20-4A Selections

Selections toughest ever

STORY FOR PORT ARTHUR NEWS ALL-DISTRICT 20-4A TEAM

By TOM HALLIBURTON

If you think it's hard for this nation to settle on a President, it could be much worse.

United States voters could have to pick an all-district football team loaded with high-caliber coaches and players. That's considerably tougher than punching holes in a ballot.

All sorts of tough calls filled this year's Port Arthur News all-District 20-4A football honor team.

· Choosing between two superior coaching efforts was tough. So we copped out and allowed special honors for both West Orange-Stark's Dan Hooks and Thomas Jefferson's Al Celaya.

· Nederland's Sean Yoder received the league's player of the year selection. A serious case could have been established for at least five or six other equally deserving players.

· Try settling on a few defensive players in a league where defensive excellence ruled virtually across the board. There were far more than two superior defensive ends and cornerbacks.

How did we do it? The Port Arthur News followed its customary rules for all-district selection. Only one spot per player was permitted, in order to spread around the wealth. Instead of being overly picky about having two guards, two tackles, etc., or two defensive ends, two defensive tackles, etc., an effort was made to recognize the best all-round players on each platoon.

Whew, what a hassle it's been this time, starting with the coaches' honors. Dan Hooks deserved coach of the year. Al Celaya did too.

The WO-S and TJ campaigns spoke for themselves. WO-S went 10-0 against a murderer's row schedule after missing the playoffs last year. TJ ended a seven-year playoff drought, lifting last year's disappointing 2-8 ledger and converting it to an amazing 7-3 season.

The 62-year-old Mustangs' mentor just did as fine of a job as he's done in 20 years on the job at WO-S. Celaya took over in an emergency after TJ head coach Richard Marler was hospitalized with an Aug. 20 life-threatening heart attack. It would not have been right to honor Hooks and not pay tribute to the 43-year-old Yellow Jackets' assistant head coach. It would not have been justified to hand all the superlative coaching honors to Celaya either.

Ahh, that's the beauty of selecting an all-district team. It's not the same as a Presidential election. You can vote for more than one, so we did. Hooks received his just due, earning 20-4A coach of the year for the ninth time in his remarkable tenure.

"What's really been pleasing about this group is the way that they have focused week after week on each new opponent," Hooks said. "I'm as proud of this team as any I've ever had."

Celaya earned equally deserving plaudits, receiving a specially created title of Most Valuable Coach. Celaya could be considered assistant coach of the year, too. Coaches throughout the league likely will select Hooks as the district's coach of the year, but many also will feel Celaya deserves special recognition as well, considering TJ's unusually traumatic circumstances.

Pinpointing a single player of the year can involve similar complexities. Any TJ follower could argue that Jackets senior Tony Tompkins would deserve as much recognition as Nederland's Yoder. Their involvement has been crucial to each team's offense and special teams in versatile ways - Tompkins as quarterback and tailback, Yoder as tailback and flanker.

The tiebreaker goes to Yoder on his greater constant defensive contribution. Tompkins has been valuable in several man-to-man coverage situations, but Yoder has been defensively valuable down after down.

"You know who their best defensive player is?" one District 20-4A coach said about Nederland during the season. "It's Yoder, in spite of how much he does on offense. He does as much or more for their defense and special teams."

Yoder led 20-4A receivers with 658 yards and 10 touchdown receptions, as well as heading the league's scorers with 98 points. He tied for fifth in most interceptions with four and ranked ninth among the district's rushing leaders.

Tompkins ranked second in scoring with 78 points, third in rushing with 819 yards and seventh in passing by throwing for 460 yards. He likely would have amassed the league's best scoring and rushing numbers if he would have stayed at tailback all season. His contribution on defense has been significant for the Jackets but not close to being as constant as Yoder, who has started and played left safety all season.

This was arguably a superior year for District 20-4A defenses. Enough high-quality defensive ends existed to fill three or four all-district teams. Kevin Everett of TJ, Jared Gary of Port Neches-Groves and Jeff Mayhew of Nederland were three of those players who could have been considered for first-team defensive honors. But they were viewed to be valuable offensive performers, too. That enabled more of the league's defensive ends to receive appropriate recognition.

Another "swing" member of the honor team was Nederlander Ben McPherson, who played well enough to belong as a first-team defensive back. But who could argue with Ben's league-best punting average of 39 yards a kick. Besides, the amount of deluxe defensive backs overloaded the experts, too.

When five defenses - out of six district teams - allow less than 235 total yards a game, no wonder this district would contain five Top 30-level teams in the eyes of the statewide rating services.

"In general, it was the year of defenses in our district," one 20-4A head coach said. "I think we've had some outstanding defenses in our district."

It all added up to a tougher job selecting an all-District 20-4A team, than voting for President.

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