A coach's dream team

David Leon Moore has an article at USAToday.com about a very lucky high school football program:

A quarterback named Montana rolls to the right and, with that familiar, smooth motion that football fans in the 1980s and '90s remember so well, effortlessly delivers a perfect downfield spiral. What's this? The reincarnation of Joe Montana, once known as Joe Cool for calmly delivering four Super Bowl victories for the San Francisco 49ers? No, it's his son, Nick.
Later, Montana's team having built a lead, the backup is in and he runs the same play, same result. That's Trevor Gretzky, son of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and he'll be the starter next year.
Catching some of their passes is a small, speedy wide receiver who has a knack for going up and getting the ball. That would be Trey Smith, son of successful actor Will Smith.
The trio is contributing for one of the best high school football teams in the country. Didn't think a team with the sons of arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history, the greatest hockey player of all time and one of the most popular actors of his generation would be a slouch, did you?
Oaks Christian High, a private school with tuition about $26,000 a year and founded in 2000 about an hour's drive northwest of downtown Los Angeles, is small but mighty. Its enrollment is about 750, but its football team makes national news. The Lions are consistently one of the top-ranked teams in California and are 8-0 and No. 5 in USA TODAY's Super 25 high school football rankings.
The Lions have produced many Division One college players, including current Notre Dame star Jimmy Clausen. Clausen, a junior quarterback who has climbed into this year's Heisman Trophy race, was one of 11 Oaks Christian seniors in 2006 to move on to major-college football, an extraordinary total for any school, much less a small one. The Lions have played on ESPN twice, in Clausen's senior year and earlier this year.
That 2006 team was one of many great ones at Oaks Christian, finishing 15-0 with a state championship, in the first year California went to a state title format. The Lions are 87-5 since the beginning of the 2003 season and this year are aiming for a seventh consecutive CIF division title and a second state title.
But there is something more intriguing, more exciting, more sexy about this one. That's because Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky and Will Smith aren't detached celebrity dads who send a congratulatory text when their sons' team wins. They're in the stands, sipping bad coffee and getting gum on their shoes and agonizing over their kids' performance on Friday nights just like other parents across the country.
"People call us 'Hollywood High' and stuff, but it's really not like that," Wayne Gretzky says. "People are people, and kids are kids. Nick, Trevor and Trey, all three of them are respectful. They're good kids."
Actually, it is a little like Hollywood High. Although Oaks Christian athletics director Jan Hethcock declines to name names for privacy's sake, he says a number of A-level Hollywood celebrities have enrolled their kids.
Nick Montana transferred to Oaks Christian two years ago from Northern California prep powerhouse Concord De La Salle. It's not unusual for gifted football prodigies to seek Oaks Christian's 18-acre campus. Since Clausen's enrollment as a ninth-grader in 2003, the flood of talent has been steady and is the major reason the Lions got so good so fast.
"This is a rich and vibrant school in a lot of academic areas, but football is what put us on the map, and I'm not ashamed of that," Hethcock says.
The Montanas and the Gretzkys live a short drive from the school, the Montanas in Thousand Oaks, the Gretzkys in Westlake Village. Joe comes to offensive days at practice, giving tips to Nick and Trevor. Wayne, who recently stepped down as coach and head of hockey operations for the Phoenix Coyotes, limits participation to parental support.
"I really don't know too much about football," hockey's all-time leading scorer says.
Trey Smith has spent time with both parents, who divorced when he was young, and lives with his mother in Chatsworth, about a 25-minute drive.
On Friday nights, Montana and Gretzky arrive to little fanfare and are pretty much left alone. Smith sometimes creates a commotion, but not so much that the focus isn't on the game. The Lions typically draw 3,000 to 3,500 fans.
"I've heard some kids at school say they only go to the games to see Will," Trevor Gretzky says. "Compared to Will Smith, not too many people know who my dad is. I mean, this is California, and he's a hockey player."
Nick Montana is the one who is striding directly in his father's footsteps. But he seems completely unfazed by whatever pressure that puts on him. "I think of it as a blessing," says Nick, a 6-3, 195-pound senior who has committed to accepting a scholarship from the University of Washington. "I can go to him for any help. He doesn't put pressure on me. To have a guy like that to go to is awesome."
At one recent game, Joe Montana arrives just before kickoff, sits with his wife, Jennifer, a few rows from the top of the home stands, and nervously rubs his hands together as the Lions start their first offensive possession.
First play, Nick throws a touchdown pass. Lions fans jump up and cheer. Joe Cool remains seated, calmly clapping. On the second drive, Nick under-throws a long pass on third down and Joe shakes his head.
But the Lions score, and then score again, with Nick throwing a perfectly lofted long ball for a touchdown. Now, Joe can relax. "It's a little nerve-racking at the beginning," Joe says. "Once it gets going, I'm all right."
Meanwhile, Wayne and Janet Gretzky, a section further down the home stands, sit among friends and wonder if Trevor, a 6-4, 190-pound junior, will get playing time. He plays most of the second half, handcuffed, however, by conservative play-calling. Head coach Bill Redell, given his team's dominance over most of its competition, tries to not run up the score, though his team has won this year 51-0, 65-6 and, last weekend, 59-0.
"It's a perfect situation for Trevor," says Wayne, who sits in the stands wearing an Oaks Baseball jacket. "Nick is a very good player, yet he's a workaholic and he's very dedicated. That's tremendous guidance." Trevor is hoping to play college football, while still pursuing baseball (he plays catcher and first base).
Trey Smith, a junior in his first year on the Oaks varsity, is hoping to play college football, too, though he's about 6 feet, 165 pounds and says, "I know I've got to get in the weight room."
Redell, the only coach the Lions have had, has gotten along well with the celebrity parents. Like Montana, Redell is a former quarterback. Like Gretzky, he was a professional athlete in Canada, in the Canadian Football League. And like Smith, well...
"He's a really good guy," says Redell, grayed and a bit paunchy at 68. "I keep telling him I want a role in one of his movies. He tells me I'll be in every one. I say I don't want to be in every one. I just want a love scene."
To which Smith replied, "Yeah, okay, I'll put you in with Tommy Lee Jones." That ended that discussion.
The kids clearly are not clones, although they bear a striking resemblance to their dads.
Joe Cool's son actually is excitable, a little rambunctious. "Nick probably gets as fired up as anybody on the team," Trey Smith says.
The Great One's son? He never really warmed up to hockey. "There's nowhere to play out here," Trevor Gretzky says. "My dad was the one who encouraged me to stay out of hockey and play baseball and save my knees. Then, when I got to high school, I was encouraged to play football, and I've been edging over to the football side."
And Trey Smith, whose father has battled aliens and other menacing forces on screen, had to get over a fear of linebackers. "I had a lot of fear my freshman year," he says. "My motto now is, 'You're going to get hit. Why not make the best of it?'"
All three of them seem to be making the best of it.