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Birt Slater’s sanity was in question. Why would the handsome, charismatic Slater take the head coaching job at Kearny (three winning years in 15 seasons,  all-time record,  45-66-7), when he could have had the San Diego High  job when Duane Maley retired? The answer wasn’t nearly as simple, but Slater eventually created his own powerhouse at this ...

Ed Imo is going into the Kearny Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 13, in a tribute most fitting for the anchor of perhaps the finest team in school history. After a 6-6 tie with Sweetwater in the opening game, Kearny rolled to 12 consecutive victories and the San Diego Section championship. Don Norcross was the quarterback ...

One of St. Augustine’s vagabond teams finally was getting a home. A 330-yard track and field oval would provide the Saints a facility for dual-meet, track-and-field competition beginning in 1960. Football and baseball would still have to travel to  games. Basketball teams had a home since a gymnasium/auditorium was constructed in time for the 1951-52 school year. That ...

Ray Baksh, 80, who coached football at Helix, La Jolla, and St. Augustine and lived  with an entrepreneurial spirit, passed away in San Diego. Baksh was a graduate of Imperial High and is in the Imperial High football Hall of Fame.  A Marine Corps veteran and San Diego State graduate, Ray and his wife Virginia, owned ...

A West Hills athlete dominated Saturday in the Arcadia Invitational, but it wasn’t state-leading discus thrower Brenden Song. Sophomore Melissa Mongiovi, running in the afternoon seeded session, blew out a :55.28, for the overall first-place finish in the Girls’ 400-meter run.  The best the invitational runners could do in  the evening was :56.18. Song, who increased his ...

A few San Diego athletes stood out in the Friday  portion of the Arcadia Invitational. Doton Ogundeji of Madison led a group of discus throwers at 169 feet, 8 inches, third best in the County. Four Mt. Carmel runners averaged 1:57.63 in each of their 800-meter legs as part of the 4×800 seeded races.  Mt. Carmel’s time ...

“Arcadia is the big one,” says Steve Brand.  “It’s the first real indicator of what to expect in the important, late-season meets in May and June.” The Arcadia Invitational track meet at Arcadia High, east of Pasadena, begins this evening and by around 10 p.m. Saturday, April 6, more than 4,000 high school athletes will have ...

On April 17, 1937, John Fawcett of Coronado High came out of the chute on the straightaway at Chaffey High in Ontario and traversed 440 yards in 49.5 seconds. Fawcett handily won his one-turn race in the Chaffey Invitational and set a San Diego County record that would last nine years and a school record that ...

Reggie Bush’s high school career ended on a quiet note, but its brilliance probably outshone any other in the 42-year history of the San Diego Section. Bush scored 75 touchdowns and rushed for 60 touchdowns in three seasons.  He caught passes for nine TD’s, and returned 6 punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns. He even  punted ...

  St. Augustine’s 6-0 run through the San Diego Section, Southern California regionals, and CIF State championship game resulted in the Saints making a huge leap to overall  No. 10 in Cal-Hi Sports’ final rankings for 2012-13. Horizon finished No. 1 in Division V. The Saints were “On the Bubble”, meaning unranked, at the end of the regular ...

The memory of 10-28, 30-41, and 35-43 was erased with one 42-14. After three straight losses to Helix, including one in the San Diego Section Division II finals and another in the semifinals, Oceanside put up the right numbers and stunned the Highlanders, No. 2 in California and No. 25 in the U.S. “We were committed to ...

The circumstance and the stage may have made for the most defining athletic moment in St. Augustine’s 91-year history. It wasn’t that the Saints pulled away from San Francisco Sacred Heart Cathedral in overtime Saturday in Sacramento and won the State Division III championship, 59-52.  That would be second. No. 1 would be the gutty, cold-as-ice performance at ...

Helix’ 41-30 victory over Oceanside in a matchup of Cal-Hi Sports’ Nos. 1 and 2 Division II teams ranks among the all-time San Diego Section playoff games, not only for brilliance but for the bizarre. “It was a game for the ages,” wrote Tom Shanahan of The San Diego Union. Coach Gordon Wood’s Highlanders defended their 2000 ...

St. Augustine won the best 2 out of 5 with Cathedral Catholic. The Saints defeated the Dons with a 25-13 fourth quarter tonight and earned a berth in the Southern California regional finals Saturday at Colony High in Ontario. The final score was 55-45. Coach Mike Haupt’s team commanded the backboards and hit the big shots in ...

  San Diego Section basketball gets its most severe test. Tonight’s Southern California regional semifinals could provide the most definitive view of how local teams stack up against some of the strongest Los Angeles-area teams. The most intriguing matchups take place about 10 miles from each other in L.A.’s  Westside beach communities. Division II No. 3 seed Hoover (31-5) ...

Six San Diego Section teams, out of the original 13, still are practicing and still preparing as the Southern California regional playoffs reach a critical semifinals round. At least one of the remaining six will be eliminated in games Tuesday, March 12, and one will qualify for the finals Saturday, March 16, at Colony High in ...

Eight of 11 San Diego Section teams won first-round games and advanced to Saturday’s Southern California regional quarterfinals.  Two others which received first-round byes will swing into action. Pairings, records ( ) and seeds ): DIVISION I 5) Inglewood (19-10)  at  4) Mission Hills (27-4). II 5) La Costa Canyon (28-5)  at  4) Westlake Village Westlake (27-5). 11) San Marcos (27-5)  ...

Ted Wilson passed away in Maui, Hawaii, last month. To hundreds of San Diegans who knew him, Teddy was your basic,  friendly, next-door neighbor who would laugh at your jokes, no matter how corny, and be Johnny-on-the-Spot in times of need. Wilson, 70,  was an outstanding athlete who came from a family of athletes. Teddy was a two-year ...

St. Augustine saved its best best game for last and earned the No. 1 rating in the final UT-San Diego boys’ basketball poll. The Saints (25-4) raced to a 16-2 lead after the opening tip against Cathedral Catholic in the San Diego Section Division III finals.  They opened the second quarter with another withering burst of ...

Cheikh  N’diaye did a double-pump fist salute to the gallery of Army-Navy students sitting behind the Warriors’ basket in Viejas Arena Saturday. It was a relieved, if rare show of emotion for N’Diaye, whose team had just survived a tense struggle with a tough Mater Dei Catholic squad in the San Diego Section IV finals. Army-Navy’s 56-50 ...