Jerry Ralph made history earlier this week when he was announced as the head football coach at El Camino High in Oceanside, becoming the first to lead five different San Diego Section programs.

Ralph has compiled a 123-76-2  (.614) record in 18 seasons, beginning in 1997 at Santana, followed by stints at St. Augustine, Del Norte, and Hoover.

Willie Matson (184-132-6, .581) also has had five head coaching assignments, but two were at the same school.  Matson began at Mission Bay in 1984 and returned there in 2005.

Matson is still active, ranking 12^th all-time in number of wins.  Ralph is 30^th.

Dave Gross (106-123-3, .464) also was a five-time head coach, including two tenures each at Imperial and El Cajon Valley.

Ralph had shared the lead with Monte Vista’s Ron Hamamoto, who also guided programs at University, Rancho Bernardo, and Lincoln. Hamamoto is eighth on the career list with 203 victories.

Gil Warren and Walter (Bud) Mayfield also had four head coaching tenures.

Warren began at Castle Park in 1967 and returned there in 1992 and also was  at San Diego Southwest and Olympian.

Mayfield began at Coronado in 1979 and was reappointed there in 1989 and again in 1993.  Sandwiched between his runs at Coronado was a year stay at University in 1981.

See list of Coaches with a minimum of 100 wins here.

Open Division teams, representing the elite of San Diego Section basketball as determined by the power ratings system, don’t get under way in the  playoffs until Friday (Girls) and Saturday (Boys).

Divisions I-V begin play tonight (Girls) and tomorrow (Boys).

Several factors go into the power ratings, administered by assistant commissioner John LaBeta, who heard some complaints regarding North County teams, which receive the majority of coverage in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

.El Camino boys coach Tom Tarantino thought the Wildcats should have been in the Open Division.  His team defeated Open No. 5 seed Army-Navy, 64-53.

In defense of the ratings, Army-Navy was 7-3 in intersectional play.  El Camino was 2-5. In Max Preps’ extended, computerized ratings, Army-Navy is ranked 63rd in California, El Camino 84th.

One of El Camino’s out-of-section losses was 65-52 to Temecula Valley, a team Army-Navy defeated 77-71.

The Mission Hills girls, ranked sixth in the state by Cal Hi-Sports, were seeded fourth in the open division.

The Grizzlies are 5-1 against the best girls’ teams in the area, La Jolla Country Day (state No. 7, according to Cal-Hi Sports), The Bishop’s (16th), and Torrey Pines (on bubble).

Working against Mission Hills were its opponents in the  Avocado East, in which the Grizzlies played multiple games against weaklings.

Unsolicited advice to unhappy coaches:  Play a good, tough nonleague schedule.  You can’t control your league competition.

Boys poll and records through Monday, Feb. 22:

Rank Team Record Points Last Week 1 Foothills Christian (11) 21-4 110 1 2 Cathedral 18-5 93 3 3 Torrey Pines 23-4* 88 2 4 St. Augustine 21-5 82 4 5 El Camino 24-5 58 5 6 Army-Navy 20-8 55 6 7 Kearny 26-3** 42 7 8 Mission Bay 19-7 17 NR 9 Poway 23-6 16 10 10 Grossmont 22-4 15 8 *Forfeited 57-37 victory Dec. 5 over Horizon. **Forfeited 73-64 victory over Manhattan Beach Mira Costa Dec. 26.                               Points awarded on basis of 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.                                   NR–Not ranked. Others receiving votes, including record:  La Jolla Country Day (24-5, 13), San Marcos (20-6, 9), Escondido (17-9, 3), West Hills (20-6, 2), Rancho Bernardo (19-8, 2).

 

Eleven media representatives vote, including John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan, Jim Lindgren, Union-Tribune correspondents; Bill Dickens, Adam Paul, EastCountySports.com; Rick Willis, KUSI-TV; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Lisa Lane, San Diego Preps Insider; Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.

Assistant commissioner John LaBeta will be up into the early morning hours Saturday and, hopefully after a few hours sleep, at it again when the sun rises.

Basketball’s most important weekend is at hand.

LaBeta is the ratings maven for the San Diego Section.

The regular season ends Friday night and teams will have until midnight to get their results to the CIF office, where LaBeta will make the final ratings computation for the first of three tiers of postseason play: San Diego Section, Southern California Regional, and State championships.

Seedings, brackets, and divisional placements probably will be announced by early afternoon Saturday.

From the Apollo to the Valley, there are 123 boys teams in 23 leagues and 120 girls squads in 22 circuits. The only difference in boys’ and girls’ competition is that ten boys teams play in the Frontier North and Frontier South leagues, while seven girls squads comprise one Frontier League.

LaBeta, commissioner Jerry Schniepp, and other members of the CIF staff are sporting bloodshot eyes and the beginnings of cauliflower ears from all the time they’re spending in front of their computers and on the telephones this week.

The universal basketball participation demonstrates the game’s popularity. By comparison, in 2015 a total of 83 schools fielded football teams, a sport not favored by all of the section’s institutions.

The ratings system, now an accepted fixture in California prep sports, was altered again this year, hopefully ensuring no repeat of 2015, when girls champion Horizon and boys titlist Escondido were not allowed to proceed beyond the San Diego Section tournament.

Meanwhile, Foothills Christian continues to dominate the Union-Tribune poll and is fifth in the state top 20 as ranked by Cal-Hi Sports. Mission Hills is seventh, La Jolla Country Day eighth, and The Bishop’s 17th in the girls’ top 20.

Boys poll and records through Monday, Feb. 15:

Rank	Team	Record	Points	Last Week
1	Foothills Christian (11)	19-4	110	1
2	Torrey Pines	21-4*	86	4
3	St. Augustine	19-5	84	3
4	Cathedral	17-5	85	2
5	El Camino	22-5	62	5
6	Army-Navy	19-7	59	6
7	Kearny	24-3**	38	7
8	Grossmont	21-3	22	9
9	La Jolla Country Day	23-4	18	10
10	Poway	22-5	15	8

*Forfeited 57-37 victory Dec. 5 over Horizon. **Forfeited 73-64 victory over Manhattan Beach Mira Costa Dec. 26.                                     Points awarded on basis of 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.

Others receiving votes, including record:   Mission Bay (18-6, 11), San  Marcos (18-6, 9), West Hills (19-5, 4).

Eleven media representatives vote, including John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan, Jim Lindgren, Union-Tribune correspondents; Bill Dickens, Adam Paul, EastCountySports.com; Rick Willis, KUSI-TV; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Lisa Lane, San Diego Preps Insider; Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.

Who saw the game and who didn’t commanded almost as much attention as Kearny’s semifinals playoff victory over Escondido.

President John F. Kennedy’s death and the resulting week’s postponement generated several more days of pregame coverage by area media outlets and contributed to a building buzz about the game.

And some unforeseen problems.

The estimated attendance of 17,000 was the largest for a high school game here since 20,000 saw the 1949 San Diego-Hoover contest.

The 20,000 figure could have been topped, but at least 2,000 persons didn’t get in and others turned away in frustration.

Only two Stadium gates were open and many fans couldn’t gain entry because sellers had run out of tickets, according to  CIF commissioner Don Clarkson.  A crowd of about 12,000 had been predicted.

Until 10 minutes before kickoff, uniformed guards kept the stadium’s upper deck closed, forcing fans to find end zone seats on the lower level, when excellent midfield seats were available up above.

A decision was made to open the upper deck and fans began streaming in.

No one thought to play the national anthem before the game.  Someone realized the oversight in the first quarter.  Play was stopped, the band played the anthem, and a color guard raised flags.

One competing school is designated the home team for the playoffs, said Clarkson, throwing Escondido under the bus and inferring the CIF had clean hands.

Escondido, 40 miles North,  was an infrequent Stadium visitor. The question wasn’t asked, but in retrospect should all the blame for logistical errors at a major CIF event have been dumped on one of the schools?

I stepped onto the roof of the Balboa Stadium press box in the second quarter and could follow a line of waiting spectators in the alley between San Diego High and the stadium that stretched all the way to Russ Boulevard, a distance of about 200 yards.

KEARNY TO PLAY HOST

Things wouldn’t be the same for the championship, promised Gustav Lundmark, vice principal at Kearny.

“We’ll have all the gates open and plenty of tickets,” said Lundmark.  “We’ll also get the gates open a half hour early, at six-thirty.  This was a mess.”

Commissioner Clarkson also announced that tickets for Kearny-El Capitan would be sold at eight area business outlets.

The finals went off without a logistical hitch.  Attendance was 13,520.

On Nov. 22, 1963, my address was an apartment at 2742 B Street in the Brooklyn-Golden Hill neighborhood.  It was about 9:30  on a Friday morning.  I had a free day until covering the Escondido-Kearny playoff that night in Balboa Stadium.

I don’t remember if I was watching television or listening to the radio, but within minutes there was a news bulletin: “Shots fired in Dallas.”  Shortly later:  “The President has been hit.”

Not knowing, but dreading the worst, I impulsively got into my car and raced to my parents’ house, all the while talking to myself, imploring, praying the President would be okay.

My parents lived a block from the 94 Freeway, near 47^th Street and Federal Blvd.  I arrived to the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

HOURS LATER

Friday night was prep night at the Evening Tribune, where we attached far greater importance to high school sports than our rival, The San Diego Union. 

I covered the city’s Eastern and Western leagues.  Colleague Harlon Bartlett chronicled the Metropolitan and Grossmont leagues.  We split the small schools.

On a normal Friday evening we’d return to the office after a game and probably work until 2 a.m., writing stories, captioning photos for the weekly prep picture page, chasing down coaches for quotes or scoring information on missing line scores.

Not so on this surreal Friday.  Football games everywhere had been postponed or canceled.

Everywhere except the National Football League, which decided to go ahead and play on Sunday.  Commissioner Pete Rozelle later said it was the most regrettable decision he had made in his 29-year tenure.

CIF CALLS AUDIBLE

The San Diego Section also apparently was going to play, until Commissioner Don Clarkson announced that the CIF board of managers was  suspending the playoffs for one week.

In announcing the postponement, Clarkson unwittingly revealed that the CIF first had decided to “cancel any rallies or dances before and after the games and still hold the contests.”

Often tone deaf, Clarkson and the CIF bosses had wisely reversed course.

Tribune writer and makeup editor Bob Ortman summoned Bartlett and I to the office and we set about trying to fill a  section and two pages of prep news, with no games or stats to rely on.

It was  a long night, scrambling for copy,  trying to keep my mind on the task at hand, and with little zest for the job.

By Saturday morning we were in the middle of a period of funeral music on all radio stations mixed with television coverage of the events in Dallas and the final good-bye to JFK at Arlington National Cemetery.

LINCOLN GRADUATE

U.S. Army Specialist 4 Doug Mayfield, who was graduated from Lincoln in 1960 and grew up in the Encanto community, was among the eight military personnel assigned as pallbearers for President Kennedy.

The eight, from different branches of the military, escorted Kennedy’s body to his autopsy, to the church cathedral, Capitol Rotunda, White House, and Arlington National Cemetery.

THE GAMES RETURN

Gloom still was in the air, but normalcy had begun to return when the postseason began.

The four semifinalists in the AA playoffs were Kearny, Escondido, Hoover, and El Capitan.

Favored Hoover, which slammed Kearny, 25-0, in the opening game, was knocked out for the second year in a row in  a mild, midweek upset, 27-12, before about 8,500 at Aztec Bowl by coach Art Preston’s tough and resourceful El Cap Vaqueros.

The  tandem of Dave Duncan and Ray Homesley was too much for Hoover. Duncan rushed for 224 yards in 32 carries and scored three touchdowns. Homesley scored once and kicked three extra points.

“We made every stupid mistake in the book,” said Hoover coach Roy Engle. “Our ends must have dropped a hundred passes.”

Preston, who announced before the season that his club would be the worst in school history, declared, “I’m still shellshocked.  We knew we could run on them but I didn’t figure it would go like this.”

The Vaqueros broke from a 7-6 lead at the half, scoring 20 points for a 27-6 lead.  “In the third quarter, the kids on the right side of the line were flat knocking people down,” said Preston.

THE MAIN EVENT

The Escondido-Kearny matchup was the most anticipated since Escondido visited Balboa Stadium and defeated San Diego, 19-13, in 1960.

The 9-0 Escondido Cougars were the County’s top-ranked team and considered better than the 9-1 club of 1960.  Kearny (8-1) had recovered from an opening-game defeat and shut out 6 of the next 8 opponents, allowing a total of 15 points.

Escondido quarterback Jerry Montiel sustained a groin injury in the second quarter that restricted his play as a defensive back and was a blow to the Cougars, but Montiel had the Escondido  ahead, 7-0, late in the half  and connected with Mickey Ensley on a 43-yard touchdown strike in the third quarter that tied the game at 14.

Larry Shepard, Kearny’s no-nonsense  field leader, got the Komets on the scoreboard with a four-yard pass to spread end (wide receiver in modern nomenclature) Steve Reina with 12 seconds remaining in the half.

Shephard connected with Reina for two more touchdowns in a 20-point third quarter and directed a bruising running attack that took the steam out of the Cougars.  Steve Jones, Jimmy Smith, and Charlie Buchanan, who rushed for a combined 274 yards, chewed up yardage, and ran down the game clock to a 27-14 victory.

THE FINALS

The Balboa Stadium attendance of 13,520 was less than expected after tickets were made available at several area outlets, but Kearny’s 20-6 win over El Capitan was no surprise.

“Give Shepard the credit,” said Komets coach Birt Slater.  “He called every play out there.”

Shepard attempted only three passes.  At one point, Kearny launched 29 consecutive running plays.

“As much as I love our offense taking credit for our success, I do believe our defense made us a championship team,” said Shepard, who singled out many of his teammates.

“Bill Carroll (end-defensive back), Jim Smith (running back-DB), and John Erquiaga (center-defensive lineman) played both ways,” said Shepard. “The rest of the defense was made up of Dennis Santiago, Robert Odom, Elton Pollock, Dan Fulkerson, Jeff Henderson, Tom Gadd, and Frank Oberreuter.”

Slater’s team, reminiscent of the San Diego High teams Slater helped coach in the 1950s, arguably was one of the best ever in the San Diego Section.

PRICE GOUGING?

Students from the competing schools would be charged .50 admission for the championship game, but all others students would have pay $1.25, prompting a complaint from Birt Slater.

“It’s a game for the whole league, rather than for the two finalists,” asserted Slater, speaking for Kearny’s Western League partners and El Capitan’s Grossmont League associates.

Commissioner Clarkson agreed with Slater.  “But I take my orders from the superintendent and that’s the rule as of now,” said the Don.

THEY WERE AZTECS

The portrait photos of the three men above were taken in 1950, when Art Preston, Birt Slater, and Bob (Chick) Embrey were among six San Diego State players named to the all-California Collegiate Athletic Association first team.

The three also were on the 1951 team that posted a 9-0 record and defeated Hawaii, 34-13, in the 1952 Pineapple Bowl in Honolulu.

WESTGATE POOR VENUE

The San Diego Section was forced to form a partnership of pigskins and cowhide.

More venues for night football were needed, with only three lighted fields in the city, at Balboa Stadium, La Jolla, and Hoover.

New football varsities at Morse and Madison crowded the schedule.

To relieve some of the stress on the illuminated grids and forestall moving games to the afternoon, several city contests were scheduled at Westgate Park, erected in 1958 as the home of the baseball San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League.

Westgate was arguably the most beautiful facility in all of minor league baseball.  Repeat, “the most beautiful facility in all of minor league baseball.” Not the game that was being played in the fall.

I took some shots at Westgate as a football facility in one of my Tuesday With The Preps columns.

–There was no football scoreboard, so time was kept on the field.

–Teams could not use the baseball dressing rooms, which meant that halftime meetings were held in dank, dimly-lit tunnels underneath the stands.

–The dressing rooms were unavailable because the Chargers, who practiced at Westgate, occupied one and the Padres used the other for off-season storage.

WESTGATE, CON’T.
–The third base line hadn’t been removed and often was mistaken for a sideline boundary.

–The football field was laid out from the leftfield corner to the rightfield corner and was a long distance from the fans.

On the day after the column appeared, I received a call from Eddie Leishman, the Padres’ general manager.  Leishman was a prominent figure in the city and had expanded the organization’s community outreach.

“We know this isn’t a football stadium,” Leishman said.  “The schools asked us.  We didn’t ask them.  I’m sorry for the shortcomings, but we’re  not making money ($500 rent per game plus parking and concessions) on the deal as it is.”

The timing was interesting.  No sooner had my call from Leishman ended that I received another from Don Clarkson.

“They aren’t making any money off us,” complained the CIF boss, sounding as if he and Leishman had rehearsed their lines.

“They got a lot maintenance down there,” Clarkson added, referring to the costs of opening and closing the ball yard.  “They have a lot of people working for them at (our) games.”

Sight lines from the grandstand were okay and parking was ample at Westgate. The overhead view was perfect if you exited the press box and took a potentially unsafe walk along the left field roof. Another lighted field would become available when Mesa College opened in 1964.

Westgate Park was phased out for football and the Mission Valley edifice was razed after the 1967 season.

The Padres played their final season in the PCL in 1968 at San Diego Stadium, which became home the next year for the Padres of the National League.

WITHER CARNIVAL

The annual City Schools carnival finally ran out of steam.  The 24^th and final event was held in 1962, four years after being moved to daylight hours.

Attendance was falling and school bosses didn’t want to deal with recurring rowdyism and violence.

Coaches were generally pleased.  It meant that teams now had the option to schedule a ninth regular-season game.

The Grossmont League still played eight games plus the carnival, which drew 11,000 to Aztec Bowl. Most Metropolitan League teams already had a ninth-game option.

GLOBAL WARMING?

Hoover and Helix battled heat that set a San Diego record of 111 degrees on Thursday, Sept. 27,  and on Friday reached 104 , the fifth highest reading since records began in 1874.

Temperature for the 8 p.m. kickoff on Sept. 28 was at least 100 degrees and the Cardinals and Highlanders responded with a memorable game before about 6,000 persons at Hoover.

The Cards won, 14-13, when Hoover drove 81 yards in the final 4 minutes to score the winning touchdown.

DRESS DOWN

Sweetwater tried to beat the heat when it came out for pregame against visiting Crawford.  The Red Devils wore only shorts, T-shirts, helmets, and cleats.  Crawford still prevailed, 14-0, after the Red Devils donned the rest of their uniforms.

THEY SAID IT

“I don’t how good we’ll be, but that’s the worst we’ve been beaten here in five years.  We’ll get a little better each week, I hope”. —Kearny coach Birt Slater after a season-opening, 25-0 loss to Hoover.

“It looks like a long year and a good time to go hunting.”—El Capitan’s Art Preston, assessing Vaqueros’ season prospects.

“It should be as good a game as will be played in the County”.—Escondido coach Chick Embrey before the Mar Vista game, which Escondido won, 43-21.

“This is El Foldo week for us.  We do it every year against Helix.  We’re olive masters”.—Preston before Vaqueros lost their only regular-season game, 12-9 to Helix

“I couldn’t see in the first half and the staff took over.  Maybe that’s all the better”.—Grossmont coach Sam Muscolino, his glasses broken after an errant pass hit Muscolino in the face during pregame of a 13-3 win over La Jolla.

SIGN OF THE TIME

Police were looking for vandals who scattered hundreds of inch-long roofer’s nails at Glasgow Drive, Armitage, and Aragon streets in Clairemont.

Two tires were punctured on the first police car that responded. A City street sweeper and neighbors swept the area clean.

‘HAWKS DECLARE BORDER WAR     

Madison didn’t do a lot in its first season, with a 3-6 record, but coach George Hoagland’s Warhawks quickly established neighborhood ground rules.

Behind quarterback Al Fitzmorris, Madison defeated 1962 San Diego Section playoff runner-up Clairemont, 12-6, in the clubs’ first meeting in the season’s second week.

KINGDOM FOR A CASTLE

Castle Park, at a cost of $1.75 million on 47 acres, became the third public high school within the Chula Vista city limits.

Principal Ralph Skiles welcomed about 950 graduates of Chula Vista, Hilltop, and Southwest junior highs, plus transfers from Chula Vista and Hilltop highs.

Sweetwater was the first south of the San Diego City Limits, welcoming students in 1909 as National City High.  Chula Vista followed in 1947, Mar Vista in 1950, and Hilltop in 1959.

RARITY

Point Loma edged La Jolla, 2-0, in the fourth safety-only game ever played by County teams.

A bad snap from center that sailed out of the end zone gave the Pointers two points in the fourth quarter and they made them stand.

La Jolla’s Greg King attempted field goals from 54, 51, and 41 yards.  The first two fell short by about five yards.  The third attempt, with 21 seconds remaining in the game, was partially blocked.

“If that last one hadn’t been blocked it would have been good,” said Vikings coach Gene Edwards, employing head- scratching logic.

Other 2-0 games (the 1926 contest went into overtime and San Diego was awarded two points for gaining the most yardage):

YEAR	WINNER	LOSER
1919	San Diego	32nd Infantry
1926	San Diego	Glendale
1940	Vista	Hoover Sophomores
1958	Vista	Palm Springs

CHAIN REACTION

Coronado bid goodbye to the Avocado League and returned to the Metropolitan, of which it was a member from the Metro’s beginning in 1933 until 1954, when the Islanders became part of the new Avocado loop.

Fallbrook moved to the Avocado League from the Palomar and newcomer Orange Glen took Fallbrook’s place in the Palomar.

OCEANSIDE  KING OF CLASS A

Jim Harrison, a 150-pound halfback, ran for 175 yards in 27 carries led a ground attack that gained 374 yards as Oceanside won the Class A title with a 32-13 victory over Poway.

KINGDOM FOR A HOUSE?

Jerry Van Ooyen, a linebacker at Indiana from 1949-51, was named head coach at Ramona.  Van Ooyen had been a real estate salesman in the mountain community for five years.

TRUE GRID

Mission Bay ended a 13-game losing streak with a 12-7 win over first-game-ever Castle Park on Rick Toller’s 20-yard touchdown run in the final seconds…the Buccaneers had not been triumphant since a 6-0 decision over La Jolla in the third game of the 1961 season…just so he wouldn’t be mistaken for a player as he stood behind the defensive line, Escondido coach Chick Embrey wore No. 369 on the jersey of his practice sweats…Hilltop dedicated a new lighted stadium seating about 4,000 in a 6-0 loss to Clairemont…light poles had not been erected, delaying Poway’s  long awaited inaugural game under lights against Ramona in the season’s sixth week…after missing three point after attempts in a 25-0 win, Hoover coach Roy Engle turned to 275-pound Richard Gauthier, who was 2 for 2 including the game deciding conversion in the win over Helix…Kearny halfback Jimmy Smith became a No. 1 draft choice of the Washington Senators out of Oregon and won a landmark antitrust suit against the NFL after a career-ending injury…Kearny end Robert Odom played two seasons with the Dallas Cowboys out of Idaho State… lineman John Erquiaga was a standout at UCLA and Reina was a starting receiver at Oregon….linebacker Tom Gadd later became head coach at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania…Reina died at age 44 of leukemia, and Gadd was struck down by brain cancer at age 55 in 2003, after he  had coached Bucknell to seven straight winning seasons that followed  a period in which the program  had one winning year in the previous 14….

Lewis Edward Sanclemente, 92, passed away  recently, leaving behind a multitude of friends and admirers and memories of a lifetime spent in or around baseball.

Ed Sanclemente grew up near the University Heights playground, where he shagged baseballs for young slugger Ted Williams and honed a game that would take Sanclemente to national championships on two levels.

Sanclemente played for coach Mike Morrow at San  Diego High and was the starting third baseman on Morrow’s 1941 Post 6 American Legion squad that swept Berwyn, Illinois, in a three-game series at Lane Field in San Diego.

After playing third base and shortstop at the University of California in 1943-44, Sanclemente served in the U.S. Navy and then returned to Cal and was the Bears’ third baseman on the 1947 team that won the first College World Series.

Sanclemente batted .369 during the 1947 regular season and was 4 for 10 with 4 runs batted in as California swept Yale in a two-game series for the national championship.

Sanclemente played two seasons of professional baseball. He taught and served in administrative capacities at South San Francisco High and for the San Francisco Olympic Club before returning to San  Diego and coaching baseball at La Jolla High in 1956.

Mike Morrow appointed Sanclemente to the coaching staff at San Diego Junior College in 1957.  Sanclemente  succeeded Morrow as head coach  in  1958, when Morrow started the University of San Diego program.

Ed’s success on the two-year college level included conference championships at San Diego J.C., later known as San Diego City, and at Mesa College, where Sanclemente was the Olympians’ first coach when the school opened in  1964.

Dozens of Sanclemente’s players signed professional contracts, some reached the major leagues, and many became coaches and athletic administrators.

Groups of 10-15 former players honored Sanclemente every Thursday for years.  They were his hosts for breakfast at D.Z. Akins restaurant on Alvarado Road.

SWUNG A MEAN RACQUET

Ed Sanclemente made a name for himself on the tennis courts at University Heights and throughout the city before he turned  his attention to baseball.

Newspaper accounts from as far back as 1933 reported that “72-pound Edward San Clemente won the first of a series of tennis tournaments for children of grammar school age.”

According to tournament coordinator Wilbur Folsom,  Sanclemente’s 6-4, 10-12, 6-4 victory over Dick Brink in the finals of the  event at University Heights was after a “three-hour struggle that saw several rallies for crucial points last as long as five minutes.”

Sanclemente won numerous tournaments in the area and became one of the city’s top junior players.