“Welcome home.”
A Long Beach Poly assistant football coach offered a warm greeting to Mater Dei football coach Raul Lara on Saturday morning before the start of a summer passing tournament at Poly.
Lara, a Poly graduate who won five Southern Section championships in 13 seasons as the Jackrabbits’ head coach, was struck by some of the changes he saw, such as an all-weather sports field and bungalows on the old baseball field. The school has begun a $450-million construction project.
Advertisement
“I haven’t been here in a while,” Lara said. “They’re doing a lot of reconstruction. It’s pretty neat. It will be interesting when it’s completed. We didn’t have this. We had a dirt track, regular grass field. We used to have a pole by those two trash cans and we had a coach, Don Norford, that every time he yelled, ‘Hit the pole,’ everybody knew they were in trouble.”
Lara won a Southern Section Division 1 title and state championship last season in his first year at Mater Dei, and his team is a heavy favorite to repeat thanks to strong offensive and defensive lines as well as a receiving group that includes receiver Chris Henry Jr., who has commited to Ohio State, and tight end Mark Bowman, who has committed to USC.
“That group is special,” he said of his receiver group that includes Ohio State commit Kayden Dixon-Wyatt, Georgia commit Gavin Honore and senior Koen Parnell.
Advertisement
Still to be decided is who starts at quarterback, with Wisconsin commit Ryan Hopkins competing with Minnesota commit Furian Inferrera. Asked if he could end up playing both, Lara said it was possible.
Asked if he was still having fun, Lara said, “It’s a different kind of fun. It’s more of a CEO fun. I have an awesome staff. All I do is make sure it’s functioning. They do a fantastic job.”
Saturday’s competition featured…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/raul-lara-returns-long-beach-211403230.html
Author :
Publish date : 2025-07-19 21:14:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
