Football. Zell and Pardini are now his COM teammates. No word yet on the rumor that Cade once bottle-fed Zell and Pardini.

It is true, however, that both Garabato and Cade are traveling the road less taken, Garabato inheriting a team that hasn’t won since Sept. 27, 2003, and Cade acknowledging his inner Peter Pan.

“My wife keeps asking me, when I am going to grow up?” Cade said. “And I tell her never. It’s a thrill to play with these kids. They treat me like I’m 18 years old. I love that.”

There is one exception: Everyone calls Cade “Senior,” except Garabato, who is 41. Cade wanted to play college ball when he left Casa but he became a father at 18.

“I had responsibilities,” he said and those responsibilities eventually included three other kids.

And things continue to get curioser and curioser: Cade initially wanted to play for College of Marin because that kid he had when he was 18, Steve Jr., was on the team. To play on the same football team with your son, that’s a devoted father’s dream. But then Steve Jr. was redshirted during training camp, having suffered a season-ending knee injury.

What now? Cade said he would have bolted if he saw the players acting like the Bad News Bears. Instead he saw Garabato wield a swift but fair ax. Garabato cut some of the team’s best talent because he saw the Terrell Owns syndrome in them: Me first, team second.

“Sometimes talent clouds your eyes,” Garabato said. “But if a kid doesn’t go to class, if he doesn’t want to be coached, if he doesn’t show up on time, that will tear down everything you do. All you need is to have one player like that. And then that player’s attitude spreads to another and another. Then there’s four, five, six players. Pretty soon the whole dang team is down with it.”

So what the hay, Cade said. He’s taking 12 units, among them welding, cutting back on his carpentry, driving five days to Kentfield for practice, a sixth day for a game somewhere, all with the attitude that only a 40-year old man playing tackle football in junior college can have.

“I play every game like it might be my last,” Cade said.

And, of course, like all his “freshmen” teammates, Cade feels responsible for only five of those 51 defeats and that’s a logical approach. Why saddle yourself with the sins of strangers? These players weren’t even allowed to drive a car to a COM game when this streak started. College of Marin is 0-5 in 2008 and counting, counting exactly three, five and 12. That’s the number of points COM fell short in three defeats this season.

“I keep telling them they are close, real close,” Garabato said. COM hosts Solano 1 p.m. Saturday.

So close, in fact, Cade himself can see the remarkably incredible and the astonishingly implausible merge to form the mother of all absurdities.

“We are just beginning our conference schedule,” Cade said. “We could win all five and play in a bowl game. Who knows?”

I wanted to laugh. I mean, maybe ducks will fly out of Cade’s nose, too. But when a team is oh-for-51, oh-for-five-years, nothing is beyond the realm. Logic already has taken a beating. The real has become the unreal. And College of Marin has its opponents right where it wants them. Asleep. Comfortable. Relaxed.

And there’s nothing the Solano coach can do about that. I mean, imagine this pep talk:

“Guys, let’s be on our game. Remember, College of Marin can put up some points. They scored 67 against Monterey Peninsula College. OK, so that was in 2003. But they did it once. They could do it again.”

For more on North Bay high school sports go to Bob Padecky’s blog at padecky@pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or bob.padecky@press

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