1929: Coronado Steals Some Hilltoppers Thunder
San Diego High was on its fifth head coach in the last three seasons and found itself sharing headlines for the first time with a team not from Long Beach.
Coronado High, across San Diego Bay, was flexing muscles.
Controversy would follow.
John Perry left coaching after the 1926 season and was succeeded by John Hobbs in 1927 and Mike Morrow and Charlie Church in 1928, changes that were followed by a couple years of mediocrity.
The new coach was John Harold (Hobbs) Adams, a former standout USC lineman fresh from a head coaching stint at Monrovia High.
Adams played on Perry’s 1920 and ’21 San Diego High teams (in 2013 Adams was a second-team lineman on the all-time, all-San Diego County high school squad).
Adams’s first team posted a 6-1 record, beaten only by archrival Poly, 20-13, in a Coast League battle before an estimated 13,000 persons in City Stadium.
After that game Coronado coach Amos Schaeffer, who attended the contest between the Hilltoppers and Jackrabbits, “challenged” the Long Beach team.
Under a CIF Southern Section rule, Coronado, a Group B (minor) school, could issue a challenge a Group A (major school).
PLAYOFFS OR BOWLS?
Media described the process and similar other midseason challenges as “playoffs”. In reality they were more like midseason “bowl” games. In effect the games helped the CIF project its postseason invitations.
Nov. 9 had been set aside as a date by the California Interscholastic Federation for challenge games open to all schools.
The CIF struggled for years to find a structured playoff format. Four teams, beginning play in a semifinal round, eventually were selected this season by Secretary Seth Van Patten, after the schools agreed to participate.
The Islanders, with Frank (Toady) Greene and Johnny Lyons leading 15 outmanned teammates, took the fight to mighty Poly, leading 7-6 with six minutes to play before bowing 20-7 in front of 7,000 spectators at Poly’s David Burcham Field.
Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times described a “courageous” Poly team, apparently the underdog, that came from behind to defeat the heralded and “classy Coronado eleven”.
Greene set a standing state record with 11 touchdowns and 14 points after touchdown in a 108-0 victory over Sweetwater and held the school season scoring record with 164 points for 74 years. J.T. Rogan, playing in 11 games, broke Greene’s record in 2003.
Speculation was that San Diego and Coronado would meet in a postseason game for city bragging rights, but another CIF rule and prior scheduling by the teams prevented a showdown.
San Diego seemingly was set for a game on Thanksgiving day with Tucson High of Arizona after finishing runner-up to Poly in the Coast League and Coronado was rumored to be going into the Southern Section Group B playoffs.
None of those games materialized. Nor did a Nov. 9 San Diego High challenge to Fullerton, which instead played Brea. A San Diego challenge to Covina also fell through.
COACH CALLS OUT CORONADO
Local fans had flooded media outlets with calls for a San Diego-Coronado showdown. The San Diego Sun reported that a game was in the works.
Adams reacted.
The Sun:
Herrick attempted to cool the Adams-stirred controversy, pointing out that “although noted for his impulsiveness, Adams claims he was misquoted.”
The Cavers and Islanders could have met on Nov. 9, since Coronado coach Schaefer, in attendance at the Oct. 26 Poly-San Diego battle in City Stadium, had informed Herrick that day that he would challenge the Jackrabbits-Hilltoppers winner.
ISLANDERS COACH FIRES BACK
The affable mentor was just warming up:
THE COTTON TOP
Irvine (Cotton) Warburton has been honored as one of San Diego High’s all-time athletes, known throughout Southern California as a champion 440-yard runner, having won the state championship with a time of :49.6 in the spring and leading Hobbs Adams’ team in the fall with 10 touchdowns in seven games.
Warburton went on to become an All-America at USC and, like other Trojans athletes, went into the film industry. He won an Academy Award for cinematography in 1964 for Mary Poppins
LONELY SAINTS
Out of the loop was St. Augustine High, coached by Herb (Duke) Corriere. The Saints were without a league affiliation and virtually without a country.
The Saints’ motto could have been “Have team, will travel. Expenses negotiable.”
The school at 32nd Street and Nutmeg also played by its own rules. San Diego High graduates Blas Torres and Harry Jones were standouts on this year’s squad, which posted a 7-3 record against teams from all over, several of which were not on the schedule Corriere announced in September.
There were 13 high schools in San Diego County, population approximately 210,000. Julian, Mountain Empire, Fallbrook and Ramona did not field teams. Others playing varsity football were Point Loma, La Jolla, Oceanside, Sweetwater, Grossmont, Escondido, and Army-Navy Academy.
Escondido principal Martin Perry convened a meeting of Southern Prep League honchos to protest a 6-6 tie with La Jolla. An apparent winning Escondido touchdown was disallowed by referee Glenn Broderick, who penalized the Cougars for having too many men on the field.
Perry and his coach, Harry Wexler, appealed on the basis that the offending player had not interfered with the game action and was yards away from the play.
Appeal denied.
The large throng at City Stadium watched Long Beach Poly overcome San Diego, 20-13, with two late touchdowns the day after the stock market crash and earn the Coast League championship and trip to the playoffs.
Poly defeated Huntington Park, 7-6, and met Santa Barbara, 2-0 winner over Fullerton, for the CIF Group A championship. The Jackrabbits outran the Golden Tornado, 14-6.
The Los Angeles Times, quoting CIF boss Seth Van Patten, reported the next day that the game was on and that if Santa Barbara did not show the contest would be ruled a forfeit.
Coincidentally, the flu outbreak was revealed about the time big wigs from Santa Barbara were told the championship would be played at Poly’s Burcham Field. Neutral Wrigley Field and the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles were unavailable.
MERCY FOR ARMY-NAVY?
The Cavemen, or Hilltoppers, take your choice, scored all of their 27 points in the fourth quarter of a shutout at Army-Navy. Hobbs Adams played his reserves in the first three quarters.
Was the San Diego coach worried about blowback from earlier in the decade?
This was the first game between the teams since 1922. Adams was a member of John Perry’s 1920 squad that hung a 130-7 defeat on the Warriors. Two seasons later Army-Navy was on the short end of a 106-6 score.
NO BLAST
FOOTBALL IN MOUNTAINS?
It would be 1938 before the Bulldogs took the field in a regulation game.
TRUE GRID