2013, Week 6: Komets to Leave Home

Birt Slater Field on the Kearny High campus is going to be dug up and a new field will be in place by 2014.

The Komets will play their remaining three, 2013 home games at Madison, versus Clairemont, Point Loma, and La Jolla.

In tribute to the legendary coach, who was 89 when he passed away Sept. 3, Komets coach Kenny Nears hoped the team could turn out in the final game against Lincoln in Kearny’s vintage, striped uniforms, which had been outlawed by the National Federation of High School associations.

The white stripes on the maroon jerseys had to be modified, as did the maroon stripes on the white jerseys. The stripes had to be of a certain width and length.

The rule, which had been on the books several years, also essentially mandates  that home teams wear dark jerseys and visiting teams white jerseys.

Kearny’s predominant stripes supposedly posed a visual problem for officials calling games, although that has been disputed by members of the San Diego County Officials’ Association.

Lincoln defeated Kearny, 18-16, and the Komets’ request to wear the old uniforms was denied by school officials, citing the existing rule.

PRISON BARS

Several reasons have been given as to why Slater designed the stripes in 1961, his third season as head coach.

A popular story told by Slater is that he became enamored of the uniforms worn in a college game Slater was watching on television.

Slater never would state publicly what he told me probably 40 years ago. “I love those stripes…they remind me of prison bars,”said Slater, who was a tough-minded, challenging coach.  “You look tough in them.  You feel tough.  Of course, you have to play tough.”

“We got a lot of criticism at first,” Slater remembered.  “But we won a lot of games, and we didn’t hear much after that.  I figured if we wore them, we’d have to win with them.”

As Larry Shepard, quarterback of the 1963 San Diego Section championship team, remarked in a stirring testimonial at Slater’s memorial, with one of the old jerseys hanging from the podium: “They gave our team and our community an identity, which we didn’t have.”

SANTA FE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLED

Santa Fe Christian’s opponent was as long on talent as the identity of the man after whom the school was named when it opened in 1959.

Santa Barbara Bishop Diego, in honor of Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, the first bishop of the diocese of the two Californias in 1840, hammered the Eagles Saturday afternoon, 34-3.

On a hot, windy Santa Ana day, on which temperatures were near the nineties at the coastal campus in Solana Beach, Bishop Diego enhanced its top rating among the state’s small schools in the competitive Division IV.

The Eagles were on the shorter end of a 13-8 score in 2012 at Bishop Diego.

Entering  Week 6 games, Christian and Francis Parker ranked No. 2 and No. 4, and Santa Fe Christian was No. 8 in Cal Hi Sports’ State Bowl South rankings. Christian was edged by Mission Bay, 24-21, and fell out of the undefeated ranks at 5-1.  Francis Parker, 4-0, remained unbeaten after a bye.

But ‘Fe coach Jon Wallace told writer John (‘Fei) Maffei, “We don’t look at ratings, ours or theirs. Our goal is to win the Coastal League and the San Diego Section title….”

The real racing begins next week for many teams throughout the section, with the beginning of league play.

QUICK KICKS

Six of UT-San Diego’s Top 10 were idle last week…No. 3 Eastlake slammed Sweetwater, 52-14; No. 5 Cathedral drubbed Morse, 42-13; No. 7 Madison  whacked Mira Mesa, 41-6, and No. 10 El Capitan beat Granite Hills, 55-14…Army-Navy inaugurated football at its new facility and was on the wrong end of a 49-0 thumping by The Bishop’s…a 49-0 victory at Tri-City Christian was the 100th victory at La Jolla Country Day for coach Jeff Hutzler…he’s 100-33 with the Torreys…