El Camino Real football team on track for another season without a home field
The last time Oren Zonenshtain and Caden Jong said they experienced the “12th man” energy, the lift a raucous crowd can give to its defense, and the confidence that comes with playing on one’s home turf was when El Camino Real hosted Birmingham on Oct. 21, 2022.
Well, not exactly.
The truth is, Zonenshtain, Smith and the majority of their teammates haven’t experienced a real home game since they were on junior varsity as freshmen. That homecoming game they’re referring to took place at Oak Park High, 18 minutes from El Camino’s actual field.
The seeds of the problem sprouted up during the summer of 2021, but come 2022 the melting of El Camino’s turf endangered player health and needed replacing. But what could have been a simple makeover, turned into a bureaucratic debacle that took away a season of home games and is now threatening to waste another season.
“At this point, it’s about us being stripped of the truest high school experience,” Jong said.
In Jong’s eyes the lack of a home field is about more than wins and losses. It has resulted in logistical nightmares, minimal fan and parent turnout at games, and a group of players who feel ignored by their overseers but continue to battle on whatever field they’re placed.
The LAUSD Board of Education approved a synthetic turf project at ECR on Aug. 30, 2022. The process was set to be finished before the beginning of the 2023 football season, according to ECR board chairman Brad Wright. That time has come and gone and the Royals have played their first two “home” games at alternate sites.
ECR is located in Woodland Hills, a city that can see temperatures exceeding 110 degrees during the summer. The heat melted the turf on its football field, turning the material into a mud-like substance. Turf is supposed to stay put, but it would come off the ground in clumps, stick to players’ cleats, and players would hit the ground without bouncing.
Here is my tweet from mid July with the field.https://t.co/batATfzsbC
— Ava Tibor (@AvaTibor) January 20, 2023
As a public charter school, ECR had to call upon LAUSD to replace the turf. LAUSD communicated with an astroturf company in Georgia to fulfill the request. For the past two years, the three parties have rarely been on the same page. Meanwhile, Royals head coach Jason Sabolic and his players have received minimal word on the inner workings of their field.
Wright said he was told the project would now be done by the end of this football season.
“I’m not holding my breath,” Wright said. “Expectation can lead to disappointment. There’s a good chance we may have the field by the end of the season, but I don’t want people to get all hyped up about it.”
The players don’t seem interested in talking about when their field might be done. What they believe is this: they deserve better.
Zonenshtain’s high school career — which began with losing a season to COVID-19 — has now been muddled by road trips and opposing crowds. He distinctly remembers the trek the Royals took to play Narbonne last season.
“We went into the city, we drove all this way, they’re a pretty good team and it got everyone’s nerves up,” Zonenshtain said.
It was the Royals’ fifth consecutive away game. In fact, each of their seven nonleague games were played on the road.
They ended up beating Narbonne 32-22, but the lack of continuity — the constant bus rides, and the pregame equipment setups — had put a strain on the Royals.
By the end of the season, they had earned the No. 4 seed in the LA City Section Division I playoffs and the right to host a playoff game. Still, they didn’t have the venue.
ECR played Fairfax at Agoura High School.
The Royals didn’t have their band, their cheerleaders or their student section. About 70 parents showed up to the game, Sabolic said.
“I felt, personally, we had lost before the game had even started,” Zonenshtain said.
Despite that attitude, the Royals trailed by one point at halftime. But it was accentuated by the circumstances.
“They didn’t have any fight left in them,” Sabolic said.
So when they did get word that the field would be taken care of in the offseason, ECR scheduled three home games to kick off the 2023 season. It gave the returners a landmark to look forward to. It would quench their craving for a home field, their own rowdy fans, and a warm-up free of distractions.
ECR wound up having to play its first game at Palisades, and played its second this past Saturday night at Birmingham, against Heritage Christian. They lost both games.
The team’s third game will be played Thursday night at North Hollywood.
All three of those games were supposed to be at home.
“I would give home field advantage at least a 10-14 point mental edge,” Sabolic said.
It’s unclear when his players will experience that feeling next.
Sabolic — an alumni of ECR and a current teacher, who won state championships in baseball and football — has remained loyal throughout this mess.
“My goal everyday is to wake up and make these kids’ lives better,” he said. “I got to make sure my football program is the best experience for these kids. I have to make sure that my classroom and what I teach is the best for these kids. And I don’t understand why we can’t offer the best facilities for these kids.”
That question seems to grow louder by the day and with each “home” game that ECR has to play on someone else’s field.