Football Dad-umentarians

Leila Navidi

On Friday nights in fall, Daren Libonati, director of Sam Boyd Stadium and the Thomas & Mack Center, can be found in the press box or high up in the stands of high school stadiums filming his son, Nick, quarterback of the Green Valley High Gators. Manning the camera is mostly calming, but before the first snap in a recent game he said, “This is when the nervousness starts and my hands start sweating.”

By Ron Kantowski

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Leila Navidi

Jon Miller, an account executive at a local TV station and an amateur documentarian during the high school football season, is the father of Green Valley High wide receiver and punter Jordan Miller.

Leila Navidi

Nick Libonati, center, cheers with his team after a win at home against Foothill High last month. His father sends game highlights to college coaches, friends and family members after editing the raw footage on his home computer.

You’ve heard of soccer moms and NASCAR dads and now, thanks to the governor of Alaska, hockey moms and six-packs named Joe.

I guess sports and politics do mix.

Football dads, on the other hand, aren’t exactly a voting constituency. They’re not like Mrs. Robinson. They don’t sit on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon before going to the candidates’ debate.

But they do laugh about it, shout about it, when they’ve got to choose — at least while watching their sons play high school football on Friday night.

Actually, based on my experience at a recent Green Valley High game, they do more shouting than laughing. And they do more second-guessing than shouting.

When it comes to high school football traditions, fathers watching sons block and tackle is as time-honored as cheerleaders, marching bands and math teachers staffing the concession stands. Many still shout and second-guess the coaching staff. And pity the referee who calls a holding penalty nullifying Junior’s 35-yard touchdown run.

But not all football dads at Green Valley are whacked-out nut jobs living vicariously through their sons’ actions on the playing field.

• Daren Libonati, whose son, Nick, is the Green Valley quarterback, is the director of Sam Boyd Stadium and the Thomas & Mack Center.

• Bob Rather, whose son, Brett, is the Gators’ center and middle linebacker, starred at UNLV under Tony Knap and is an executive at Red Bull.

• Jon Miller, whose son, Jordan, is a wide receiver and punter, is an account executive at KTNV Channel 13.

• Keith Kohorst, whose son, Nolan, is the kicker, is also a former Rebel football player and an optometrist.

All bring video cameras to the games. Whereas dads in my era had mental snapshots of their sons’ playing careers, today’s dads have highlight reels.

It literally keeps them focused.

Getting Junior centered in the viewfinder takes total concentration. When you’ve got to check the lighting conditions and your battery supply, it doesn’t leave a lot of time between plays to yell at the coach or the zebras. Or their wives and other kids, which is a good thing.

There were so many tripods and cameras set up in the bleachers directly under the press box I thought NFL Films was in town to shoot a documentary.

Only one tripod and camera were set up in the press box. The rig belonged to Libonati.

During the week Libonati operates the second-largest-grossing sports and entertainment venue in the entire world. But on Friday night he’s not just another whacked-out dad watching his kid play football. On Friday night he becomes Steve Sabol, the NFL Films guy.

Actually, not all the football dads are as overzealous as I make them out to be when it comes to their surrogates — er, sons — in shoulder pads. But Libonati said were it not for the camera — and the custom notebook in which he keeps his own statistics — he could understand how that might happen.

“This allows me to be part of the game, but I don’t have to get involved with all the hearsay, they say,” in the bleachers, he says about his solitary perch in the press box. “For me, it’s a place to hide away and be by myself. It’s kinda nice.”

After the game Libonati will stay up until the wee hours of the morning editing the game footage on his home computer. This is his version of Nick at Night. In the morning, he’ll send Nick’s highlights to college coaches, friends and family members, the odd sports writer ... anybody and everybody on his mailing list.

He’s pretty good at it. At the end of the year he even produces a Green Valley highlight film that he puts to music. He says the kids love the video, although they don’t really relate to Van Halen and Supertramp the way he and I do.

Even if the video doesn’t help the kids get a college scholarship, Libonati says, at least they’ll have something to show their kids years from now when the oldies stations are playing rap tunes.

“I wish I had a clip of the 48-yard field goal I kicked in high school — just to prove it really happened,” he said.

The other dads appreciate Libonati, even if he prefers to keep to himself on game nights.

“He’s better off up there — and so are we,” says Hillary Libonati, Daren’s wife, who sits just below her husband in the top row of the bleachers.

“He’s the biggest supporter of the program,” Miller says, peeking away from his viewfinder. “He not only wants his kid to do well, but the other kids, too.

“When Nick graduates, Daren does, too, and it’s gonna be a sad thing ... but then I bet our cheerleading squad will be the best-supported squad in the state of Nevada.”

Libonati and Hillary have two children. Their daughter, Brianna, is a Green Valley cheerleader. She also rides horses.

After I talked to some of the other dads about Libonati’s eccentricities and their own quirks while watching their sons play football, I wanted to ask him whether they allow video equipment in the equestrian arena. But I could see that his palms were sweating all over Nick’s stats.

On the next play Nick eluded the rush and threw a perfect strike that should have been a touchdown pass, had the Gators’ wide receiver not dropped it like a bad transmission.

“That’s the story of our life this year,” Libonati said in a low voice, so the other football dads wouldn’t hear.

He needn’t have worried. The father of the kid who dropped the pass was fiddling with something in his camera bag when Junior dropped the ball.