Very sorry to hear about Coach Mattos’ health problems. I saw him at the Poly game in SLO and he looked good. The first I heard about it was on the radio pre game show, I never heard any announcement at the stadium. Coach Mattos took over in 1978 when the Hornets were at the lowest point ever. Glenn Brady had completely dismantled the team the two previous season so Coach Mattos literally had to build from scratch. To make his job harder this was in the middle of Jim Socher’s successful run at davis and they totally dominated the market making recruiting and media attention even more difficult. As I remember KFBK, the most powerful station in Sacramento carried the davis games and our games were not even broadcast. Through it all Coach Mattos fought on, continually promoted the program and built a competitive program. We had lost something like 18 straight Causeways before that 1988 game that was mentioned. During that period there were many one sided games but some were close but somehow unexpected would happen and we would lose, it was almost like we were jinxed. If some of you younger Hornet fans think that the davis fans are arrogant now, you can guess what they were like in those years. They would basically laugh at and disrespect our team.
The 1988 game was a sell out SRO at Toomey Field. The game went back an forth and we had the lead in the forth quarter when the aggies scored late and took the lead, it looked like just another disappointing Causeway loss. I was standing on the track behind the north end zone when we started our last drive, deep in our own territory, just like Saturday moving from the south toward the north goal. After a couple of plays our QB, who I believe it was Petersen at the time threw a long pass over the middle, our receiver snagged it at about mid field surrounded by two aggie defenders and out ran them for the td and win. Not until I read the article in the Bee did I realize that the final score of that game was the same as Saturday. That same season the NCAA sent us back to Toomey for the first round of the Div II Playoffs despite being higher ranked than davis and having beaten them before. This time it wasn’t close, we won something like 38-17.
The following week we beat Central North Carolina? At Hornet Stadium 56-7? The funny thing that I remember about that game is that like Saturday night the fans stormed the field after the game. I was working on the football statistics crew at our home games in the press box. The fans started to climb and bend the north goal post and Tom Pucci the athletic director went into a panic screaming “stop them those goal posts cost $3,000” and running back and forth as if we could do something about it from the press box.
We all had a good laugh over it latter! We lost in the Semifinal game that year in the snow at North Dakota State.
I am sorry for the long and wondering commentary but I think we all need to occasionally take a step back and appreciate those people that have worked and struggled so hard against the odds to help the program survive and progress. Coach Mattos has always been a fighter for Sac State, as the Hornet’s QB in the early 60s for the first of Coach Ray Clemons dominate teams, as Head Coach and finally as a fund raiser. Bless Coach Mattos and his family in this battle. Fight on Coach.
