France faces weight of history in bid to retain World Cup title
AFP, RANCHO CAMPBELL, CALIFORNIA
Barely 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean, in the rugged red rock country of San Luis Obispo, American football star Eric Dickerson had his first brush with fame — his face on the front page of a newspaper — when he was a toddler.
The San Luis Obispo newspaper covered his 5-month-old son, Zachary, when he was born, and then again when the baby’s mother had to move her family and Dickerson’s wife, who later gave birth, to a more distant suburb when her son, Zachary, was 2.
Now the football legend, who turns 50 in January, is trying to keep alive his dream of leading his beloved San Luis Obispo High School program to its first state title since 1968, at the expense of Stanford.
The only senior on the school’s roster was a sprinter who was the second-slowest in the state, but the Bruins were upset on Saturday by the No. 2-seeded Knights by a score of 21-15.
“They went from being the second-ranked team in the state to being No. 2 and not even losing to them,” said Dickerson, who has been at San Luis Obispo since 1988.
“This is an exciting era in American high school football. We’re up against teams at the top of their class, and even though we have a slower player, we’re going to have our hands full.”
Dickerson’s team is tied for the state lead in rushing with 2,723 yards, and he’s just six yards from breaking the Stanford record for career passing yards (5,323) and is 13 yards shy of making history as the first quarterback to throw for 30,000 yards in the state.
If Dickerson can get his team to victory by the end of this week’s state tournament, there’s no way he could have dreamed it would have taken him 12 seasons to get to this point.
“To actually be up against this Stanford team and have them not only beat us, but have played so well, I think it says a lot about what this program has been able to do,
