Rancho Cucamonga sounds like it’s way out on another planet somewhere in a far off galaxy. I can vaguely remember my dad saying something to the effect, “if you don’t get your act together son, I’m going to ship you to your long lost relatives in Cucamonga!”

I’m happy to say that I was never “shipped” off to “Cucamonga,” although if I were, I wouldn’t be mad. Rancho Cucamonga is an attractive, vibrant Southern California city, with its own mayor and it sits nestled between the California 210 and 15 freeways near San Bernardino. Rancho Cucamonga is one of the newer developed areas of a vast land mass stretching all the way from Northern San Diego County, up to Southern Los Angeles County, and East towards the Nevada state line called “The Inland Empire.” It’s occupants, and most of Southern California refer to it as “The I.E.” The IE has produced many outstanding high school football players who have gone on to play in college, and the NFL.

The Inland Empire is where you will find Rancho Cucamonga High School and its burgeoning head football coach, Mark Verti. Coach Verti’s football acumen and zeal for the game began as a former player with the venerable Bishop Amat Lancer football program. Before taking over at Rancho Cucamonga, Verti was the offensive coordinator under Nick Baiz, RCHS’s most successful coach in school history. Coach Verti was also a part of four coaching staffs that won CIF titles including wide receivers coach at Upland, and assistant and head coaching jobs both at Bishop Amat, his alma mater.

Verti head into his third season as the head coach of the Cougars and is likely facing the toughest challenge in his storied coaching career. The COVID-19 pandemic has set the entire world on its heels. The world of high school sports has not been immune from it. He and many other coaches around the country all have had to face the unknown, and embrace a entirely new way of teaching and coaching their kids. Virtual meeting with coaches and players, teaching offense and defense to players on Zoom, and checking in with players virtually, not face-to-face, on their health and welfare has been challenging for all to say the least.

Theres been so much uncertainty with the virus. At first when we left campus on March 13, we were told that it would only be for three weeks. The new thing we knew we were shut down for the rest of the year!

Mark Verti regarding beginning of COVID-19 in March 2020.

July begins with with a sense of cautious optimism insomuch as the governing body of California’s high school athletic programs [CIF] has slowly begun to phase in on-campus practice dates amid new protocols allowing schools to resume in-person workouts.

We have to trust that the kids have been working out. We try to keep up with them on Zoom, but we just haven’t seen them in-person yet.

Mark Verti on resuming on-campus workouts

Coach Verti joins me on my podcast, ‘Get in the Game,’ where we talk about his outlook for the 2020 season amidst the COVID-19 virus, key players he’s looking to for team leadership, and his experience with a recent high school player rating system called, STEALTHRating.com. Catch episodes one, two and three tonight, July 5, Monday, July 6 at 7:30 PM PDT, and Tuesday, July 7 at 7:30 PM PST. Click on the link below and hear all three episodes over the next three nights.