Located on the outskirts of the Hayward Hills stands Hayward High School (HHS), which first opened its doors in 1892 and is one of the oldest high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Among its many qualifications is a history of successful scholar athletes and championship teams.

On May 16, student athletes, coaches and school administrators gathered in the school cafeteria to recognize the accomplishments of various individuals and teams, and more importantly to celebrate the Hayward Farmer pride.

For the first time in the school’s 120-year existence, HHS held a banquet to recognize the players and their crafts.

Various awards were given out at the ceremony, including the Farmer Award, Freshman of the Year, Senior of the Year, Hayward Scholar Team Award and the North Coast Section Scholar Athlete Award — one of the most popular awards given in the program — along with the Most Valuable Player Award.

A recipient of one of two male Senior Athlete of the Year Awards went to Alex Fifita, also a multi-sport athlete representing football as well as track and field.

Fifita has accepted a full-ride scholarship to play left tackle for Fresno State University, and also had offers from Nevada State and the University of Idaho.

“I am pretty excited because this is a lifetime opportunity for me to ever have a chance at a free education, not only that, get to play my favorite sport too,” said Fifita.

Along with playing the left tackle and offensive linemen position for Hayward’s football team, Fifita led the track and field team to a league championship this year by throwing shot-put and discuss.

“Alex transferred in as a sophomore and I wish there were things that we could’ve done differently for him, but ultimately when he’s given a lot more opportunity and room to grow, he’s going to one of the best athletes to have ever come out of this school,” said Prasad, who along with being athletic director is in the midst of her tenth year as head coach for track and field.

A recipient of the MVP Award representing track and field was Milika Funaki, who was also the Senior Female Athlete of the Year.

The multi-sport athlete, who also plays volleyball and softball, is currently ranked in the top six for discus throwers in the NCS.

The senior will be accepting a scholarship offer from San Francisco State University for track and field in the shotput and discus.

“Being MVP inspired me that I am actually good at track and the Athlete of the Year Award shows that I have potential in me for the future,” said Funaki.

“I’m going to take with me the Farmer pride that I’ve had with me since freshmen year and continue reppin’ (stet) Hayward High School.”

The second championship won by a Hayward High team this year came compliment of the men’s soccer team. The Farmers produced a league record of 13-3 and an overall record of 15-5, and was ultimately victorious in their championship game against Mount Eden by shutting them out 2-0.

“It was an outstanding year for our boys. They played really hard, came together as a team and it was really exciting,” said second-year head coach Alex Ortega. “I expect to win league again next year and also make a run at NCS. We have fourteen returners so we’re losing six kids. Just know that the Hayward boys varsity team is coming back stronger next year.”

Although Hayward High has been predominately known for their past successes in football and basketball, as can be shown by the number of pennants hanging in their gym, it was sports like soccer, and track and field that represented the Farmer pride this athletic year with outstanding records and wins.

The Hayward Farmers are currently in the Hayward Area Athletic League (HAAL), which is governed by the North Coast Section (NCS), which is further governed by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF).

Due to the fact that a few of Hayward’s sports are in a developing stage along with sports in various other high schools in the HAAL, the CIF will even the playing field by creating a new conference, the Western Alameda County Conference, or what many Athletic Directors are already referring to as the WACC 12.

This new conference will contain 12 schools and is described by Prasad as being more “competitively equitable across the board.”

Prasad had an opportunity to speak with the superintendent of the Hayward Unified School District about the new league and came to a realization that with the new configuration, more money would have to be spent on the transportation of the various teams to schools that will be further away than before.

Prasad describes that the two agreed they have to give the Hayward community a reason to want to be more involved in HHS and that athletics can be that reason why a community backs the school through rallying behind a championship team, ultimately providing their students with more resources and attention.

“If you look at both programs that won league championships this year, we don’t really even have a home soccer facility. We have just a big field that we make two soccer fields from and its not the greatest facility at all, it really needs to be redone but we won a league championship out of it,” said Prasad.

“Track; we run on a dirt track on campus that we still have to chalk out the lines and our sand pit is grown over with weeds, it’s kind of chaotic but there hasn’t been resources allocated there, yet they still won, yet they still came together and accomplished some great feats. I think that’s the biggest message to pay attention to your high schools. There are some great things going on at some of these high schools, Mount Eden and Tennyson included, and they deserve recognition and support from the community.”

In the end, the banquet was an opportunity for the school to recognize outstanding and hard-working student athletes, but more importantly, emphasizing to the community at large the talent housed and cultivated in their city.

“Traditionally what we were doing was we were recognizing each season of sports. I wanted to reconvene as an entire department and recognize all their team award winners as well as all those student athletes of the year,” said Prasad regarding the decision to create the banquet. “That’s huge, that’s the first time we’ve ever done that where we’ve gotten all thirteen coaches together and said lets vote on who our top athletes of the year are for each grade level. So that was something special in itself because the kids get to see what all their peers are doing.”