1949: Death on the Highway
La Jolla’s Jim Prather was a member of the Southern Section team in the first College Prep All-Star Game against the CIF Los Angeles City Section and set up set up a touchdown with a 46-yard punt return as Prather’s side scored a 27-7 victory.
It was to be the last game ever for Prather, who was driving to Tucson four days later with Ellis Craddock, a Grossmont High graduate and Prather’s sponsoring-Breitbard Athletic Foundation-game teammate.
‘SUICIDE DOORS’
Prather, asleep in the passenger seat, and Craddock were to enroll at the University of Arizona and turn out for football practice when they were involved in a two-car collision on U.S. 80 in Arizona between Gila Bend and Casa Grande.
Prather sustained serious injuries. Craddock and four persons in the other auto were killed.
Until they drove to St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson from their home in Pacific Beach and saw Jim in the hospital, members of Prather’s family, who made the stressful, uncertain, eight-hour drive with members of Craddock’s family, knew only that one person in Jim’s car had survived.
Prather believed he was alive because the automobile in which he was riding was equipped with “suicide doors,” which are hinged toward the back of the vehicle.
Upon impact Prather was thrown from the car. He would have been trapped inside if the car had the more modern passenger doors, said Jim’s son, David.
Jim recovered but did not play collegiate football. U. of A. coach Bob Winslow announced that the school would honor Prather’s scholarship.
Back home, Jim found another sport to his liking.
Brother Phil, childhood friend Delmar Miller, and Jim formed one of the top Southern California beach over-the-line softball teams and were fixtures in the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club’s yearly tournament.
CARNIVAL FAVORS WEST
The all-star game was followed by the 11th annual football carnival, presented by the San Diego City Schools’ Association, and marking the usual opening of the season.
The circus-like event featured about 200 football players and pageantry that included 1,000 cheerleaders, band members, flag twirlers, drum majors and majorettes.
The West, comprised of Hoover, Chula Vista (added entry from the county), and La Jolla, defeated the East, made up of Kearny, San Diego, and Point Loma, 7-6, before an official crowd of 25,096 persons and a Channel 8 television audience.
Each team engaged in one of three, 15-minute quarters.
San Diego and Hoover played to a scoreless tie in the final period. Compared to previous games the tie was a moral victory for the Cardinals.
It had been six years since Hoover had been competitive with San Diego, enduring blowout losses by scores of 72-0, 38-6, 48-7, 25-0, and 39-7.
Hoover would experience more success against the Cavemen later in the season as the course of San Diego football veered briefly from its normal direction but would take a radical turn in the coming decade.
The Cardinals claimed city bragging rights for the first time since 1943 with a 28-13 victory over San Diego and Point Loma won a Southern California playoff championship, the first for a local team since Grossmont in 1927.
The city was growing, as were the number of television sets and aluminum antennas above San Diego rooftops.
The coming San Diego 1950 census would declare a population of 334,000 residents, with another 123,000 in the surrounding area.
There were 20 high schools in the County, including Julian, which did not field a team, and its Laguna Mountains neighbor, tiny Mountain Empire in Campo.
The population growth was just one reason San Diego schools were taking the first step toward an eventual break from the CIF Southern Section.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO…
Another and perhaps more important factor was that for 30-plus years athletic rivals in and around Los Angeles and Orange counties had complained of scheduling problems and travel involving teams from the “Border Town.”
The modern automobile and U.S. highways 101 and 395, San Diego’s main south-north arteries, assured a faster trip to and from those distant locales but freeways still were years down the road.
A San Diego-to-Pasadena journey, through more than a dozen communities, stop signs and traffic signals, was minimally 3 hours. Included were the 17 miles from Oceanside to San Clemente that included dangerous stretches when the highway was three lanes and shrouded in fog.
San Diego High had been a member of the Coast League since 1923 with exception of the travel-restricted years of World War II. Coast League membership in 1949 also included Compton, Pasadena, Pasadena Muir, Grossmont and Hoover.
The 1949-50 school year beginning in September would mark a final act for the San Diego group, with a local City Prep League being created the following school year.
Included in the changing landscape was the first Breitbard game, which drew 12,000 fans to Balboa Stadium and was played in early September.
Jim Prather’s teammate, San Diego High’s Charlie Davis, was the game’s “Star of Stars,” scoring two touchdowns, and Cavers teammate Granville Walton caught a touchdown pass in the Southern Section victory.
The game, featuring recent high school graduates, was the brainchild of Hoover graduate Bob Breitbard, a San Diego sportsman and businessman for almost 70 years.
POINTERS DON’T FADE
San Diego’s power and dominance seemed intact when the Cavers’ Darnes Johnson returned the opening kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown the following week in a win against Point Loma.
But the Pointers spat back. They scored the only touchdown of the second half after falling behind, 28-6. A loss to Phoenix the next week had sportswriters saying the Cavemen could be had.
Hoover was waiting for the opportunity. Second-year coach Bob Kirchhoff greeted more returning lettermen and more returning starters than any Coast League squad.
The Cardinals lost one game, 26-7 to eventual Southern California champion Compton, but they slammed the Cavemen 28-13, rushing for 285 yards and never were threatened, leading 21-0 at the half, and winning the 17th annual battle for the first time since a 7-3 victory in 1943.
TUESDAY FOOTBALL WITH “MR. OUTSIDE”
Don Giddings, who was a tackle on Hobbs Adams’ 1929-31 San Diego High teams and who would move from head coach to principal at Point Loma and later to Patrick Henry, had positioned the Pointers for a championship run in the so-called CIF Lower Division.
The Pointers rolled through the Metropolitan League after their opening-game loss to San Diego, stalling only once in a 13-13 tie with La Jolla, then winning three playoff games by scores of 48-7, 42-12, and 27-14.
Point Loma and Bonita High met for the championship at Point Loma on a Tuesday afternoon. The schools had not been able to agree on where or when to play the game. Southern Section commissioner Seth Van Patten ruled that Point Loma could choose the site and Bonita could choose the date.
Among those in attendance was Glenn Davis, the legendary “Mr. Outside” of West Point fame and holder of the CIF record for most points in a season, having scored 242 points for Bonita in 1942.
Davis beat a hasty retreat to the stands when he was swarmed by a covey of coeds.
LEAGUES PROPOSED
Three days before Point Loma’s season-ending victory, a December 11 meeting in Los Angeles threatened to derail plans for the re-leaguing of 19 San Diego schools (St. Augustine was a member of the Los Angeles-based Southland Catholic League and not in consideration for local membership).
Hoover principal Floyd Johnson, a member of the Southern Section executive committee, and leader of the San Diego group, proposed a six team City League of Hoover, San Diego, Kearny, La Jolla, Grossmont, and Point Loma; seven-team Metropolitan League of Chula Vista, Escondido, Sweetwater, Coronado, Vista, Oceanside, and San Dieguito, and a six-team Southern Prep League of Fallbrook, Army-Navy, Brown Military, Mountain Empire, and Julian.
Johnson’s plan already faced opposition.
Officials from Vista, Fallbrook, Escondido, Oceanside, and San Dieguito had met in Carlsbad three weeks earlier to discuss formation of a “Northern San Diego County League”. Those schools suggested that their problems involving transportation and minor sports competition would be answered.
The CIF Southern Section denied the San Diego delegation’s proposal because of “divided reports.” The Johnson-led faction was told to “get its house in order” and come back in February.
Most of Johnson’s proposal eventually was approved by the Southern Section.
San Diego, Grossmont, and Hoover, as part of the new CPL, would say goodbye to the Coast League, which would reincarnate with Compton, Norwalk Excelsior, and the three Long Beach schools, Poly, Wilson, and Jordan.
Pasadena was expected to go into a league with Alhambra, El Monte, Alhambra Mark Keppel, Monrovia, and Whittier. Muir would align in a league with Bell Gardens, Rosemead, Covina, Downey, and Montebello.
Geography (i.e., travel) and school enrollment were principal factors in all potential realignment, which would be settled in February, 1950.
HONORS
San Diego tackle Frank San Fillipo was a first-team, all-Southern California choice. Fullback Eddie Silva of Point Loma and Grossmont’s Ellis Craddock were on the third team.
CARDINALS WITHOUT A NEST
Hoover’s 8-1 record was achieved under unusual conditions.
Fire destroyed the wooden bleachers on the East side of the campus stadium before the 1948 season. A new, steel-framed seating area was ready but stadium lights still were in production as the 1949 campaign got under way.
Hoover principal Floyd Johnson announced that the Cardinals’ Coast League opener with Muir would be moved to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl.
“If the lights aren’t ready for the October twenty-first game against Grossmont (next opponent) I don’t know what we’ll do,” said Johnson.
What Hoover did was play its entire regular-season schedule on the road, with “home” games at San Diego State’s Aztec Bowl.
Hoover participated in a postseason charity game to help pay for 14 blood transfusions and surgery that resulted in more than $3,000 in hospital bills for injured Grossmont player Bill Finneran, who sustained a near-fatal kidney injury in an early-season game with Sweetwater.
The game was scheduled for Aztec Bowl, then switched to Hoover, which still had no lights. Kickoff for the Finneran game was at 10 a.m and Hoover beat the Foothillers for the second time, 12-7.
WHO HAS THE BALL?
Fog was a ubiquitous and frustrating companion.
San Dieguito coach Curtis French blamed the shroud for a 20-13 loss to Escondido after the Cougars returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. “We lost track of the ball and didn’t know who to tackle,” said French.
Writer Jerry Brucker said radar was needed to follow the action, the fog being so thick in the Hoover-Pasadena skirmish at Aztec Bowl.
KIRCHHOFF ANGRY WINNER
Hoover coach Bob Kirchhoff would not forget the season opener against the San Bernardino Cardinals at the Orange Show Bowl in ‘Berdoo.
Hoover won 13-7 but Kirchhoff was sizzling, describing the game officiating as the worst he’d ever seen.
“Hoover High played an aggressive game, perhaps a bit too much, as they were sent back 95 yards on 11 penalties, four of them being for 15 yards,” wrote Sid Olin of the San Bernardino Sun. “The Cardinals (San Bernardino) took but two penalties for off-sides.
The term for officiating at road games often has been “Home Cooking.” The Hoover mentor’s choice of words was much stronger.
BETTER THAN JOHNNY O
St. Augustine coach Dave DeVarona, detoxing from an 0-5-2 season, singled out running back Claude Thomas, who, despite the winless campaign, earned first team, all-league honors in the Southland Catholic circuit.
DeVarona said that Thomas was the league’s hardest running back and a better, all-around player than St. Anthony’s Johnny Olszewski, who scored five touchdowns against the Saints in 1948 and took his team to the Southern California finals.
NEW SCHOOL AT 49TH AND IMPERIAL
Lincoln Junior High, numbering first-day enrollment of 502 students, opened with classes for seventh and eighth graders.
Lincoln gradually became a high school. A ninth grade was added in 1950-51. Tenth grade students were included in 1952-53, followed by an 11th grade class in ’53-54, and the first senior class in 1954-55.
Lincoln was a grade 7-12 school with split sessions in the 1954-55 school year, becoming an all-high school student body of three grades in 1955-56.
QUICK KICKS
La Jolla had new lights installed at its Scripps Field…Chula Vista dedicated its new football stadium, named after principal Joe Rindone, with a 34-6 victory over Oceanside…Grossmont earned praise for publishing a preseason “press guide” that compared to those of Pacific Coast Conference universities… Brucker on San Diego junior Charlie Powell, who had been moved from end to fullback in spring drills and who gained 99 yards in 14 carries and went 65 yards on a pass play against Phoenix: “The big boy (225 pounds) was a solid, uranium sensation for the Hillers, a blocking, tackling, stiff-arming and side-stepping terror”… Powell had 87 yards in 11 carries and Frank Johnson 88 in 10 in a 34-13 win at Pasadena, highlighting a long day for the two Cavers and their teammates… the team boarded buses at San Diego High at 8 a.m. and didn’t return home until after 8 that night…the trip was typical for Coast League road teams…Compton was officially declared Coast League champion by a 4-3 vote… the Tarbabes finished with a 4-0 league record, Hoover 4-1…the Cardinals wanted Compton to reschedule a previously canceled game with Muir… the cancelation was fallout from Compton Junior College’s suspension of relations with Muir’s upper level institution, Muir Junior College, over recruitment of a player by Muir J.C. the previous year… unsaid was how a vote against Compton would have helped Hoover’s playoff hopes, the Cardinals having lost the head-and-head meeting with Compton… Manny Gomes, Point Loma’s first-team all-Metropolitan League end, converted 32 of 40 point-after-touchdown kicks… in the 13-13 tie with La Jolla one of Gomes’ attempts was blocked… Manny enjoyed a long career as a San Diego-area football and basketball game official and was a National Basketball Association referee….
