2016 Week 1: First Poll Like Last; Coach Changes, Con’t
Helix and St. Augustine are 1-2 in the first Union-Tribune football poll and that’s how they finished in 2015. The Highlanders and most of the rest of the San Diego Section open the season this week, marking one the earliest starts in County history, probably preceded only by the Hawaii preseason trips that were popular a couple […]
Read More1915: Hilltoppers Have Their Field of Dreams
“City” Stadium, a horseshoe-shaped edifice with a declared 23,312 concrete seats, opened the previous spring in the back yard of San Diego High. Coincidentally, football fortunes improved on the Hilltop. Coach Clarence (Nibs) Price, 2-3-1 in his inaugural 1914 season, guided the school to its best record in the 23 years since the game was […]
Read More1917: Hilltoppers Learn it’s Difficult to Repeat
Uneasy rested the crown. San Diego High, anointed the best high school team in the country by a New York publication after the 12-0 campaign of 1916, experienced a season of highs and lows, emphasis on the latter. Coach Clarence (Nibs) Price, who started practice in September with news that his best player was “dangerously […]
Read More2016: Coaches’ Revolving Door: 19 Changes
At least 19 schools in the San Diego Section changed football coaches this season and probably that many reasons could be offered for this arguably massive turnover. In no particular order, a few possible explanations:: — Pressure to win — Long hours and low stipend pay — Player eligibility — Transfer headaches — Meddling administrators — […]
Read More2016: The Grandkids
We’ve been idle since the state high school track meet and probably won’t be posting much for the next month, as our two grandsons, 13 and 12, from Connecticut have made their annual invasion. For Susie and me, this represents 4-5 weeks of never-ending activity, a veritable jailbreak every day. It seems like we are training with the SEALs. We […]
Read More1919: Coronado Flexes, Hilltoppers Up, Down
San Diego High continued to transition to mediocrity from the championship squad of three seasons before and tiny Coronado mixed with the big boys. Bryan (Pesky) Sprott and five members of the Hilltoppers’ nationally-acclaimed 1916 team now were leading the University of California’s powerful squad and coach Clarence (Nibs) Price was on the Bears’ football […]
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