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Retired after an honored career in the Marine Corps, Robert E. (Bull) Trometter took a high school job. Trometter could employ a figurative steel fist while upholding the meaning of semper fidelis (always faithful, always loyal) as head coach at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot in 1947-48, at Camp Pendleton in 1949, and at ...

John J. Montgomery High’s football history does not require an encyclopedic tome. A few pages would be more than enough. Most of those pages would be devoted to the 1982 season.  Coach John DeVore’s Aztecs posted a 9-2 record, the best in their history and one of the few winning seasons since the  Otay Mesa school opened ...

Coach Hobbs Adams was in his office a couple years before, finishing some paper work during the quiet of the Christmas vacation break. A strapping youngster walked into the school’s recently constructed gymnasium and found Adams at his desk. The visitor told Adams he was from Texas and wanted to play football at San Diego High. Adams was curious. The coach ...

Wait till next year seems appropriate in San Diego Section basketball, according to the Cal-Hi Sports newsletter. The Stockton-based publication is suggesting that St. Augustine could be a Top 20 team in the 2015-16 season. That would be an accomplishment, since no San Diego squad finished in Cal-Hi Sports’ Top 20 this season. St. Augustine was 23rd, Torrey ...

Oakland Raiders managing general partner Al Davis spoke in 2006 about Art Powell, whom Davis signed out of the Canadian Football League years before. “I wish I could take you back to 1963,” said Davis, “because I had one of the greatest receivers who have ever played this game.  His first year for me, he carried ...

The Star Spangled Banner became our national anthem, Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion, the Empire State Building rose in Manhattan, the small community of Las Vegas voted to legalize gambling. And 8 million Americans, at least 16 per cent of the work force, were on the street, out of work, and soon to be ...

San Diego Section teams came home with one championship in the state basketball tournament, old reliable La Jolla Country Day’s girls winning in Division V, 40-36 over Palo Alto Eastside Prep. The title was coach Terry Bamford’s fourth.  The Torreys finished with an 18-11 record, not their best, but Bamford sees the big picture, schedules tough, and points ...

GIRLS /easytable]

BOYS GIRLS

San Diego High avoided a tragic event when star sophomore fullback Bert Ritchey almost drowned before the Hilltoppers’ “bowl game” at Phoenix Union. After  a 12-hour ride on a special San Diego & Arizona railroad car and arriving Friday morning, the Cavemen worked out at Phoenix’s Riverside Park late Friday afternoon.  That evening many in the squad ...

Can coach John Olive’s tough-minded, resourceful Torrey Pines Falcons pull off another victory in Tuesday’s Southern California playoff Division I semifinals? The No. 6-seed Falcons, trailing, 43-40, after three quarters, walked down host No. 3 Long Beach Poly, 54-49, in the quarterfinals Saturday night.  The Falcons now visit 2 seed Chino Hills, averaging a turbo-charged  85.4 points and holding a 78-54 victory over ...

Winning a league and section title no longer matters, according to the convoluted “power” ratings and Open divisions established by the state CIF and endorsed by the San Diego Section. The Horizon girls’ basketball team was essentially told to drop dead by the CIF after the Panthers had won their league title and the San Diego Section ...

Ugly blowouts apparently in the rear view mirror, the San Diego Section basketball playoffs reach the semifinals round this week in the Open and Divisions I-V. The so-called CIF power ratings, with  their comprehensive reviews of statistics, scores, strength of schedule, etc., raised questions when Vista was accorded an Open Division berth, resulting in Francis Parker and Morse being ...

San Diego coach Duane Maley said it best:  “He can run sideways faster than most backs can forward.” Maley spoke of a favored player,  5-foot, 4-inch, 145-pound halfback Cleveland (Smiley) Jones, who literally carried the 1956 Cavemen. Jones was the City Prep League player of the year despite missing almost all of two games and parts of ...

Kearny High and Point Loma kicked off at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26, 1979, and the Komets clinched a 9-6 victory on Oct. 27, 1979, about 18 hours later. Five seconds remained on the clock when the Komets’ Jim Goosens attempted the first field goal of his life and booted a 25-yard placement that sent everyone ...

A stunning, 20-12 victory over archrival San Diego High brought back a flood of memories to Hoover coach Roy Engle. —That hazy afternoon in Balboa Stadium in 1935 when Engle drove the Cardinals to a fourth-quarter, 7-6 victory over San Diego. —Engle, the senior ball carrier, gaining the final 25 yards in three carries in the 80-yard ...

Ron Dargo, 69, who pitched Crawford High to the 1962 San Diego Section baseball championship, passed away recently at his home in Spring Valley. Dargo, a lefthander, and  John Allison, who pitched from the right side, led a late-season Colts playoff push after they finished second to San Diego in the Eastern League race. The Colts, who ...

Lincoln and Mission Bay took their first, tentative steps. St. Augustine continued to push for league affiliation. North County schools wanted to be closer to home. Army-Navy and Brown Military didn’t want to be left out. Such was the landscape, which promised to  change.   Joe Rindone, principal of Chula Vista High and president of the CIF Southern Section executive ...

The sluggish UT-San Diego poll showed no change in the first six positions from last week with  minor juggling after that, most notable being St. Augustine’s rising from 10th to seventh. Meanwhile, there continues to be an absence of San Diego Section teams in the Cal-Hi Sports state top 20. Torrey Pines, Foothills Christian, La Costa Canyon, and ...

Billy Casper, who passed away recently at age 83, was not only a Hall of Fame golfer as a professional but  also made his mark as a student  at Chula Vista High. Casper was runner-up as a sophomore, champion as a junior, and runner-up as a senior in the CIF Southern Section golf championships from 1948-50. Casper ...