Coach Jackson's Legacy at Downey Youth Football

This page is a long way from being finished. I have not included much about DYF because of how disappointed I was in the adults that took over the program in 1999, which led to my departure and ultimately the wonderful times we spent as family with South Gate Youth Football. The Crissman family and Dick Engles, who I knew from an even further past with King Conference and the Huntington Park Spartans were good people who made my time at Downey enjoyable up to the end.

It is the kids that are now young men who have kept in contact with me over the years that are the reason I am building a page at all.

This page will be my way of saying to these young men how proud I am of them, and how much I appreciate their continued respect they have given me for the short time I spent in their lives. As they have reminded me in 2011, the 1996 Downey Razorbacks Midgets were the best youth team ever to come out of Downey California, and will probably be for the forseeable future. They were OCJAAF NFL Champions in 1996, and won the biggest game of the year, the true Super Bowl of the 1996 season when they won the NFL Championship. Our team was so beat up from playing the always tough Inglewood Sentinels in a triple overtime win that we just could not afford any more losses in the AFL-NFL Superbowl. We lost our best linebacker and fullback, which ultimately led to our 30-24 loss to the Orange Chiefs.

I am proud to have been able to apply my offense and defense strategies to this team, which was sold on the belief that they could be the best by my high school teammate, Robert Redwine. As Head Coach of the 1996 Downey Midgets, Bob took a team of kids used to not being considered contenders and sold them that they could be the best. He introduced them to me just before the season began, and after I met the kids I told Bob they were a nice bunch of kids, but this was really going the be a job to compete. I told him I would do my best, and with Coaches Eamon McKenna, Fernando Burruss, Carl Burruss, Coach K, and ourselves, we went to work building a football team out of these nice kids. Along the way, Bob discovered Tony Congestio, a Pico Rivera kid who was discontent with his former program, and a couple of Paramount kids by the name of Amir Jessie and D'Andre Sutton walked on a couple of days after practice started. It still wasn't paradise, but it looked like we had a core of kids that we might be able to do something with.

We spent the whole month of August 1996 building the team around Eric Reyes, a first time QB prospect from Bell Gardens. By the time we hit our first scrimmage, we absolutely destroyed our first outside competitor, the Buena Park Eagles. After that very successful scrimmage, Eric decided freshman football was where he really wanted to be, and left us. With just weeks to go, we had to almost start from scratch building a new QB. A smallish kid from the Junior Midget team, Josh Shontz joined our team and became a QB prospect. Tony Congestio had in the meantime been helping us as a backup, and gave us some additional help.

Angel Lopez, who had stepped up just before the first scrimmage, told me he could run the football. At about 130 pounds, we was not my first choice as the most likely person on this team to succeed as a running back, however his nerve to step forward and say without any reservation he could run the ball made me say OK, let's see what you can do. Angel had been introduced to me as the favorite kid of his age group, and had been known by the program as a good player. I didn't know him, and having been someone coaching against Downey in my past, I just couldn't imagine him being that super, however he had a reputation, and I needed someone with that kind of confidence in himself to do the job of leading the team. Amir Jessie had in just a few days of practice proved to me to be a really tough kid, however he had an awkward stride which seemed to be from a growth spurt. I then also quickly learned he didn't have 20/20 vision. I said hmmm... This is going to be interesting...

I will complete this prelude later, however it will go without saying that Angel Lopez and Amir Jessie became the leaders of this team, and every kid on the team stepped up and did his best to contribute to the team. Johnny Tolozo, a half pint lineman became the guy the others had to live up to in making running room for Angel and Amir. Our signature mark became the "Power Wishbone", or PW, which we put into play because we didn't have the personnel to make our more sophisticated "Gangster" offense we used that came from our Huntington Park roots, We didn't have enough receivers or lineman to really be effective with the Gangster, and most of all we didn't have at the time a QB that could play after play execute the offense once Reyes left us. We did have a good supply of fullbacks, and a couple of really good lineman that gave me hope we could run the football well. The 1996 Downey Razorbacks Midgets were arguably the most prolific running team in OCJAAF in 1996. Many tried to duplicate our offense, and some had success, however none got it right like our team did, and NONE ever came to believe that they were unstoppable when 3 yards or less was needed. Angel ran for 1753 yards on 253 carries with 27 TD's - not bad for a youth football season with only 12 weeks and 48 minute game times... a 6.9 yard average and 2.25 TD's per game. Amir amassed over 900 yards and about a dozen TD's - I have to find my notes that had all of this information on it... Again, another 1 TD per game average. I had a philosophy that if you can score on a 3:1 ratio, you be successful. Let's see... we gave up 8, 8, 6, 7, 0, 6, 14, 18, 6, 12, 16, and 30 points on the season... 110 points on the season, or 9.17 points a game average... We scored 196 points on the year - 14, 8, 8, 6, 32, 32, 40, 6, 20, 20, 24, and 24 points - 234 points, or a 19.5 average... a 2.1:1 ratio which was under our target and was really the result of the last game. If our team was healthy in the Super Bowl, we would not have given the Orange Chiefs any more than the 8 points they earned in week 2 of our season. We could not afford 2 key pieces missing for the full game of the Super Bowl - Our Center/ Defensive End Rivas, and Middle LB / starting FB Tony Congestio. This turned a potential 5-1 win into a 5-4 scoring loss, and blew our 3:1 ratio goal.

More facts will be coming, however, for the meantime I want our players that have lost their tapes to download the dvd - get it while it is here - I won't keep it online as it takes up too much space. All video content except the second camera at the NFL championship is copyright 1996 JVS. it is provided here for the enjoyment of our players and families. Enjoy!

Coach Jackson

Right Click and Save the Target - do not click the link to open!

1996 Hawgs Review - The Downey Razorbacks, Midget NFL Champs