St. Mary's player familiar with the Bay Area commute.
St. Mary’s running back Brandon Warren, who suited up for a Pop Warner Super Bowl-winning Tracy Raiders squad and lives on the west side of Tracy Boulevard, didn’t grow up wanting to play for West or Tracy high schools.
But, then again, he never planned on playing for the Rams, either.
He was a Bellarmine College Prep guy.
When the San Jose native moved east over the mountains in fourth grade, his schooling stayed in the Bay Area. From 1998 until last year, he continued going to South Bay schools, finishing at Bellarmine, a Jesuit institution and one of the finer high schools in the area, through his sophomore year.
But by that time — as surely at least half the people reading this older than 25 can attest — the commute was wearing on him. Three hours in the car every day for six years is a whole hell of a lot to ask from anyone. Tack on sports, and it was like having a full-time job — when you’re barely old enough to drive.
“It was getting out of hand,” he said via cell phone Wednesday (he still has his 408-area code number). “It was hard for me to study — you get up so early and get home so late.”
Not to mention the bizarre social situation. When Warren told people in school where he lived, the usual reaction was, “Where’s that?”
During Raider days on the weekends and in the evenings, he’d stand by blankly while teammates talked about inside jokes and what happened in school that day. Could he hang out and ride bikes in the afternoon? Uh, yeah — but he had a little bit of a drive to make first. Make that evenings. Oh, it’s dark? Oops. Well, see you later.
While he slept in Tracy and was schooled in San Jose, most of Warren’s family lived in Stockton, meaning whatever he did on a football field didn’t always get seen. It also meant that if an emergency arose when he was at school, help or a ride home was a long way away.
So when the switch finally came and his mother enrolled him at St. Mary’s, it “wasn’t all that big a deal to me,” he said.
“The beginning was rocky — it was different being out here. I had been a Bay Area kid all my life,” he said. “I had to make an adjustment, meet new people. I liked it, but it was so different — but football definitely helped me establish real good relationships with a lot of people.”
He had to sit out the first four games of his junior season because of the transfer rule, and he didn’t see much of the field as a senior until the starting running back went down with a hand injury in the Tri-City Athletic League opener.
What’s happened since then was worth the wait. Back in front of his family, Warren put up
100-yard rushing games five times in seven starts.
He finally started to be recognized for what he was able to do on a football field, which never really happened in San Jose — or in Stockton, up till then.
“People in Tracy know me and say, ‘Oh, Brandon, I saw you in the paper today, you’re doing so well.’ In Stockton, people didn’t know who I was — I was the kid from the Bay Area. Now I’m getting more recognized.”
Not just around West Valley Mall, either. Warren and the “other” Tracy residents who call themselves Rams — sophomore receiver Josh Harper, junior defensive back Jordan Franklin (whose dad, Vada, is a longtime Tracy Raiders coach) and sophomore playoff callups Jeffrey Telles and Tyler Palacios — will take the field at Pacific on Saturday against Napa for the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I title. And if they pull it off, which means they’d stand at least a decent shot at representing the northern half of the Golden State in a bowl game in Carson, the trophy won’t just go to the school on Robinhood Drive.
At least a little of it will come back to Tank-town. And San Jose.
Contact Sports Editor Chris Roberts about his column, which runs every so often, at 830-4267 or
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