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Not exactly modern hard rap, but school administrators weren’t amused when they heard students in the San Diego High cheering section “dissing” their  Hoover counterparts. The Hilltoppers sung to the tune of an old Army field artillery ditty, “Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail…as those caissons go rolling along”. With apologies to Tom Ables, San Diego High, ...

Oct. 5 was bearing down on Kearny High football coach Darrell Smith.  His team would play the first football game in school history, a night game no less, at Coronado High against the Islanders’ junior varsity. Problem. An important component of the  Komets’ uniform was missing, caused by a delay in shipment  by the manufacturer. Coronado coach Hal ...

Cathedral’s honored program took a body blow this week when the Dons were forced to forfeit eight victories in an 8-2 season and were knocked out the postseason. The Dons self-reported an ineligible player, who appeared in all 10 Cathedral games. San Diego Section rules state that a team with three forfeits cannot participate in the ...

And then there were 40. Twenty teams were eliminated in first-round, San Diego Section playoff games last week. There were no upsets but maybe a mild surprise or two. Army-Navy, 10-0 and coming off the best regular season in the school’s 102-year history, was knocked out by Calipatria, 41-21, in Division IV. The teams had one common opponent. Army-Navy ...

More than 400 members of the San Diego County Football Officials’ Association, including four active NFL game officials, gathered at the Hall of Champions this week for their annual awards dinner. Among those attending were referee Mike Carey (University High/Santa Clara University), back judge Don Carey (St. Augustine/California-Riverside), umpire Garth DeFelice (Patrick Henry/San Diego State), and ...

Oceanside won the regular-season poll and could end up meeting No. 2 Helix in the AA finals at Escondido High in four weeks. And dust is kicking up in the  sand dunes around Glamis as the Imperial Valley girds a for a possible second-round meeting of two area big shots. Brawley (9-1) has a first-round bye in Division ...

The most important letter in the alphabet was V. World War II was nearing the halfway point.  The dark days of early 1942 had receded and Victory, while not yet in sight, was coming. V had become a symbol, visible everywhere throughout the country. There were hundreds of references, from military training programs (V-12), to graphics on ...

“Elevator! Elevator! We got the shaft!” The age-old shout from unhappy cheering sections, usually directed at game referees, was leveled by head coach Dick Haines and Vista partisans at nine coaches charged with seeding and selecting teams for the San Diego Section playoffs. The mentors, reportedly by an 8-1 vote, nominated San Dieguito as the twelfth and ...

You could call it the “Battle of Banner Grade.” Or, as the father of the Julian coach says, “It’s kind of a Cal-Stanford Big Game.” Coach Tim White, the son of University of California alum and legendary San Diego Chargers lineman Ed White,  guided his Julian Eagles to two touchdowns in the final four minutes and then saw his ...

The chapter on football would be very brief in the history of the Army and Navy Academy and its history goes back to 1910. They turn out soldiers and sailors at the boarding school on Highway 101 in Carlsbad. So old and new Warriors have snapped to attention.  Coach Frank Henry’s Cadets improved their season record to ...

Oceanside held sway for the fifth consecutive week in the renamed U-T San Diego poll of sportswriters and sportscasters. The San Diego newspaper recently acquired the North County Times, which created the poll. John Carroll’s Oceanside Pirates routed Vista 44-0 in a game that was played in less than two hours because of a running clock  ...

Duane Maley felt like the guy who discovered that his wallet had been lifted after being jostled in a crowded theater. Maley  ended up on the wrong side of the coin minutes after conclusion of a tight, competitive City Prep League season.  Maley’s San Diego Cavemen and Walt Harvey’s La Jolla Vikings, each with a 5-1 ...

Army-Navy, Grossmont, Olympian, and Otay Ranch continue to win, each improving to a 6-0 won-loss record.  Calexico, Patrick Henry, Hoover, and West Hills all were beaten after winning their first five games. Army-Navy scored a 1-0, forfeit win over Calvin Christian.  Grossmont defeated Granite Hills, 48-6.  Olympian beat El Capitan, 41-6, and Otay Ranch topped Bonita ...

It has been said for years  that San Diego produces many  of the best of the best players, but falls short when matching up with teams from North of the County line. That holds true in 2012. Not counting Imperial County members, San Diego Section squads were 29-25-2  in pre-league intersectional games this season, but many ...

This could become a habit.  Vista won another 2-0 game. The Panthers defeated Torrey Pines, with a safety the only score in the game last week. It was the second safety-only game in the 758  Vista has played since the school opened in 1937.  Not a trend, but the Panthers are working on it. Vista last won 2-0 when it defeated ...

There were no sonic booms and reveille still sounded at the usual time on the nearby Camp Pendleton military reservation after Roy Scaffidi announced he was moving senior quarterback Junior Seau to wide receiver. That Seau also played a fine game at linebacker also did not register with a service rating the top players in the ...

At least five games have been canceled against San Diego Section teams this season and are being considered forfeited, not because of the usual Dreaded Administrative Glitch reasons of player academic ineligibility or residential  transfer no-no’s. Temecula Rancho Christian suspended its season and fired the head coach after a 43-6 loss to Whittier La Serna in ...

Coach Troy Starr’s Helix Highlanders received all 27 first-place votes for a maximum 270 points in the North County Times sportswriters-sportscasters poll after defeating Vista 43-7 last week. Helix had 13 first-place votes in the preseason poll and 20 after games of Week 1. The Highlanders take on a third, ranked opponent from the San Diego Section ...

Helix’s 28-6 victory over Eastlake on the season’s opening weekend assured the Highlanders of remaining No. 1 in the North County Times sportswriters-sportscasters poll. Helix had 13 first-place votes in the preseason poll last week and picked up seven more this week for a point total of 253. Oceanside blew out Oakdale, a Northern California Division II ...

There are at least 21 new head coaches in the San Diego Section. More could be revealed as the season, which began Aug. 24 with Calvary Christian San Diego defeating visiting Las Vegas Calvary Chapel, 37-22, opens on a full scale this week. A new league, the City, also makes a debut and changes have been ...