1941: Hillers Can’t Get Over Final Hurdle

Those pesky uprights.

San Diego High’s presumed run to a state championship was blindsided when Ed Pohl, leading as he approached the final obstacle in the 220-yard hurdles, slammed into a 30-inch barrier at San Jose State’s Spartan Stadium.

Pohl stumbled and tried to recover but tripped across the rail separating the field from the track, fell across the finish line in third place, and was disqualified for a lane violation.

The sudden swing from an expected five to zero points, in an event historically known for missteps, knocked the Hillers out of their second team championship in the last four years.

If Pohl had finished the race in front, as seemed certain, San Diego’s point total of 23 would have edged Fresno Edison Technical, which had 22.

The Hillers finished second with 18 points.  Glenn Willis was runner-up in the 100, won the 220 in :21.7, and rolled with his baton-exchanging 880-yard relay teammates to a triumph in 1:29. Lou Barrera was second to the :49.9 440 of Whittier’s O.B. Hughes.

Central Section teams, Edison, Lindsay (14), and Bakersfield (10) were 1, 3, and 4. Hoover was tied for sixth with 7 points. Los Angeles City Section schools did not participate.

Pohl’s misfortune was the only blotch on an outstanding season, in which San Diego and Hoover, the two big entries from the Border City, dominated Southern California.

The Hillers, coached by Ed Ruffa, and the Cardinals, mentored by future San Diego High principal Lawrence Carr, battled in two supercharged dual meets after a water-logged beginning to the season.

JUPITER PLUVIOUS UNCOOPERATIVE

The mythical Roman rain-giver hammered San Diego so often that 24.74 inches of precipitation were measured in the 1940-41 calendar year, the city’s second highest total since 1850, when records began being kept.

Dual meets all over the area were washed out in March.

Ruffa even took his team to Grossmont High for a training session on the Foothillers crushed granite layout, which dried more quickly than the cinder track in Balboa Stadium, the Hillers’ home.

Because the Coast League had dwindled to three members, San Diego, Hoover, and Long Beach Poly, the Hillers and Cardinals would meet twice and face Poly only in the all-Coast League finals.

RECORD RELAY

Ruffa’s favored team, led by Pohl and sprinters Lou Barrera, Glenn Willis, and Don Smalley, nipped Hoover in the first showdown, 61 ½-56 ½, by traversing the final-event, 880-yard relay in a meet record 1:29.8.

Competition was tight throughout the afternoon, but the Hillers hurt the Cardinals when Willis won the broad jump at 21 feet, 11 inches, and hop, step, and jump at 43 feet, topping the favored Willie Steele of Hoover.

“If we could use Emmet Marshall, Willie Steele, and Jack Kaiser in more than three events we’d have a good chance to beat San Diego,” said Carr, as the teams prepared for their second meeting.

Carr was aware that his aces could enter only three events plus the relay .

San Diego had been slightly diminished when Leroy Sheffield, second in the 440 in the earlier joust, dropped out of school.

Ruffa switched Barrera from the 220 to the 440 and Barrera won in: 50.5.

But Kaiser and Steele upset Pohl with a 1-2 finish in the 120-yard high hurdles as Kaiser set a school record of :16.0.

Kaiser shared first in the high jump with two teammates at 5-foot-6 and Marshall, shut out in two events, got up for second against Pohl in the 220-yard lows.

FUTURE OLYMPIC CHAMP

Steele, who seven years later as a San Diego State athlete won the Olympic gold medal in London and had a career best of 26 feet, 6 inches, got even with Willis, winning the broad jump at 23-5, almost two feet further than his previous best, and the hop, step, and jump at 45 feet ½ inch.

The Cardinals’ Ted Jacobs won the shot put at 50-7½ and Bob Keefe took the pole vault at 12 feet.

Al Salmon won the mile in 4:38.4 and San Diego was first in the 880-yard relay in 1:30.3, but the Cardinals, outscoring San Diego, 37-7, in field events, where it was weakest, scored a stunning, 58-55 victory.

SOUTHERN COUNTIES

One of the few events that went off on schedule in March was the Southern Counties Invitational at Huntington Beach High, where the Cavers set a record with 41 points.

San Diego ran away with the team championship.  Ontario Chaffey was runner-up with 13 ½.

Ed Pohl won the 220-yard low hurdles in: 24.3 and anchored a 1:30.1 relay effort that bettered the meet standard of 1:31.0 that San Diego set in 1932.

Lou Barrera was a triple winner at :10 in the 100-yard dash and :21.6 in the 220 and ran a leg in the relay.  Al Salmon won the mile in 4:38.6 and Leonard Fierro was first in one of two 880-yard races in 2:05.8.

Coronado finished third in the small schools division with 14 points, behind Tustin (19) and Newport Beach Newport Harbor (18 ½).

COAST LEAGUE FINALS

The team championship would be decided by the cumulative scores of each school’s A, B, and C teams, which put some spotlight on the nominally younger, lighter, and shorter competitors.

San Diego scored 71 points, Hoover 54, and Poly 15 in Class A, but Poly scored 57, San Diego 35 ½, and Hoover 26 ½ in the B’s.

San Diego reached only 19 ½ in the C’s, behind Hoover’s 42, and Poly’s 35 ½, but the relatively obscure Jim Springfield upset the Class C field late in the afternoon with a first place finish of 5-6 ½ in the high jump to put the Hillers over the top.

San Diego posted an aggregate total of 126 points, Hoover 122 ½, and Poly 107.

Willis ran a career best :09.8 100, came back with a :22 flat 220, and contributed to the Hillers’ 1:29.5, league-record relay time.  Ernest Collier won the 880 in 2:04.3 and Al Salmon ran 4:36.6 for first in the mile.

Hoover’s Jack Kaiser and Willie Steele were blanked in the hurdles, knocking the legs out of the Cardinals’ title ambitions, but Kaiser won the high jump at 6-1 ¾ and Steele doubled in the broad jump (22-8 ½) and H-S-J (44-10 ½).

DIVISIONAL

San Diego and Hoover were aligned with league qualifiers from the Metropolitan, Southern Prep, and Imperial Valley leagues at the San Diego State facility.  Long Beach Poly was in the divisional at Huntington Park.

San Diego won eight track events and outscored Hoover, 66-38, with Holtville, led by pole vaulter Morton, who cleared 13 feet, next with 22.

Pohl was a double winner at :16 flat in the high hurdles and :24.4 in the lows.  Barrera ran :50.1 in the 440 and Willis :10 flat and :21.7 in the sprints. Al Salmon logged a 4:36.3 mile.

LARGEST IN 25 YEARS

The Southern California finals at Glendale Hoover were a coronation for the Hilltoppers.

They scored 34 points, the most since Los Angeles Manual Arts had 52 1/2 in 1916. Glendale Hoover had 16 and San Diego Hoover 15 ½.

“Even better than advertised,” was the observation of the Hillers by the Los Angeles Times’ Bob Smyser.  San Diego scored in seven of the eight running events.

Willis doubled in the 100 (:10.1) and led a 1-2 220 (:22.6) with Don Smalley, and contributed to San Diego’s school record, 1:28.7 victory in the relay. Lou Barrera was unofficially clocked in :49.8 running behind the :49.3 of Whittier’s O.B. Hughes.

Willie Steele of Hoover soared 24 feet, ¾ inch and bettered the record of 24-3/8 by Bill Bugbee of Redondo Beach Redondo Union in 1937.   Santa Monica’s Thelmo Knowles set a record of 1:55.7 in the 880 and the Hillers’ Lou Fierro and Ernest Collier were fourth and fifth.

Ed Pohl was fourth in the 120 high hurdles, won by Jack Nelson of El Monte in :15.6.  Pohl came back to win the 220 lows in :24.5.

Hoover’s Ted Jacobs was fourth in the shot put at 49 feet, 11 15/16 inches, short of his best of 50-7 1/2, and Jack Kaiser tied for first in the high jump at 6-2.

Hoover’s Jack Kaiser (left) and Willie Steele (right) finished 1-2 against San Diego’s Ed Pohl in high hurdles to fuel the Cardinals’ victory in dual rematch.

RED DEVILS RULE

Sweetwater defeated Grossmont, 66-38, in their traditional dual meet and was almost unbeatable in the Metropolitan League, 6-0 in Class A, losing two B meets, and sweeping Class C opposition.

The Red Devils were led by sprinter Marcos Alonzo, who had bests of :10.2 in the 100 and: 22.9 in the 220.

Alonzo, miler Ken Owens, half-miler Tex Comer, and high jumper Jim Bennett were undefeated in dual meet competition.

ANOTHER “RELAY”

Don King in Caver Conquest noted the speed and resourcefulness of Glenn Willis and Don Smalley on another venue.

One of the sprinters would board a street car using a transfer, take a seat, and pass the slip through an open window to the other, who would then race to the next stop and board with the same transfer.

A SCHOOL RECORD, AT LEAST

San Diego High’s 880-yard relay team competed in a special, high school race that was part of the Compton Invitational two weeks after the state meet.

Little is known.  There was no coverage in San Diego newspapers, but the final paragraph in the Los Angeles Times‘ story declared that a “San Diego quartet set a national record in the half-mile relay”.  No time was listed.

Don King’s Caver Conquest declared the Hillers had been clocked in 1:27.8 for the 880 yards that evening,  The school actually listed 1:27.9 as the record until the group of Roscoe Cook, Charles (Sugar Jet) Davis, Willie Jordan, and Bob Staten ran 1:27.2 in 1957.

The Times story had to have been in error.  The accepted national record in 1941 was 1:27.7 by L.A. Manual Arts in 1934.

It still was an outstanding end to a superb season for the Hillers.

SPIKE DUST

Jack Kaiser high jumped 6 feet, 3 1/4 inches for Hoover March 25 versus Escondido, close to the school record of 6-3 1/2, set by Alvin Cordray in 1938…the Long Beach Relays, held traditionally on the first weekend in March, was rescheduled two weeks later, on the same day as the Southern Counties Invitational at Huntington Beach…Hillers coach Ed Ruffa sent what amounted to a junior varsity contingent to Long Beach and it responded by placing fourth and fifth in such events as the 440 relay, 880 relay, mile relay and the medley relay, the latter in which competitors run different distances…the San Diego and Hoover lower division squads had Balboa Stadium to themselves the day before the varsity squads met for the second time…the Hoover B’s won, 53 ½-41 ½, and the C’s won, 55 ½-31 ½…Point Loma’s Brent Stover set a school record with a :52.6 in the 440…the first San Diego-Hoover dual was supposed to be a triangular meet, but Grossmont showed up with so few varsity competitors that only the Foothillers’ B’s and C’s competed….