West Valley College Vikings Football Team Hoping For Good Season

The West Valley College Vikings football team plays Los Medanos College at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29 at Saratoga High School.

The game is the fifth for the team, which currently sports a 1-3 record. The Vikings will have a bye week following this weekend's match before continuing to participate in the Coast Conference.

The team is headed by head coach Jim Winkler and assistant coaches Scott Forbes, Robbie Parry, Wally Funk, Bill Laslett, Frank Lawson, Sal Munoz, David Hockett and Gini Ibe.

The rest of the season's schedule is as follows:

• Oct. 13, Hartnell College, 6 p.m. at Salinas High School
• Oct. 20, Monterey Peninsula, 6 p.m. at Monterey
• Oct. 27, Gavilan College, 6:30 p.m. at Saratoga High School
• Nov. 3, Cabrillo College, 7 p.m. at Aptos
• Nov. 10, San Jose City College, 6:30 p.m. at Saratoga High School

The Vikes have a busy season ahead of them. Not only must they keep up with their grades, but every afternoon during the week they work out for more than three hours by taking fitness classes such cardio cross-training.

Coach Winkler is in his fourth football season as head coach. He's been coaching at WVC since 2002.

Winkler has been a football coach for 25 years and helped lead the San Jose State University program for several years. He was let go at SJSU when the Spartan head coach got fired in 2000, leading to a group of new coaches.

This year he has 51 active players in his squad, along with 11 red-shirts who practice, but don't play during the games. The athletes, who represent about 25 high schools, come mostly from San Jose, with two out-of-state students.

"We've been in a rebuilding process since I took over," Coach Winkler said about the Vikings. "We took over a program that was down, but it's getting better each year since I've been here."

Ten out of 12 sophomores on last year's team went on to play at the university level, Coach Winkler said; one player had a scholarship offer. That player declined the offer, deciding instead to stick around and help coach WVC.

The team plays a total of 10 games this season. Five are non-conference and five are Coast Conference games. The Coast Conference includes WVC, Bay City College, Cabrillo College, Monterey Peninsula College, Hartnell College in Salinas and Gavilan College in Gilroy.

"The big thing for us is to win the Coast Conference," he said. "If we win there then we go to a Bowl game and play more games."

However, the team is 1-3 right now. "We're a work in progress," Coach Winkler noted. "We're headed in the right direction."

The final championship, or Bowl game, will be held the Saturday before Thanksgiving on Nov. 17. The two winning teams from the Coast Conference and the Bay Valley Conference face one another in a final match.