4S RANCH ---- The site of the campus for Del Norte High was on Mike Giaime's radar long before he was hired as the new school's athletic director.

"My brother and I used to ride our BMX bikes around the mountain, come through here and this is where it spit out," said Giaime, who grew up in Rancho Penasquitos and attended Mt. Carmel, where he played baseball with future major leaguers Eric Chavez and Eric Munson.

"It's where our stadium and back athletic fields are now. It connected Penasquitos to RB. At that time, we called it Artesian. We didn't even know what 4S Ranch was.

"I saw the trail when I was walking around the school. I was like, 'That's the trail that we took. There it is!' ... This area has grown. But in '90, '91, this was nothing but cow pastures."

The $100 million-plus campus that opened for business last month is getting up and running this year with a little more than 800 students, all of whom are freshmen or sophomores. Technically, there will be no varsity sports until fall 2010, although Giaime said he recently learned that his girls golfers will be able to compete as varsity athletes.

"I guess it (golf) is a different beast," he said, "so I'm told."

Last week, as Giaime began to gain some traction in his new position, he proudly showed off some of the school's sports uniforms, made by Under Armour, and explained the school logo, an interlocking 'D' and 'N', which bears a strong resemblance to Notre Dame's, except the letters are inverted. His enthusiasm was palpable.

"I got my degrees in education," he said. "I didn't get them in marketing. But you know what, like Oregon, they market themselves very well. Southern California, Notre Dame, they all market very well.

"For us, if you see that 'DN' with the Nighthawk head right there, that's us. There's no question about it."

Derek Magill is one of the school's approximately 280 sophomores. Lenny Magill, his brother, was the quarterback at Torrey Pines last season. He's now at Bucknell. Rather than follow in his brother's footsteps, Magill took advantage of the school's open enrollment policy and transferred to Del Norte.

Two weeks ago, Magill played in the first home football game. About 4,000 people showed up.

"It was exciting, really different," Magill said. "When I played freshman, no one was there. And JV games at Torrey Pines, hardly anybody went there, either. It felt like a varsity game.

"I expected there would be a good amount of people, but the magnitude of that ---- 4,000 people ---- I never thought there would be that many. It was kind of shocking."

Then the whistle blew, the ball was kicked off, and Magill and his teammates were dealt another shock. Final score: Westview 42, Del Norte 0.

That had to be disappointing, no?

"Each week we're improving," Magill explained. "We're getting better and better. We're trying to work toward being as good as we can be. I'm really excited. It's completely different, a whole new experience."

And improve, the Nighthawks did. Last week, they played Rancho Buena Vista and lost 27-16.

"We improved a lot," Magill said. "We scored two touchdowns."

Jerry Ralph's mama might not have told him he would have days like that, but Ed Burke did. Ralph is the former head coach at Santana and St. Augustine whom Giaime hired to get the football program off the ground. Naturally, there have been challenges, such as the temporary absence of a weight room and the failure of the school to meet its quota of sophomores.

Ralph lives in Oceanside and is a neighbor of John Carroll. Burke, who coached at San Dieguito and Torrey Pines and is now retired, is another coaching colleague.

There is an adage among coaches that opening a new school is great ... but just do it once.

"That's what Ed Burke told me," Ralph said. "He said, 'You're going to love this experience, opening a school.' He said, 'Enjoy every day and don't get frustrated.'"

"And that's been my thing. So the first week, we lost bad to Westview. But it was a beautiful thing. The whole community was out here; we had 4,000 people. The kids were fired up. And the following week, what happens? The freshmen beat a Division I school, Rancho Buena Vista."

Ralph and basketball coach Bob Spahn, a 20-year veteran of the Marines, represent one end of the coaching continuum. At the other end is baseball coach Rielly Embrey, who played his high school ball at Poway and went down in history as the first player to hit a home run at Petco Park when he was playing for San Diego State in 2004.

Before coming to Del Norte, Embrey spent one season at Westview working with the freshman team and two years coaching the junior varsity at Rancho Bernardo under Sam Blalock.

"Obviously, it's a very exciting opportunity to get a chance to build something at this school and to be surrounded by other coaches who have been successful," Embrey said. "I'll steal some ideas from them when I can.

"I had a chance to be in some successful programs both as a player and as a coach the last couple years. And I learned from some of the best coaches around here. I'm looking forward to a chance to apply some of that stuff, add in some of my own things I've picked up along the way and see what we can turn out on the field."

Magill is 6-foot-1, 165 pounds and already looks like a varsity athlete. But he said he has a 3.8 grade-point average and that his decision to attend Del Norte took into account athletics and academics.

"I wouldn't have left just for sports," he said. "It was the whole thing.

"I like the small classes; there are less kids in the classes so you get to know the teachers better. It's a good learning environment.

"There's a lot of positives about being in a new school. Everything is new. But this is a building year for the school, and the football team as well. We're building for the future."

That future is just around the corner. Or, as Giaime could testify, just around the mountain.

Contact staff writer Tom Sheridan at 951-676-4315, ext. 2649.

Del Norte High School

Opened: August 2009

Nickname: Nighthawks

Colors: Navy Blue and Green

Schedule: Trimester calendar

Feeder schools: Stone Ranch Elementary, Monterey Ridge Elementary, Oak Valley Middle School