Father and son enjoy a unique football connection for South
Valley teams
It’s just the two of them, one on each couch. There’s no light in the room other than the bright images flashing from the television.
“‘Backers are coming downhill,” the father tells his son. “Could be an earlier cut.”
And then, moments later: “O-line could get a good push off the ball because their nose guard ain’t too good.”
It’s Monday night at the Lango household, and the tape of the football game has the rapt attention of both father and son. Practice out on the San Benito High fields has ended hours ago, but ‘Balers fullback Tim Lango is getting some extra coaching after dinner.
With the biggest game of the San Benito season just days away, Tim and his dad, John, are watching footage of the previous week’s Palma-Alisal contest. And although countless football conversations take place between fathers and sons across the country, this one is a bit more involved.
“Their DBs,” John continues, “first you want to hit ’em straight on. And next time, you want to set ’em up so you can put a juke on ’em.”
Tim nods, taking it all in, filing away all the insights in hopes of gaining an edge when he and the ‘Balers face Palma on Friday with inside track on the league championship at stake.
And John, the head football coach at Gavilan College, smiles, pleased that he and his youngest son are doing what they enjoy most – watching and talking football.
A Football Lifer
From as long as he can remember, Tim, 17, has lived and breathed football. With a dad who ran the Gilroy High program for years and now sits at the helm of the local junior college team, it has been impossible not to.
From the early days of playing Pop Warner and serving as a ballboy wherever his dad was coaching to attentively watching Gavilan practices and games from the sidelines while starring for the defending CCS champion ‘Balers, Tim has been immersed in the sport.
“It’s like it’s meant for me to play football,” he says.
And he’s not alone. Tim’s brother Mike, 20, was a captain for the ‘Balers and is now a junior defensive lineman at California Lutheran University, a Division III program in Thousand Oaks.
The entire family loves the sport. Susan Lango, the mother of three, orchestrates the show, traveling to the games of all her men as well as the cheerleading competitions of Lauren, 13.
As John says, “One time, she had on our answering machine, ‘This is the Lango residence. We’re either playing football, watching football or studying football.’ And then my daughter started cheering, so it was ‘cheering for football, coaching football or playing football.'”
Father and Son
Tim, just as Mike did before, has made full use of the unusual advantage of having an in-house coach. The football discussions are a staple – “It’s fair game at the house at all times,” John says – and those conversations extend beyond strategy and film study to team dynamics and how to be a successful athlete.
“Making sure the grades are good, going to class all the time, returning phone calls, being respectful … those are all things I think I bring to him,” John says. “Each year I try to find something different for him to be better and better and better, just little things, things that I know as a coach that I’d like to have student-athletes have.”
Father and son have identified an underlying theme for each of Tim’s three years on the varsity squad, a focus that they periodically review throughout the season. “Our motto for my sophomore year was ‘pad level, getting low,'” Tim says, “junior year was ‘protect the football,’ and my senior year is ‘relentless effort, every day, every way.'”
John is in attendance at every San Benito game, sitting up in the stands with the “40-yard line crew,” beaming just as any other parent while watching another one of his sons star for the perennial power ‘Balers. “Pound-for-pound, he’ll give you everything he’s got all the time,” John says of Tim. “He’s earned everything he’s got.”
On the field afterwards, there are hugs all around, and then John’s brief assessment of his son’s performance. More analysis will come in the next few days.
“They’ll be a picture of him in the paper,” John relates, “and I’ll say, ‘The ball’s on the wrong side.’ And he’ll roll his eyes at me or something like that. Or we’ll watch film and I’ll say, ‘Look, you took that play off just because somebody else was running the ball.’ And he’ll go, ‘Ahh, Dad.'”
“Sometimes, you get down on yourself,” Tim says of having the extra coaching that no one else has, “but if you think about it, it’s coming from one of the best coaches in the (area). He knows what he’s talking about, so you listen.”
Tim to Gavilan?
The talk picked up after Tim won Second Team All-League honors after rushing for 665 yards and scoring eight touchdowns last year as a junior. Is Lango headed to play for his dad? Is Tim Gavilan-bound?
And after a stellar start to the 2006 season, helping lead the ‘Balers to a 5-1 start with 563 rushing yards and another five scores, Tim looks to have a future in college football. But whether he joins his father at Gavilan remains an open question.
Tim feels a strong pull to suit up alongside a family member, sure enough, but he finds himself torn between trekking over to Gavilan and heading south to play with his older sibling, Mike.
“It’d be great to play with my brother,” Tim says, “(and) I’d love to play with my dad. I’m lost basically.”
And John finds himself in a unique situation, too – weighing the health of his football team while also looking toward the best future for his son. “Can he come play for us? Yeah,” John says. “When it comes to recruiting, we’re going to go hard after him. … Gotta talk to mom, too. Gotta recruit mom, too. Gotta do the same thing.”
“It’s interesting at home,” John continues. “Right now the biggest thing is Mike would love for Tim to go play with him … so they could play together for the first time ever.”
But John also feels that playing for Gavilan – as Mike did for his father’s team for two years – would best further Tim’s development as a player. Naming 49ers linebacker Jeff Ulbrich among a long line of South Valley products who played for the Rams, John says “The best players have always played at Gav if they didn’t get a four-year scholarship or they decided not to play. So I tell (Tim) that. I don’t know if he’s the best player on his team. … I don’t know if he’s a four-year guy. And that’s a coach speaking.
“I want him to come play for me.”
