Honor Bowl football showcase canceled amid COVID-19. Sac State star QB lands in Pac-12
Bouncing around the regional sporting regions in a forward lean, including the cancellation of the Honor Bowl football showcase, Sac State’s ace QB heading to the Pac-12, the area’s next star prep quarterback, the death of 1980s three-sport star Derek Lee, and the return of Dusty’s kid at Cal ...
Honor and out
The Honor Bowl has been a staple for California high school football for 10 years, bringing together proud and often severely wounded soldiers from combat and first responders to prep events to recognize their heroic efforts and to honor the sport that binds people and communities together.
But the 11th Honor Bowl showcase scheduled for September in the Bay Area and Southern California that would have included Sacramento-region powerhouse programs Del Oro and Sutter has been canceled due to COVID-19 concerns, including travel.
The nonprofit based in Placer County under founders and directors Mark Soto and Rick Sutter pulled the plug on the five games set for Union City and San Diego. Eastside Catholic of Sammamish, Wash. was the first program to pull out of the showcase, doing so in May.
The San Diego leg of the 2020 Honor Bowl included teams from Arizona, Maryland and Nevada. It’s doubtful any out-of-state prep football games will be played this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic. National powerhouse De La Salle of Concord and North Shore of Houston called off a season opener in Texas pitting those programs.
KT at UW
Kevin Thomson stunned his Sacramento State coaches when he informed them that he had entered the NCAA Transfer Portal. Hornets head coach Troy Taylor wished him well.
After leading the Hornets to their first Big Sky Conference championship and earning conference Offensive Player of the Year honors, Thomson has landed with the Washington Huskies in his native state, where the quarterback aims to win the starting job. Washington hosts Sac State on Sept. 12, COVID-19 permitting.
The Hornets won’t miss a beat. This is still a stacked roster, deep at quarterback, and a sure preseason top 10 program at the FCS level.
Lamson Legend
This is how it often works in college football recruiting: the interest starts as a trickle, then picks up and becomes a torrent. This is the new norm for the region’s next star prep quarterback in Justin Lamson of Oak Ridge, who checks off all the boxes: size, skill, grades, leadership, character.
The 6-foot-3, 225-pound senior-to-be earned Bee Player of the Year honors for 2019 and has fielded scholarship offers from coast-to-coast, including Sac State, Louisville, Syracuse and points between. Next up: The Pac-12 suitors.
Remembering Derek Lee
Derek Lee was a rarity in regional sports, one of the very few to earn first-team Sacramento Bee All-Metro honors in three sports: football, basketball and baseball. The Sacramento High star of the early 1980s died June 15 from cancer. He was 55.
The 6-3, 195-pound Lee was drafted by the Dodgers out of Sacramento City College in 1983. Lee’s loss brings to mind another star athlete from Sac High in Drungo Hazewood, a first-round pick by the Orioles in 1977 who died of cancer in 2013.
“I played football and baseball with Derek in 1982,” said Rob Feickert, the longtime coach/athletic director at McClatchy High. “I still think he is one of the best athletes ever in Sacramento. He could do anything on the field, court or diamond.”
Baker back to Cal
Cal second baseman Darren Baker went undrafted in the abbreviated, five-round Major League Draft (it normally runs 40 rounds) and will return to the Bears while aiming to lead the team to the postseason and to graduate on time with a degree in American studies.
The Jesuit graduate is the son of longtime MLB manager Dusty Baker, a Del Campo product. He was at the family’s Granite Bay home when the draft unfolded and resulted in no regionally raised or produced prospects for the first time in memory.
Young Baker is more than just an athlete. He’s a giver. He donated more than 1,000 meals to Bay Area food banks earlier this spring. He also created an online GoFundMe page to help Sacramento businesses that were looted during the recent George Floyd protests.