Sixteen teams, divided by two upper and lower brackets made for the largest postseason in San Diego Section history.

What had gotten into the CIF bosses?

They had repeatedly recited the dubious mantra that the playoffs made the season too long and were a “major” reason for bolting the Southern Section.

To win a Southern Section championship, teams would have to play as many as four playoff games, adding a month to the football season, although San Diego teams seldom played beyond the second round of games.

The most notable result of the San Diego Section’s formation in 1960 was that a champion would be decided in a postseason of two weeks. Four of 21 AA teams, 19 per cent, made the playoffs.

By 1965 only seventeen per cent of 35 AA clubs were in the postseason.  One playoff involving two teams decided the Class A winner.

Complaints from coaches, fans, and media grew, as many teams with good records were not invited.

MORE THE MERRIER?

The CIF began to fudge on its original argument.  Slowly the number of teams qualifying for the second season began to rise.

The bosses gerrymandered the final week of regular-season schedules in 1966 by having two teams compete in a “play-in” game, the winner going to the postseason, although playoffs remained at two weeks.

The CIF created the unpopular double champions format in 1967.  “Metropolitan Conference” and “County Conference” winners were crowned. Nine of the 37 AA schools, 24 per cent, made the playoffs. The postseason still was two weeks.

The two-conference format also was in effect in 1968 and 1969, but a third postseason week matchig the conference winners was added.  Escondido, 10-1-1, and San Diego, 8-3-1, tied for the championship, 21-21.

Champions from 1969 forward would play 12 games, the same as San Diego in 1916, ’55, and ’57 Southern California playoff seasons.

(The regular season in most leagues had gone from 8 to 9 games in 1964.  The Grossmont League stayed at eight until 1970, the schools in that circuit having played in the game-counting, money-making carnival through 1969).

BREAKTHROUGH THIS YEAR

By 1972 there were 51 football-playing clubs and the postseason included 8 of the 40 AA squads, still just 20 per cent.

The floodgates opened this year.

Sixteen teams, representing 35 per cent of the 43 AA teams went to the postseason.  A single contest decided the A champion.

Thirteen games and four weeks to decide a champion?  Things were back to the way they were.

CITY SETS PACE                                                                                                              

Seedings for the playoffs were done by a coaches’ committee and evoked none of the usual complaints.

The four semifinalists, Kearny, Patrick Henry, Sweetwater, and San Marcos, had a combined record of 38-3-2.

Kearny shut out Sweetwater, 34-0, in one semifinal and then took out Patrick Henry, 35-13, in the finals. It was the first time in eight seasons that Komets coach Birt Slater did not lose in the first round.

A 28-14 victory over Point Loma in the regular season was Slater’s 100^th.  He became the third, after Jack Mashin and Chick Embrey (see below), to reach that mark.

GROWTH=MORE LEAGUES

The Avocado and Metropolitan leagues were bulging.  The Eastern and Western leagues lacked symmetry, thus a new circuit, the AA Coast, was created.

The city’s Eastern and Western leagues now listed six teams each. The Avocado reduced from nine to seven and the Metropolitan from nine to eight.  The Grossmont League stayed at eight.

The Coast, with Coronado at the South end and San Dieguito and Poway in the North, would last only three years.

Coronado, buffeted by small enrollment for years in the Metropolitan League, now traveled 30 miles to Poway and 28 miles to San Dieguito and still faced schools with double its number of students.

How the changes went down:

Team	1973 League	1972 League
Coronado	Coast	Metropolitan
San Diego	Western	Eastern
Mission Bay	Coast	Western
La Jolla	Coast	Western
Poway	Coast	Avocado
San Dieguito	Coast	Avocado

DAY, YEA, NIGHT, NAY

San Diego’s population had risen from 573,000 in the 1960 census to about 735,000.   The County total was almost 1.4 million.  Twenty-one schools not part of the original San Diego Section football lineup were now in business.

The growth strengthened the CIF, but the bosses were having a difficult time getting their hands around a spike in rowdyism and violence at game sites.

Stop and frisk wasn‘t part of the solution, but, following the lead of other major cities, an unpopular decision was made.

“Night football and basketball games in the San Diego City School District will end with this season’s athletic schedules, school officials announced yesterday,” wrote The San Diego Union education writer Ray Kipp.

The vote of 4-1 gave school district superintendent Tom Goodman authority to schedule night athletic events to afternoon competition, wrote Kipp.

The reason was violence.

A specious argument was that the “growing unavailability of fields” and a desire to “conserve energy” influenced the board’s action .

(The long waits and gasoline shortage that hounded Americans in 1973 would be ended when the oil-rich middle east countries lifted a ban on oil exportation to the U.S. in March, 1974).

The night-games ban came despite protests by students and adults who opposed any change without in-depth studies and potential effects on school spirit, game revenues, and the opportunity to attend afternoon contests.

In response, tone-deaf school board member Louie Dyer said, “If people really want to go to an afternoon game, they will.”

Board member Richard Johnston voted against the measure, citing the punishment that would be inflicted on students by the action of non-students.

Only one of 12 speakers appearing before the board voiced support for the change.

PAOPAO AS IN POW!

Anthony Paopao would have been welcome in the company of Frank Gansz’ special teams players on the Super Bowl 34-champion St. Louis Rams of 1999.

Paopao embodied the espirit and toughness that Gansz, a Naval Academy graduate and pilot, rewarded on Mondays following games in that memorable season.

Make a play, show toughness and desire, and a deserving Rams player would receive a baseball cap inscribed “Warrior Elite”.

It was ultimate praise and those recognized wore the headwear with pride.

Gansz would have been a PaoPao fan.

Oceanside coach Herb Meyer continually called PaoPao’s number in the playoffs against Mission Bay and the 190-pound junior responded again and again on the soggy, rain-dampened Simcox Field.

PaoPao touched the ball on 68 percent of the Pirates’ offensive plays, scored from 18 and 15 yards, including the come-from-behind, 13-10 game winner in the fourth quarter, and rushed for 213 yards in 41 carries.

BUCCANEERS REVIVED                                                             The playoff loss was disappointing but didn’t dim a gratifying year for Mission Bay.

Three seasons and a 2-25  record that included 18 losses in a row were staring at coach Al Lewis when practice began at the Pacific Beach school in September.

Lewis, who started the football program at Point Loma’s Cal Western University in 1957, had succeeded Bill Hall at the Grand Avenue location in 1970.

It helped that the Buccaneers moved this year from the Western to the less competitive Coast League.

A 7-2 regular-season record tied the 1958 squad for the most successful in school history and earned the Bucs the first Coast League championship and their first playoff invitation since they first teed up in the 1954 inaugural varsity season.

Lewis was 31-50-2 overall but 29-25-2 from 1973 until he stepped down after the 1978 season.

EMBREY TIES MASHIN

Ladimir (Jack) Mashin, who coached at Grossmont from 1923-47, had held the County record for most coaching victories since he retired after the 10-1 campaign of 1947.

Mashin was 121-65-15 (.639) and figured at the start of this season to be caught by Escondido’s Chick Embrey, who had fashioned a 118-45-4 record since becoming head coach in 1956.

Embrey didn‘t catch Mashin until the Cougars’ eighth game and passed him in the final game of a 3-6 disappointment by defeating Fallbrook, 23-6.

Mashin, 75, whose record was later amended to 125-66-19 (.640),  still was active, assisting the weight men (shot put, discus) on the Grossmont College track team.  He expounded on the modern game.

“There are 4-4-2-1 and 4-5-2 defenses and you get stunting and all that which you never had when I was coaching.” Mashin told Will Watson of The Union.

“I wish I was coaching under the present system, where you could see games on TV. If I were a coach today I’d be glued to the TV.

“Of course,” Mashin added, “in my day there was no TV, so we tried to go to as many coaching clinics as we could.”

PERRY SUCCUMBS

John Perry, the 78-year-old former coach at San Diego and Hoover, died Oct. 21 from injuries sustained in an auto accident on Sept. 10 near his retirement home on San Diego’s Bankers Hill.

Perry, who never played football, learned the game by reading football books and printed pamphlets, and traveling hundreds of miles to attend clinics.

Perry coached at San Diego from 1920-26, winning a Southern California title in 1922 and earning a trip to the finals in 1925.

Perry left coaching but returned and built the Hoover program from scratch in 1930 and led the Cardinals to their first victory over San Diego in  1935.

“He was a great coach and a great personal friend,” Bert Ritchey, the star of the 1925 squad, told Bill Center of The Union. “We all knew he never played, but he was one man with no playing experience who could teach it.”

“He wasn’t only a coach, he was like a father to us,” said Roy Engle, who scored the touchdown in Hoover’s  7-6,  first win over the Cavemen .  “It was John who turned my eyes to a coaching career.”

Perry was 52-14-5 at San Diego and 40-34-6 from 1930-39 at Hoover.

MIKE MORROW, TOO

The San  Diego sports world was saddened again seven weeks later when Dewey J. (Mike) Morrow the nationally renowned San Diego high coach and peer of John Perry, passed away at 75.

Morrow coached 10 Southern California baseball championship teams and the only San  Diego County team to win a Southern California major division championship in basketball, in 1935-36.

QB AS SPORTS WRITER

Kearny junior Don Norcross, who led the County with 1,270 passing yards, was destined for a career as a sports staff ace for the Union-Tribune.

Norcross entered the season as the only question mark on a loaded Kearny squad.  “Sure, I felt the pressure,” he said. “It was like, ’If Kearny doesn’t make it, it will be Norcross’ fault.’”

SHORT BUT NOT SMALL

Player-of-the-year Ed Imo was the 5-foot-9, 230-pound  line-plugging nose tackle for the Komets’ defense.

Imo went on to star at San Diego State and later became the physical education/athletics department chairman in American Samoa,

“Had I played against him, I would have spent a lot of time face-first into the grass,” said Norcross.

Ed Imo had another distinction at San Diego State, the shortest name in Division I football, five letters.

RED DEVILS BEDEVILED

Sweetwater’s 27-game Metro League winning streak, which began in 1969 after a 41-0 loss to Castle Park, ended in a 12-8 loss to the Trojans.

AND BEYOND

Future NFL standouts included St. Augustine wide receiver Tim Smith, Kearny defensive back Lucious Smith, Castle Park defensive back John Fox, who became an NFL head coach; El Cajon Valley quarterback Mark Malone, and Hoover defensive lineman Bill Gay.

San Diego’s Michael Hayes, who led the County with 1,418 yards rushing, including 858 in his last four games, did not play in the NFL but was one of the all-time great San Diego running backs.

Hayes was just warming up.  He’d be the San Diego Section player of the year in 1974 and was named to the second all-time, all-County team in 2013.

CAVEMEN COLLAPSE 

Hayes was a one-man show against Point Loma, scoring three touchdowns and gaining 223 yards in 28 carries, but his team offered no defense against Point Loma.

The Pointers’ 54-28 victory over  San Diego represented the most points allowed by the Cavemen since a 56-0 loss to the Stanford University freshmen in 1923.  Point Loma’s John Finley  scored four touchdowns and gained 123 yards in 22 attempts.

QUICK KICKS

.Hoover coach Roy Engle had to devise a defense for the Crawford quarterback, the position played by his son, David…Carlsbad snapped an 0-6-1 stretch against Oceanside, 17-8…Lincoln did not kick a point after touchdown or field goal all season……Bill Casper, Jr., son of the former U.S. Open golf champion Billy Casper, was a star lineman  for Hilltop….

Valley Center’s Rob Gilster can tie Dick Haines this week for ninth place among the winningest coaches in  San Diego Section history.

The 32-21, Valley League  victory over Fallbrook last week was Gilster’s 193rd.  The veteran mentor moved from 11th to 10th place earlier this season when he passed Carl Parrick with victory No. 191.

Gilster is second to the 203 victories of Monte Vista’s Ron Hamamoto among active coaches.  Mission Bay’s Willie Matson is third with 177.

Gilster, in his 18th season with the Jaguars after nine at Orange Glen, has an all-time record of 193-120-5 for a .615 percentage. Haines, who also coached several years in Ohio, was 194-85-1 (.695) in 25 seasons at Vista.

Next up for Valley Center is a nonleague tussle Friday at Rancho Buena Vista.

GOLDEN YEAR FOR VALLEY LAYOUT

Granite Hills recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of Valley Stadium. When the facility was dedicated in October, 1965, the Eagles and Helix were the only schools with  lighted fields in the East County.

The Eagles defeated Castle Park, 33-7, in the inaugural game.  One of Granite’s standouts was George Brown, who scored a touchdown in that game and was one of the state’s leading shotputters during the spring track season.

Brown’s father, Dr. George Brown, a star at Hoover in the late ‘thirties and an all-America lineman at the Naval Academy before concluding his football career at postwar San Diego State, led the drive to build the facility.

Meanwhile, coach Kellan Cobbs’ 2015 team improved to  6-1, the best record since the 1994 team was 6-1 en route to a 9-3 finish.

GRIZZLIES MARCH ON

Mission Hills continues to hold sway in the weekly Union-Tribune poll. Westview now is fourth behind the big three of ‘Hills, Helix, and St. Augustine.  Madison and Mission Bay made their first appearances in the top 10.

Week 9 poll, after eight weeks of games:

Richard Morgan Hill, 62, passed away recently at Grossmont Hospital.

Few people would recognize the name.  He preferred being called Rick but was even better known to a couple generations of fans and media around here as “Red” Hill.

Helix High  coach Mike Muirhead introduced me to this Tom Sawyer-looking teenager  in 1970, when I still was covering high school track for the Evening Tribune and Rick was a fledgling journalist for the school’s Highland Fling newspaper.

Rick wasn’t cut to be a television anchor man or radio sportscaster, but that didn’t stop him from becoming an important and respected contributor on the San Diego sports beat.

“I first met Rick in ‘seventy-two,” remembered Union-Tribune writer John Maffei, then the sports information director at San Diego State. “He just came into my office and offered his services.

“I used him to get tape of coaches and players and we put it on a hot line (which people would call for updates on the Aztecs sports teams).

“One of the truly honest guys I’ve ever known,” said Maffei.  “He would do anything for you and never asked for anything in return.”

Three time zones away, in West Palm Beach, Florida, retired radio sports anchor and Chargers broadcaster John DeMott was moved to post on Facebook:

“I first met Rick in the early seventies. He was just a kid out of school. He loved sports and he worked so dilligently to become a peer of the San Diego sports media. He did anything and everything he could to find his niche.

“Rick decided he would fill the need for every thankless chore he could think of. He chased tape in locker rooms and at press conferences. He lugged equipment at remotes. He earned part-time pay from about every broadcast outlet that did sports, and for some of the teams as well.

“It got to a point where we all took Red Hill for granted, which I believe is exactly what he hoped would be the case,” DeMott wrote.  “The number of folks who Chris Binkowski tells us were at his memorial last night proves that. He was Red Hill and he was one of us. RIP, Rick.”

“The turnout for his service–Chargers, Padres, USD, San Diego State, radio, and TV people were there–can tell you how many people he touched in his life,” said Maffei.

Red traveled with the Chargers, covered  Super Bowls, and every big, San Diego-linked sports event during his time.

I used to make a simple announcement on the stadium press box microphone for many years during my time with the Chargers.  It was more like a brief page: “Red Hill.”

Although Hill was not a fan of the nickname,  he knew that we all respected him for what he worked so hard to  become, a professional.

 

 

 

Wither, Oceanside?

The 45-0 loss to Mission Hills last week shook the foundation of the dynastic program at the school overlooking the intersection of old U.S. 101 and Interstate 5.

It’s one thing to get blown out, but even in losses the Pirates have usually managed to score. Their dominance in  the  North County, though being challenged the last few years by onrushing Mission Hills, hasn’t been in question.

The loss marked  the Pirates’ first shutout  to a North County team in 130 games. Carlsbad blanked them, 28-0, in 2005.  No North County squad had scored that many points in 152 games.  Fallbrook ran off with  a  51-28 victory in 2003.

There have been occasional whopping defeats–El Camino routed John Carroll’s 1991 team, 63-27, for example, but the highest shutout margin had been 39-0 by Carlsbad in 1979.

Margins like 45-0 haven’t been accomplished by San Diego Section teams in 89 years. There were losses to Metropolitan League rivals Coronado, 47-0, and Sweetwater, 57-0, in 1926, the Oceanside’s first football season.

The Pirates will attempt to get their swashbuckling groove on this week against 1-5 Torrey Pines.  Mission Hills probably will run the table in the regular season if it gets past Rancho Bernardo.

Coach Chris Hauser’s Grizzlies close versus weak Del Norte, pedestrian Vista, and better-than-average San Marcos, a 28-10 loser to Oceanside in the opening game.

Mission Hills’ victory kept the Grizzlies atop the weekly Union-Tribune voting and they picked up two additional first place votes that had been held by Helix, which defeated Steele Canyon, 41-6.

Some shakeups above raised Mission Hills a notch to 14th in the Cal-Hi Sports state rankings.  Helix follows at 15th.  Cathedral, La Costa Canyon, and St. Augustine are among 30 others on the bubble.

Week 8 poll, after seven weeks of games:

Nonleague and intersectional games just about out of the way, 16 of the San Diego Section’s 19 leagues swing into action this week.

The Eastern, Metro Pacific and Metro South Bay tee up next week.

El Camino, 5-0, for the first time since 2000 in the days when Herb Meyer had the Wildcats on an 18-game winning streak, takes on La Costa Canyon, at 4-1, same as in 2014 before a 9-5 loss to El Camino signaled a flattening out to 6-6.

El Camino finished with a 10-3 record in 2000, unequaled since.  The winner of this Avocado West opener will feel pretty good about itself as it points to a late-season game with Oceanside.

The Pirates, 4-1 in their first season since 1988 without coach John Carroll holding sway, visit Mission Hills (5-0) in the annual, nonleague Battle of Highway 78.

Oceanside has come along well since a 49-13 loss to Washington power Sammamish Eastside Catholic in the season’s second game.  First-year coach Dave Rodriguez rallied the Pirates to victories over San Pasqual, Temecula Chaparral, and Rancho Buena Vista.

Westview should determine whether its contending or pretending, taking its 5-0 record  to Rancho Bernardo, which is 4-1 and the probable favorite in the Palomar circuit.

The Union-Tribiune poll this week revealed promising  matchups:   No. 1 Mission Hills and 3 Oceanside,  5 El Camino and 6 La Costa Canyon, and 7 Westview and  8 Rancho Bernardo.

DONS ON LONG TRIP

Cathedral has one more intersectional on its schedule, this week at Damonte Ranch of Reno, Nevada.

Coach Sean Doyle’s Dons are 3-3, with all losses to Cal-Hi Sports‘ state-ranked teams.

The Damonte Mustangs are 1-4, losing to Carson City Carson, 17-14;  Reno, 14-13; Placer of Auburn, California, 41-26, and Sparks Edward Reed, 58-39.  Damonte defeated Reno North Valleys, 52-6.

Week 7 poll, after six weeks of games:

Two readers of our website looked at our table showing  13 San Diego Section high school graduates in the NFL and found a couple glaring errors.

The NFL list of 1,696 players also included safety Tony Jefferson of Eastlake and kicker Jason Myers of Mater Dei, which we missed.

We also were alerted  to Larry Warford, but Warford graduated from high school in Kentucky after two years at Oceanside and was not identified as being from this area.

Two great running backs, Cathedral’s Tyler Gaffney and Escondido’s Ricky Seale, are getting paid by NFL teams, but Gaffney is on Injured Reserve with New England, and Seale was a game-day deactivation for Buffalo on opening weekend.

The annual NFL list includes the 32 teams’ 53-man active rosters on opening day.  So Gaffney and Seale, and possibly others, were not acknowledged.

The revised list with 15 names and a Partleton thanks to Greg Durrant, Richard Porter,  and Deontae Patterson:

Name	Position	High School	Team	Year	College
Khalif Barnes	T	Mount Miguel	Oakland	11	Washington
Sam Brenner	T	Oceanside	Miami	3	Utah
Reggie Bush	RB	Helix	San Francisco	10	USC
Nate Chandler	T	Mira Mesa	Carolina	5	UCLA
Arian Foster	RB	Mission Bay	Houston	7	Tennessee
Leon Hall	CB	Vista	Cincinnati	9	Michigan
Tony Jefferson	S	Eastlake	Arizona	3
Levine Toiolo	TE	Helix	Atlanta	3	Stanford
Jason Myers	K	Mater Dei	Jacksonville	1	Marist
Brian Schwenke	C	Oceanside	Tennessee	3	California
Alex Smith	QB	Helix	Kansas City	11	Utah
Kenny Stills	WR	La Costa Canyon	Miami	3	Oklahoma
Jamar Taylor	CB	Helix	Miami	3	Boise State
Damien Williams	RB	Mira Mesa	Miami	3	Oklahoma
Jimmy Wilson	S	Point Loma	San Diego	5	Montana

GRIZZLIES AND HIGHLANDERS RATE

Mission Hills is 14th and Helix 15th in Division I in Cal-Hi Sports‘ weekly Top 10.

St. Augustine is sixth and Cathedral 10th in II.  Rancho Bernardo is on the bubble in II and Christian (III) and The Bishop’s (IV) are other bubble teams.

At the end of the regular season teams will be seeded for the state playoffs, possibly 1-25 from the North and 1-25 from the South.

According to commissioner Jerry Schniepp, the six division champions from San Diego will be invited from the South, along with 13 from the Southern Section and the rest from the L.A. City and Central Sections.

Section divisions will not be in play when the game pairings are formulated.