Rancho Mirage High School will play regular season football game in Hawaii this fall
Multiple high School football teams from the Coachella Valley have taken trips out of state for non-league games in recent years. But this year, Rancho Mirage High School will top them all.
The Rattlers will fly to Hawaii for a game against Farrington High, a school of 2,500 students outside of Honolulu, to begin the 2024 season. The game is slated for Aug. 23, during the non-league portion of the schedule and prior to the start of the Desert Empire League slate.
Palm Springs Unified School District last week approved the travel, which will include around 65-70 people. The trip will be for just the varsity football team, along with coaches and other staff.
“It’s the trip of a lifetime,” Rattlers head coach L.D. Matthews said. “It’ll be an experience I hope all of these kids in our varsity program will never forget.”
Matthews and Rancho Mirage High are in the early stages of planning the trip and doing the necessary fundraising. PSUSD will not allocate funds for the travel. Much of that fundraising will be through the annual Rattlers golf scramble, which will be held this spring. The football program is also accepting other donations that will go directly toward the trip to Hawaii.
“When Coach announced it to us, I was in complete shock,” all-league quarterback Yanni Padilla said. “I never thought in a million years anything like this would happen.”
The Rattlers are planning to travel to Honolulu on Aug. 21, then visit the Pearl Harbor visitors center and other sites in the area and hold practice on Aug. 22, the day prior to the game. On Aug. 24 they’re planning to spend some time at world-famous Waikiki beach and possibly attend a sporting event in the evening. They’ll then return home on Aug. 25.
In 2019, Palm Desert High traveled to Odessa, Texas to play Permian High, the school made famous from the Friday Night Lights book and subsequent movie. The Aztecs have since traveled to St. George, Utah and to Arizona for non-league games. Palm Springs High also played a game in Arizona, in 2018. Last season, Coachella Valley High traveled to Las Vegas for a game.
But no high school from the valley has traveled anywhere close to as far as Hawaii for a game. The fact that almost none of the players have even been to the island of Oahu makes it a big deal.
“I’m just excited about going out there with my teammates,” star receiver Kobee Finnikin said, “and making memories with my guys that I put work in with every day. At the end of the day, you’re only in high school once and memories last your whole life.”
After the 2023 season ended, with the Rattlers winning an outright DEL title, Matthews began exploring out-of-state games and reached out to a coach in Honolulu who helped him set the game up with Farrington High. After initially having some difficulty finding a date that worked for both schools, they eventually settled on one.
Matthews said that the matchup should be a challenge, but it was important to find a school that will also offer a competitive matchup.
“I don’t want to go down there and get beat by 50,” Matthews said, “and I don’t want to go down there and win by 50, either. So, we made sure that we have a matchup with a school that will give us a competitive game.”
Aside from the actual logistics of the game, Matthews knows how special this trip will be for his players.
Star running back Jeremiah Williams said that he is “beyond excited” for what he describes as “an extraordinary opportunity” to not only travel out of state for a game but to also visit a place that he and many of his teammates may have never had the chance to visit otherwise.
Williams noted that the Rattlers will be doing something that has never been done by any football team in the history of the valley.
“It’s beyond a blessing to have a coach who works so hard to get us on the best trips, the best uniforms,” Williams said. “Some kids will never get this opportunity to be out of state, so we’re super grateful.”
Matthews said that this likely won’t be the last trip he organizes as a high school football coach. But part of what makes this one so special is that he can’t say for sure whether there will be another one like it.
There’s just no guarantee, he said, that going to Hawaii again will be an option.
“I want to say that we’d like to do this again in five years,” Matthews said, “but who knows if we’ll be able to.”
Andrew John covers sports in the Coachella Valley for The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: DEL champs Rancho Mirage will play football game in Hawaii this fall
