Cordova High School Lancers strive to revive Big Red football legacy decades after dynasty
In the early summer of 2022, JP Dolliver walked across the tree-lined Cordova High School campus, pondering the football job.
Is this the right fit? Could it work here?
Dolliver’s young daughter Penelope thought so, and she dropped her own truth bomb, as kids are known to do. She said, “Daddy, this school has everything you want.”
If it was a coaching gig with all manner of monstrous challenges, Penelope was right. This was the place to be. But it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. It takes time, coaches, players and parental, administrative and community support to build up a program. It takes all hands on deck to restore and polish up a faded legacy, to muscle and maneuver your way back to gridiron relevance in the Sacramento area.
The rewards are plenty as a successful football program often sets the tone on campus to start the academic year, not to mention memories of a lifetime with teammates.
Cordova’s plight in reaching back for a glimpse of glory while trying to surge ahead is not uncommon. There are more Cordova-like situations dotted across the Sacramento-area prep landscape, programs eager to raise roster numbers and piece together two-game winning streaks than there are Bee Top 25-ranked programs that target league and section championships.
“The potential is here to be a success,” Dolliver said during a summer workout. “We have the support, the resources, the backing of the city, the school board, and the culture is healthy. We need to be able to keep our student-athletes in Rancho Cordova, to make this the place to be, and to not lose them to other schools. Our image of a struggling program and school has hurt us, and it hasn’t been fair. Success will change that.”
Jason Harper echoes the sentiment. He is the director of the Rancho Cordova Athletic Association, and he is a natural motivational speaker whose spirit, energy, drive and insight were part of the Del Oro dynasty under coach and lifelong pal Casey Taylor (now at Oak Ridge) in the 2010s. He was later a longtime character coach and man of many hats at Capital Christian.
Harper now bleeds Cordova red and black while having a hand in a number of Rancho Cordova sports projects. He has worked tirelessly with Dolliver to revive the “Big Red” image, using sports as an extension of the classroom. It goes beyond blocking and tackling. The Lancers work on character, community involvement, being good citizens and posting good grades.
“Sports are all about life lessons,” Harper said. “You have the family room at home, the classroom on campus, the locker room, and someday the board room in the work life. In life, you’re going to have bad days, and you’re going to have 60 dropped on you in a football game when playing a better team. It’s how you respond.”
Harper added: “We recognize that Cordova football isn’t in its heyday, but we have a map and a plan to get back. We are coming.”
‘Big Red’ was big time
Cordova anointed its football program as “Big Red” in the 1970s and ‘80s when the Lancers bullied all comers, basking in Northern California’s first true prep football dynasty before the De La Salle of Concord machine got rolling in the late 1980s. The Lancers featured the best players and top coaches in the region in Dewey Guerra and Ron Lancaster.
Cordova posted a remarkable 102-6-1 record in the 1970s, the best record in the country that decade. The Lancers led the Sacramento area in victories in the 1980s under fiery and fun coach Max Miller, going 98-11-2.
The decline was as swift as the rise. After going 11-1 in 1990, the Lancers were brought back to Earth when teams closed the gap. The dip coincided with changing demographics in Rancho Cordova and on campus. The school’s enrollment dropped from a high of 2,400 in the glory days to about 1,200 in the 2000s. It is now 1,822. The closure of nearby Mather Air Force Base in 1993 was a gut punch, cutting off scores of student-athletes who were big on discipline from their military parents.
Cordova’s still-standing regional record of 28 consecutive winning seasons ended in 1993. By 1998, the Lancers bottomed out at 0-10. Miller returned in 1999, the mess so thick that he had to teach players how to hold their helmets and stand proud during the national anthem because game film revealed sagging shoulders that matched team morale. He willed the program back, producing playoff teams before stepping down in 2007.
Since 2007, the Lancers suffered one-win seasons in 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2019. They went 4-6 last season, Dolliver’s first as head coach.
The football program is trying to awaken the ghosts of Lancers lore, tapping into former players and inviting them to be part of board meetings or to visit practices and to speak to players. The Rancho Cordova Athletic Association on Sept. 13 will host a Hall of Fame banquet to honor Lancers teams of yesteryear. Current players will serve as honorary captains, decked in black ties under their red Cordova jerseys.
Cordova sits two wins from a major milestone to celebrate. The Lancers have 398 program victories since the school opened in 1963.
‘Not an easy job’
Dolliver, Harper and a host of others have rallied the troops, their reach stretching down to the youth levels. Kids Day in Rancho Cordova earlier this summer drew 5,000 people, Lancers players included as good will ambassadors. There is enthusiasm in this town.
The high school has a sparkling new weight room, reflective of the joys of athletes who lift and sweat. There are 37 varsity players. One of them is junior lineman Aayden Huson, a door-frame filling good spirit who stands 6-foot-1 and 300 pounds.
“We’re building something here and we’re excited,” he said in the weight room. “We have the coaches, the players, the drive to do something positive. We’re all excited.”
The youth feeder programs are surging in numbers. There is also a flag football program in Rancho Cordova, nurtured by Will Logo, a mountain of a man who echoes the theme that sports can be fun and life altering. The youth tackle programs have some 175 players. Kids still want to play football in Rancho Cordova. It’s getting them to enroll at Cordova High that’s a challenge as parents of scores of incoming freshmen student-athletes have gone elsewhere.
In Cordova’s glory years, few students called English their second language. That changed over the last 30 years. Today, 25% of Cordova students list English as their second language.
Dolliver reached out to area coaches, seeking insight on weight-lifting programs, 7-on-7 programs, anything to jump start things. He speaks often with Miller, the Lancers retired legendary coach.
“I love what JP Dolliver is doing,” Miller said during a summer workout. “He’s the right guy for this. It’s not an easy job. Cordova has so much tradition and history. Look at this place. Isn’t it beautiful? Football can be a great thing in a community. It was here before and it can again.”
Miller also sugar-coated nothing on another topic while talking to Dolliver. Despite the energy and effort of players zipping across the field, Miller dropped his own truth bomb. He told Dolliver there wasn’t a single Lancers player at that moment who could start for the Grant Pacers, the decades-long powerhouse program in Del Paso Heights that won a CIF state championship in 2022 and nearly repeated last season, which posed an interesting question. Play the Pacers or avoid them?
Cordova and Grant are members of the reconfigured Metro League, a conference that includes other programs similarly trying to get back on track like the Lancers. This includes Kennedy and McClatchy of the Sacramento City Unified School District. McClatchy elected to not play Grant this season, accepting a forfeit months in advance, as the Lions continue to build up roster numbers in an effort to someday handle bruiser programs such as the Pacers. Cordova coaches wondered if closing the regular season on Nov. 1 with Grant would help or crush any momentum.
The Lancers decided against dropping Grant. The decision was passionately backed by board members of Lancers leadership councils who stressed unity and positivity (and that some first downs would help, too).
‘Diamond in the rough’
Dolliver coaches youth softball, which includes his daughters, and he’s a longtime teacher. So why coach football and take on the burden of such a project? Because this is what coaches do.
Dolliver grew up in Southern California, where his parents, Brad and Mary, started a youth football program in Ventura County. Dolliver was a quarterback at Moorpark Park High School, graduating in 1996. He played at Sierra College in Placer County, then graduated from UC Davis before dabbling in the fitness industry.
“I found out there wasn’t much of a future in college ball for a mediocre quarterback,” Dolliver said with a laugh.
Dolliver was crushed to be laid off from his fitness gig 11 years ago. His wife, Michelle, encouraged him to get his teaching credential and to explore high school coaching. Dolliver reached the playoffs in his third season at small-school Western Sierra in Rocklin. He led El Camino of Sacramento to the playoffs in 2021. He was an assistant at Sacramento High, where the challenges on campus are just as familiar as those he faces at Cordova.
Dolliver hasn’t ducked any challenges.
As the athletic director at Cordova, Dolliver said all sports on campus can rise, adding that a successful football program helps fund all campus sports through ticket sales.
“Cordova is a diamond in the rough,” he said. “There’s so much potential here. It’s going to take a lot of work. We’ll take some lumps in football. We have to hold kids accountable. Kids want, crave and need structure and discipline. Some kids, they’re sick of male leaders quitting on them in their lives. Kids know if you’re authentic, and if they don’t believe in you, it’s over. It’s done.”
He added: “So much of kids’ lives can be chaos. Are things okay? Will they eat at night? As a coach, you worry about all these kids because they’re yours.”
Cordova player’s death rocks program
The Lancers football family lost one of their own in June. Everything was not okay.
Elijah Wallace, a senior-to-be running back, was shot and killed on a sunny June afternoon in a crowded park, a day before Father’s Day. There have been no arrests. Was it a mistaken identity? There are more questions than answers, but the aftermath hammered Wallace’s Cordova teammates.
“It doesn’t make sense and it’s so sad,” Dolliver said. “He needed football, school, his teammates, and we needed him. Something went sideways. Just breaks your heart.”
Harper, the team’s spiritual coach, met with the football players on campus after the shooting. What to do? End the summer workouts to mourn? No chance. Sports can heal. The only option was to rally and come together.
Harper and Dolliver stressed to players that everyone had a right to have myriad emotions. Harper asked for a show of hands of who was angry that they lost a football brother to gun violence. A room full of raised hands went up. There were tears and looks of fury.
The coaches told the players they can honor Wallace by being good students, by giving their all in practice and in games. That’s what they can control.
In meetings since then, Harper challenged the Lancers to be mindful of their home base, to be proud of what is theirs, and to embrace the school’s rich history.
“Don’t step over trash on campus,” Harper said. “You don’t do that at home, so don’t do it here. Take care of your own house. There isn’t a cleaner campus in the city. ”
Harper told The Bee last week: “I was asked a while ago, ‘How will you know that we’ve won at Cordova in a few years?’ Well, Rancho Cordova kids won’t want to transfer to other schools like Folsom. Kids may transfer to Cordova. This can be the place to be.”