YORBA LINDA - Head Coach Jeff Bailey yells for the seven football players sprinting up and down the steps of the stadium to stop and get some water.

As he lists the high schools the students came from - Esperanza, El Dorado, Orange Lutheran, Servite - the boys, all of whom are now Yorba Linda High School Mustangs, playfully push each other around as they head toward the weight room.

"We put them through a hard summer and they'll bond through that," Bailey said, watching the next group of players start the drill. "They're all getting to know each other and getting used to playing as Mustangs."

The students will be the first to play football for Yorba Linda High, scheduled to open in the fall. It is the first high school within the city's limits. Most students from the city have traditionally attended Esperanza High in Anaheim Hills or El Dorado High in Placentia.

Just three days into the camp at Cal State Fullerton, the more than 70 freshmen and sophomores have already built a strong rapport.

"We all came together as a team," explained sophomore Cole Griffin.

"As a family!" his new teammates piped in.

Most students expressed their excitement for being the first to represent the Mustangs.

"It's cool because we're starting a new tradition and we're going to be the first graduating class," said sophomore Ben Shreve, having just finished sprinting up the stadium steps.

The junior varsity team will play 10 games in the fall, and the freshmen team 17. A freshmen reserve team will also be formed to give more students the opportunity to play, Bailey said. A varsity team will be fielded in 2010 and will compete in the Empire League.

Bailey played football at Fullerton Union High School and then went on to play as an offensive lineman for UCLA. He coached at Esperanza High School for 11 years before moving on to El Dorado, where he spent the last five years as head coach.

"Coach Bailey is great," said sophomore Damani Lenore, grinning at his new coach. "He has a lot of experience and has won a lot of CIF championships."

Being part of a starter program and utilizing the school's new sports facilities to build the team was a great opportunity, Bailey said.

"The buzz among the community is just really exciting," he said. "It's going to be really tough without seniors, and we'll struggle a little bit, but when we do have seniors, they're going to be even stronger."

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Rivals grow together into new football family

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2010-08-31 19:09:21

YORBA LINDA – The first seeds of what would eventually become the Yorba Linda varsity Mustangs were planted last year under a tree at Mabel Paine Elementary.There, former students of Esperanza and El Dorado High, gathered for football practice as members of the newly created Mustangs program.Even though they were under the tree, that didn't mean they were all friends."The El Dorado guys hated the Esperanza guys and likewise the other way," quarterback Alex Bernstein said. "Then, later on, a couple of weeks later, we started becoming a family."El Dorado and Esperanza are separated by approximately four miles. The schools, along with Valencia, which is basically around the corner from El Dorado, all sit in the Placentia-Yorba Linda School District."None of us knew anybody," Tommy Dedrick said. "We didn't talk to each other, but we've come a long way since then."Dedrick transferred from Esperanza, where he played on the freshman team.When Yorba Linda was formed last year on Bastanchury Road, it became the fourth school high school in the district, leaving some families with tough decisions. Stay? Or go?"That was one of my hardest decisions (to leave)," Bernstein, a former El Dorado student, said. "I was thinking about staying at El Dorado, but I love this coaching staff (led by Coach Jeff Bailey) and once I found out they were all coming to Yorba Linda, I decided that was going to be my move."Of that first group, Bailey said that approximately 20 have stayed. Others have had to make the same difficult choice as Bernstein, but come Friday they will all have something in common. They will be part of the first varsity football team at Yorba Linda High when the Mustangs open the season against Sonora on Friday night.Bailey remembered what he told the team as they gathered at Mabel Paine."I told them, they were no longer Esperanza guys or El Dorado guys ... they were all Yorba Linda guys."That was all about building that bond of togetherness and becoming one team."

 LOT OF WORK TO DO

To say that the Mustangs are a work in progress, both on and off the field, would be an understatement.There is only one player (junior Dallas Ellis) with any varsity experience. Ellis transferred from El Dorado.As of Monday, the team had practiced only three days on the new stadium turf field. The field is surrounded only by several mounds of dirt as the plan for the home stadium continues to take shape."A new mound of dirt shows progress," Bailey said.The football facilities are expected to be completed by April, Bailey said.The indoor weight room has been in operation since last year.All of this played a role in Bailey leaving El Dorado, where he won a pair of CIF titles (2006 and 2007) to settle at Yorba Linda."The kind of frustrations ... on-campus stadiums, facility upgrades ... are solved here," Bailey said. "I was able to get more of my assistant coaches hired as teachers. That's one of the reasons why I moved here because I wanted some help in the offseason."On the field, the Mustangs are in an unenviable position this season, fielding a team comprised of only sophomores and juniors. Senior leadership doesn't exist."That's tough, not having any seniors," Bailey said. "There's no one for the younger kids to look up to."We don't have a ton of numbers and we're relying on sophomores, who are as physically developed as they can be. We knew what we were getting into." 

'NERVE-RACKING' START

The Mustangs went through a scrimmage last Friday against Canyon.It was the first time in pads against a real opponent."It was pretty nerve-racking," Bernstein said of the scrimmage. "Now that we know we can play with the big boys, we'll be ready."Bailey spent the majority of the weekend analyzing the tape."We competed," Bailey said. "We made a million mistakes, couldn't get lined up, couldn't block, but in their defense we didn't prepare specifically for them (Canyon) like we would doing a normal week, so we're hoping that changes the outcome a little bit."But the speed, the physicality ... we held our own."Now, ready or not, game week is here and Friday night is rapidly approaching."I feel like I've did as much work for this week as I do for a normal playoff week and I've only had one film to watch," Bailey said.The Mustangs' nonleague opponents (Sonora, San Juan Hills, Orange and Santa Ana) combined to post a 19-22 record last season.However, Yorba Linda will compete in the Empire League, along with Cypress, Kennedy, Pacifica, Tustin, Western and Valencia, one of the toughest leagues in the county and division (Southwest).In comparison, Tesoro's first varsity season was played in Division IX, before moving up in 2006.The Mustangs were picked to finish last in the coaches preseason poll."We're going to grow together," Dedrick said.In some ways, they already have.