Scott Bordow

Affiliation: longtime high school sports columnist at The Arizona Republic.

Interview date: March 31, 2016.

FA: I’m with Scott Bordow, who is a longtime high school sports columnist for the Arizona Republic. What have your experiences been with this rivalry, especially from a columnist’s perspective?

SB: From a columnist’s perspective, it’s kind of interesting. It’s almost old school vs. new school, so to speak. Chandler has been around forever. I remember covering Chandler back in the 1980s when I first started in this business, and then here comes Hamilton. It’s this new school about six miles away and they instantly win at everything, especially football. The second they hired John Wrenn, they became a dominant program. I think there was a lot of jealousy in Chandler, so it was an interesting dynamic. You have this one school that’s been around forever, and this other school that basically just came about and started winning until the last couple of years. It’s not just because of (where the schools are) geographically, but because of the age of both schools that there’s been this natural rivalry.

FA: What do you think it was that John Wrenn (and now Steve Belles) brought to Hamilton to make them so successful?

SB: John Wrenn was already a really successful coach I think in Ohio, wasn’t it? I’m trying to remember. He was a really successful coach and he just harbored this mentality that they were going to win right away. They had a terrific principal and administration that supported football. He got it rolling quicker than anybody else could and then here comes Steve Belles and, by the time Belles got there, Hamilton was a dominant kind of destination program. You had kids showing up at the doorstep wanting to play for Hamilton. It’s in a growing area with great coaches, great administration and support, so they just won from the beginning.

FA: What impact did having a guy like Terrell Suggs emerge from that program early have for it to continue its success now?

SB: I don’t know how much an impact one player can have. I guess it does have an impact in one way when you see a guy like Terrell Suggs go on to Arizona State and have a great NFL career, you get other kids to look at Hamilton and say ‘We want to play there because we can do what Terrell did.’ Every kid that’s playing football that thinks he’s pretty good is dreaming of playing in the NFL. Now you see that Suggs has gone that path through Hamilton to ASU, dominated at ASU, and then in the NFL. They think, ‘I want to do that. I’m going to go to Hamilton.’ They have great facilities, great coaches and they’ll get you there.

FA: Have you ever seen a high school program just develop as quickly as Hamilton has? Also, how difficult is it to sustain its success for as long as it has?

SB: I’ve been covering high schools for 25 years, but I don’t think so. Usually schools need four or five years before they’re just adequate or good. Hamilton sprung up and they were terrific almost immediately, and then just the consistency [since]. I think that before last year they had been in seven straight state championship games? That’s phenomenal. I think it was five titles in nine years or something like that. Seven straight, I mean no other program in the state does that. It’s just a testament to everything: to the coaches, to the administration, to the fact that it’s become a destination school. Saguaro has won more titles recently at a lower level, but I think Hamilton’s been the most dominant program in the state over the last 10 years.

FA: How have things changed at the high school level at Chandler from when you first started covering them to now?

SB: I loved Jim Ewan and he and his staff were there a long time. He got that program to a certain level to where they were competing every year in the playoffs and making the playoffs. But I think they needed a change at the top. I think Shaun Aguano has brought a new energy and different ideas defensively. Chandler always struggled defensively under Jim Ewan. They’d score 40 points per game and give up 42. Here comes Aguano and after a couple years where the defense still wasn’t great, he got that side of the ball playing really well. Once they’ve won that first title, now they’re getting all the athletes. That doesn’t mean that Hamilton isn’t, but now there’s two schools for these kids in the area to choose from. Chandler is getting some great skill players because of what Aguano has built there.

FA: What do you think necessitated the creation of Hamilton High School?

SB: The two of them are what, six miles apart? But there was such a growing area around Hamilton. Chandler (High School) basically served downtown Chandler and the areas around that, but South Chandler around Arizona Avenue was growing so much. Down along Alma School, look at all that, San Tan Mall. They just needed a new school to serve that community. I think Hamilton now is the biggest school in the state in terms of attendance and enrollment, so that just shows that there was a need for a school down there. There’s no question that Hamilton as a rival siphoned a lot of kids from Chandler. Before that, if you lived anywhere along Arizona Avenue even eight miles from Chandler, that’s where you were going. You didn’t have the option. Now, kids have Hamilton and a lot of kids just went there.

FA: Did you notice any real divide, especially in those first couple years?

SB: That’s hard for me to answer because I didn’t cover preps then. I’m sure it did.

FA: How would you describe how Chandler’s reputation has evolved, especially in the last few years?

SB: Chandler was always a program that everybody said couldn’t get over the hump. They couldn’t win the big games. For years and years, every time. I think it was 17 straight years that they lost to Hamilton, and they could never win that big game whether it was in the regular season or in the playoffs. Even when they had these great athletes like Brett Hundley they just couldn’t win the big game. It was, for certain, a really good program, but a program that just couldn’t come up big at the biggest time. I think, going back to the hiring of Aguano and improving on defense, (it’s changed). The way they play defense is a lot different, they’re so much more athletic defensively, thy spend more time on it, they play harder and then he’s just getting the great athletes out of the school. You look at some of the guys they’ve churned out like (Kolby) Taylor and (Chase) Lucas. They’re just getting absolutely great skill athletes. One reason is they just have a terrific track program, one of the best in the state. You get guys that are really fast, and then they get two for the money at Chandler. For one, they play on a great football and they also participate in a great program. That really helps.

FA: How rare is it for a region to have the level of success the city of Chandler has had, not only with Chandler and Hamilton but now with Basha, Perry and even Casteel High School?

SB: It’s obviously the most dominant district in the state, and there’s a lot of reasons for it. One, it’s a pretty affluent area. You wouldn’t say Chandler High is an affluent area but Basha is, and Perry, and Hamilton. Two, the support from the district, I mean they have a Nike contract through the Chandler district so they get Nike uniforms for their teams and they just support football in terms of how many assistant coaches each staff can have. They put the money and time into it, and then once these programs start getting good it kind of feeds on itself because of open enrollment. If you’re a really good football player and you live in the east valley and you live in Mesa, get to Chandler because you might get to go to one of the Chandler schools. The success just starts feeding on itself.

FA: You mentioned that Chandler isn’t quite as affluent an area as Hamilton or Basha. Do you think that plays any sort of role, whether it be in stereotypes or anything like that?

SB: I think it does in the sense that Hamilton was a brand-new campus, a richer part of town, affluent families and here’s Chandler where you have a much larger minority population and a poorer part — I don’t want to say poor, not like inner city Phoenix or something — but a poorer part of Chandler. Yeah, I think there was some jealousy at first among Chandler that Hamilton has all this and I think that’s what makes Chandler people so prideful in the fact that they’ve now kind of, I don’t know if eclipsed is the right word, but equaled Hamilton as a football program the last couple years. I don’t think there’s any question that there’s a lot of pride given that Hamilton had so many advantages starting out.

FA: Hamilton was so dominant early on in the rivalry. What started the shift towards closer games and then Chandler starting to actually get some wins?

SB: They had lost 17 in a row and they finally beat Hamilton in a game, and I think that changed everything. Before then, the Chandler kids, the Chandler coaches, they thought they could beat Hamilton but they never had done it. Once they did it, that kind of monkey got off their back. Nobody mentioned the losing streak anymore. Once they did it, their confidence just soared. It goes back to Aguano and just some of the hires onto his defensive staff. He had an assistant named Thurmond Moore who was the defensive coordinator. It just changed the way they played defense. They used to be thin defensively, and Hamilton would just run all over them every game for 300 yards, throwing the ball. Chandler toughened up defensively and made the games more competitive. They finally pulled out a win, and it just took off from there.

FA: When did you start to realize that this rivalry had such a profile around the state and eventually nationally?

SB: Well, when [Chandler] beat [Hamilton]. It was always a rivalry because of the two schools being so close, six miles apart. Hamilton became the dominant program while the older, more established Chandler school was floundering or wasn’t as good as Hamilton. In terms of around the state and nationally, I think it was only when Chandler beat Hamilton. If you go 0-for-17, it’s not much of a rivalry. They did get large crowds then, and that was a part of it, but it wasn’t until Chandler started beating them and doing so regularly and won the state title. Now you have two of the probably three most dominant football programs in the state within six miles of each other. Natural rivals, natural neighbors, so that’s why it got so much attention here and nationally.

FA: How did the early games on ESPNU and ESPN2 impact how football grew in the state of Arizona as well as the rivalry?

SB: It plays into open enrollment and the relaxed transfer rules. Let’s say you’re an eighth grader and a really good football player, and you see Chandler-Hamilton on ESPNU and the game is televised and there’s 8,000 people in the stands. It’s going to get a lot of your attention. Where do you want to play football? You’re probably going to go to one of those two schools if you can do that. That exposure, it’s good for the program but also for kids coming up or looking to transfer so that they can say, ‘That’s where I want to play.’ With those two schools, the exposure they get, look at how good they are.

FA: What games stand out to you when looking back at this rivalry?

SB: The state championship game. Chandler didn’t just beat Hamilton — they were obviously the best team on the field. Even up to that point, even though they had beat Hamilton, there was still the question of whether they could do it in the state championship game. That was a huge game just in terms of Chandler saying, ‘We are now number one.’ There was a game earlier, though, where Chandler had a lead going into the fourth quarter and they just did what Chandler had always done against Hamilton. They had something like four fourth-quarter turnovers and absolutely just blew the game. I remember sitting there and we all wrote that it was just typical Chandler versus Hamilton. They just couldn’t get over the hump. And then it all just changed.

FA: How important is it to have names such as Christian Westerman, Brett Hundley and Paul Perkins all playing at the next level and having success from these two high schools?

SB: When you have great players like that in your program, you get a ton of college coaches coming to your campus. What happens now is a lot of kids are transferring to programs like Saguaro or Hamilton and Chandler because in their minds and their parents’ minds, they’re going to get noticed more. All these college coaches are looking at Westerman, Hundley and all these other great players. When you see these programs churning out college players and NFL players and winning state titles, that’s where these kids want to go when they’re in the eighth grade. That’s where they want to go when they’re a sophomore in high school. Their quarterback three years ago should have been a Mesa or Dobson player. He was in their boundaries, but he decided he wanted to play for Hamilton because Hamilton was producing great players and winning state championships. All those players want to play in college, and all the attention they get from college coaches is just kind of a feeding tool in terms of getting other players.

FA: How has the rivalry evolved, and where do you see it going in the next 5–10 years?

SB: They’re equals now when they weren’t before when Hamilton was the more superior program. In 5–10 years I still think that they’re going to be two of the most dominant programs in the state. If you look at high school football over the years, there’s been about 10 or 15 20-year periods where it’s been dominant in one area. In the 60s, it was Phoenix. In the 70s, it was Tempe. In the early 80s, it was still Tempe but as the population moved it was Mesa in the 1990s that was dominant. Now it’s moved south to Chandler, and that’s still where the population is growing because there’s still so much open area around the schools like Basha, Perry and even Chandler and Hamilton so I still see those schools growing. Those two programs are still going to be some of the most dominant programs in the next 10 or 15 years unless one of the coaches leaves and the next coach they hire doesn’t work out. As long as they keep established, successful, good head coaches I don’t see why they won’t be challenging for the title every year for at least the next five years.

FA: When Aguano and Belles are having the success they’ve had, what’s keeping them at their current programs? Aguano notably has been linked to several college jobs.

SB: It’s not the money, I can tell you that much. In Arizona, coaches just get a stipend that for Division I football coaches is maybe $5,000 a year so it’s not the money. I’m a little surprised that Belles has stayed there that long. I really thought he’d move on to college at some point. I know that Aguano’s been rumored to go to ASU for the last couple years but nothing’s come about that. Sometimes, the guys just like working with kids. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but they kind of like shaping kids’ lives. I’d think that’s one reason they’d stay there. I do think that at some point, when the right job comes up and it’s the right time, they’ll both move on. But they seem pretty content where they are right now.

FA: How would you describe the atmosphere of a Chandler-Hamilton game?

SB: It’s nuts. I wrote this this past football season, it is the only game where, I like to stand on the sidelines during the game to get a feel for the game and hear what the coaches are saying, but it’s the one game that’s hard to do because there are so many people on each sideline. Parents, former players, alums, they give sideline passes to all of them and it’s hard to see the game. They’re lined up three-deep along the sidelines. If you go to any other high school football game, you have a clear view from any part of the sideline. If you go to Hamilton-Chandler, wherever it’s at, there’s 50–100 people from the 25-yard line to the end zone on both sidelines and both corners. It’s a huge crowd in the stands and a huge crowd on the field, more so than any other high school game.