Football family divided: Father-son duo share unique connection to rivals Stagg and Edison

The overlap between long-time rivals Edison and Stagg football goes far back with generations of 209 residents repping the Vikings or the Delta Kings.

In the Hankins family, it's a way of life — Eric Hankins Sr. is an assistant and quarterback coach at Edison, while his son Eric Hankins II coaches at Stagg.

This Friday’s 66th meeting between the two foes provides another opportunity for overlap as Stagg hosts Edison for its league-play home opener. The game also puts Christine Hankins in a Donna Kelce Super Bowl LVII-type situation as she will watch her husband and son compete against each other under the bright lights.

“This football wife and football mom makes every effort to split my Friday nights when I can,” she said. “This Friday, I’m going to start on the Stagg side, and then in the second half, I’ll probably go to the Edison side. But I did make a T-shirt so it split in half and one side says ‘Stagg football mom’ and the other side says ‘Edison football wife.’”

Following in his footsteps

Eric Sr. started his 30-year-long coaching career originally in basketball; however, once he made it to Stagg he found his bread and butter on the football field. Throughout his years of coaching at Bear Creek, Stagg and Edison, his namesake was learning the game himself.

“He’s been out here his whole life, literally his whole life since he was a tiny guy he was at practice,” Eric Sr. said. “He’s been at Stagg literally his whole life so it’s kind of cool to look across just looking over and watching, of course, as a proud dad.”

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When he was young, Eric II rocked the brown and gold as his dad worked alongside head coach Don Norton for over a decade. As a freshman, he began playing for his father as Stagg’s quarterback and would continue to do so for the next four years.

“It was always interesting when Eric Sr. was coaching (while) Eric Jr. was playing quarterback and they did a good job,” Norton said. “Eric Sr. pushed him just like you would any other quarterback to be the best he could be, and I think for little Eric, sometimes that was a little bit tough to play for your dad but I thought overall he handled it pretty well.”

Once Eric II hung up his cleats, watching his father’s coaching career and growing his love for the game landed him in his dad’s old position as Stagg’s quarterback coach. As a coach, he tries to follow his dad’s approach of player-first style coaching.

“It was not anything that my dad said, but it was what he did so he just had a really really strong relationship with the kids,” Eric II said. “So I decided to take that from him and I just had to try to have a relationship with my players first and then be the coach second.”

The Edison-Stagg rivalry lives on

This year marks his second season as a coach and the Delta Kings hold a solid 3-1 record. At the quarterback position, he’s worked with junior Leanos Rhonesimo who has thrown for seven touchdowns so far this season.

And so, the rivalry lives on.

Eric II and Rhonesimo will look to be the dominating offense as it’ll have to top Eric Sr. and Edison’s sophomore quarterback Berrell Staples. Last year the Vikings' offense could do no wrong scoring five passing touchdowns in the 59-7 blowout win.

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Both father and son have been on the winning and losing end following the annual Edison and Stagg matchup. Eric Sr. has a few more as he has coached from both teams' sidelines — he made a couple of coaching changes from Stagg to Edison in the early 2000s but made his stay permanent with the Vikings three seasons ago.

“It wasn’t a culture shock when I came to Edison because most of these guys I’ve coached when I was here the last time,” Eric Sr. said. “All the Stockton Unified kids know each other and we’re all familiar with each and each other’s game.”

According to Christine, her favorite part of Friday nights in the Hankins family is listening to the two coaches talk about each of their games, different techniques and, of course, how each other’s offenses did.

“It's funny, wins aren't really talked about, it's more about ‘how did you (the team) do?'" she said. “Even with a win, neither are ever satisfied, there's always more work to be done. My greatest joy is hearing these two talk about their games at home, late at night on a Friday.”

This Friday marks the second time the father and son duo will get to talk about the same game from opposing sidelines.

“Me and my dad, we leave that rivalry animosity out the house,” Eric II said. “But definitely when you're on the field, out there in practice — it’s full on. That's our opponent, that's the wall stopping us from winning league so there's some rivalry there.”

Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Father and son clash in annual Stagg-Edison football matchup