San Diego High was on its fifth head coach in the last three seasons and found itself sharing headlines for the first time with a team not from Long Beach.
Coronado High, across San Diego Bay, was flexing muscles.
Controversy would follow.
John Perry left coaching after the 1926 season and was succeeded by John Hobbs in 1927 and Mike Morrow and Charlie Church in 1928, changes that were followed by a couple years of mediocrity.
The new coach was John Harold (Hobbs) Adams, a former standout USC lineman fresh from a head coaching stint at Monrovia High.
Adams played on Perry’s 1920 and ’21 San Diego High teams (in 2013 Adams was a second-team lineman on the all-time, all-San Diego County high school squad).
Adams’s arrival at San Diego ushered in an era of success rivaling that of coaches Bill Bailey and Duane Maley in later years.
The Hilltoppers were 41-11-3 during Adams’s tenure, which ended after the 1934 season, when Adams joined the staff of Howard Jones, his college coach at USC.
Adams’s first team posted a 6-1 record, beaten only by archrival Poly, 20-13, in a Coast League battle before an estimated 13,000 persons in City Stadium.
After that game Coronado coach Amos Schaeffer, who attended the contest between the Hilltoppers and Jackrabbits, “challenged” the Long Beach team.
Under a CIF Southern Section rule, Coronado, a Group B (minor) school, could issue a challenge a Group A (major school).
PLAYOFFS OR BOWLS?
Media described the process and similar other midseason challenges as “playoffs”. In reality they were more like midseason “bowl” games. In effect the games helped the CIF project its postseason invitations.
Nov. 9 had been set aside as a date by the California Interscholastic Federation for challenge games open to all schools.
The CIF struggled for years to find a structured playoff format. Four teams, beginning play in a semifinal round, eventually were selected this season by Secretary Seth Van Patten, after the schools agreed to participate.
The Islanders, with Frank (Toady) Greene and Johnny Lyons leading 15 outmanned teammates, took the fight to mighty Poly, leading 7-6 with six minutes to play before bowing 20-7 in front of 7,000 spectators at Poly’s David Burcham Field.
Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times described a “courageous” Poly team, apparently the underdog, that came from behind to defeat the heralded and “classy Coronado eleven”.
The trans-bay squad finished with an 8-1 record, scored 415 points, and dominated the Southern Prep League, also known as the County league.
Greene set a standing state record with 11 touchdowns and 14 points after touchdown in a 108-0 victory over Sweetwater and held the school season scoring record with 164 points for 74 years. J.T. Rogan, playing in 11 games, broke Greene’s record in 2003.
Greene’s running mate, quarterback Johnny Lyons, played only 7 games but had 15 touchdowns and 92 points. Both players played at Tulsa University. Greene played for the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL.
Speculation was that San Diego and Coronado would meet in a postseason game for city bragging rights, but another CIF rule and prior scheduling by the teams prevented a showdown.
Prep squads not in the playoffs were barred from playing beyond Dec. 1. Announced schedules were chaotic, opponents often changing on hours’ notice and games routinely canceled.
San Diego seemingly was set for a game on Thanksgiving day with Tucson High of Arizona after finishing runner-up to Poly in the Coast League and Coronado was rumored to be going into the Southern Section Group B playoffs.
None of those games materialized. Nor did a Nov. 9 San Diego High challenge to Fullerton, which instead played Brea. A San Diego challenge to Covina also fell through.
COACH CALLS OUT CORONADO
Local fans had flooded media outlets with calls for a San Diego-Coronado showdown. The San Diego Sun reported that a game was in the works.
Adams reacted.
Under a Nov. 14 byline by recent San Diego High graduate Nelson Fisher in The San Diego Sun, Adams said, “What do I care about Coronado? Those guys ran out on us before (challenging Poly instead of San Diego), but tell ’em if they’re still squawking when our season’s ended, we’ll take on the whole gang and Schaefer can play, too.”
Evening Tribune writer George Herrick, only three years removed from when he was sports editor of the student Russ newspaper and a classmate of Fisher’s, took a veiled shot at the The Sun:
“Published reports to the contrary, there will be NO game this season between the elevens representing the high schools of San Diego and Coronado.” Herrick quoted officials of the schools as “categorically” denying a report in the city’s other afternoon newspaper.
Herrick attempted to cool the Adams-stirred controversy, pointing out that “although noted for his impulsiveness, Adams claims he was misquoted.”
The Cavers and Islanders could have met on Nov. 9, since Coronado coach Schaefer, in attendance at the Oct. 26 Poly-San Diego battle in City Stadium, had informed Herrick that day that he would challenge the Jackrabbits-Hilltoppers winner.
ISLANDERS COACH FIRES BACK
incendiary remarks.
“Inasmuch as we have definite intentions to play Calexico either this week or next, it would be impossible for us to meet San Diego,” Schaefer told the Sun on Nov. 18.
“We want to make it clear we’re not ‘running out’ on San Diego. It’s just that it can’t be done at this time.”
The affable mentor was just warming up:
“Coach Hobbs Adams’ statement referring to Coronado as “squawking for a game” is misleading.
“Coronado never requested a game with San Diego nor has Coronado run out on them.
“We challenged Long Beach because we thought they were not as strong a team as San Diego (a shot at Adams’ coaching since the Hilltoppers were beaten by the Northern squad?) and, too, the secretary of the SCIF suggested we play Long Beach.
“Since we lost to Long Beach we dismissed all thought of a challenge to San Diego. We readily admit that it would mean but little for San Diego to defeat us. They have a much larger squad and a superior coached team.”
THE COTTON TOP
Irvine (Cotton) Warburton has been honored as one of San Diego High’s all-time athletes, known throughout Southern California as a champion 440-yard runner, having won the state championship with a time of :49.6 in the spring and leading Hobbs Adams’ team in the fall with 10 touchdowns in seven games.
Warburton went on to become an All-America at USC and, like other Trojans athletes, went into the film industry. He won an Academy Award for cinematography in 1964 for Mary Poppins
COTTON SETS PACE
Warburton earned all-Southern California first-team honors, the only San Diego-area athlete in the first 11. St. Augustine’s Blas Torres was on the second team, and Coronado’s Frank Greene on the third team.
LONELY SAINTS
Out of the loop was St. Augustine High, coached by Herb (Duke) Corriere. The Saints were without a league affiliation and virtually without a country.
The Saints’ motto could have been “Have team, will travel. Expenses negotiable.”
The school at 32nd Street and Nutmeg also played by its own rules. San Diego High graduates Blas Torres and Harry Jones were standouts on this year’s squad, which posted a 7-3 record against teams from all over, several of which were not on the schedule Corriere announced in September.
Itinerant St. Augustine played three games in eight days: Nov. 8 at Yuma, Arizona; Armistice Day, Nov. 11, at Ontario Chaffey, and Nov. 15 versus L.A. Cathedral.
There were 13 high schools in San Diego County, population approximately 210,000. Julian, Mountain Empire, Fallbrook and Ramona did not field teams. Others playing varsity football were Point Loma, La Jolla, Oceanside, Sweetwater, Grossmont, Escondido, and Army-Navy Academy.
WAIT JUST A GRAPE-PICKIN’ MINUTE!
Escondido principal Martin Perry convened a meeting of Southern Prep League honchos to protest a 6-6 tie with La Jolla. An apparent winning Escondido touchdown was disallowed by referee Glenn Broderick, who penalized the Cougars for having too many men on the field.
An enthusiastic Grape Picker (a name also attributed to almost anyone from the Northern community as a salute to the area’s favorite fruit) came off the bench to celebrate the touchdown before the play was whistled dead.
Perry and his coach, Harry Wexler, appealed on the basis that the offending player had not interfered with the game action and was yards away from the play.
Appeal denied.
POLY WINS COAST AND CIF
The large throng at City Stadium watched Long Beach Poly overcome San Diego, 20-13, with two late touchdowns the day after the stock market crash and earn the Coast League championship and trip to the playoffs.
Poly defeated Huntington Park, 7-6, and met Santa Barbara, 2-0 winner over Fullerton, for the CIF Group A championship. The Jackrabbits outran the Golden Tornado, 14-6.
Santa Barbara coach Clarence Schutte announced early in the week of the championship that the ‘Tornado might have to pull out because several players came down with the flu.
The Los Angeles Times, quoting CIF boss Seth Van Patten, reported the next day that the game was on and that if Santa Barbara did not show the contest would be ruled a forfeit.
Coincidentally, the flu outbreak was revealed about the time big wigs from Santa Barbara were told the championship would be played at Poly’s Burcham Field. Neutral Wrigley Field and the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles were unavailable.
MERCY FOR ARMY-NAVY?
The Cavemen, or Hilltoppers, take your choice, scored all of their 27 points in the fourth quarter of a shutout at Army-Navy. Hobbs Adams played his reserves in the first three quarters.
Was the San Diego coach worried about blowback from earlier in the decade?
This was the first game between the teams since 1922. Adams was a member of John Perry’s 1920 squad that hung a 130-7 defeat on the Warriors. Two seasons later Army-Navy was on the short end of a 106-6 score.
NO BLAST
The Dynamiters misfired. Adams’ first game was a 32-0 victory over Glendale, 32-0. The Hilltoppers tried two incomplete passes but barged up and down the City Stadium field for 24 first downs to four.
FOOTBALL IN MOUNTAINS?
Ramona announced that it was preparing to field a team in 1930. The Bulldogs didn’t have any equipment so coach Jack Wilson had students playing touch football.
It would be 1938 before the Bulldogs took the field in a regulation game.
TRUE GRID
San Diego’s Class B team, coached by Glenn Broderick, defeated Whittier, 33-7, for the Southern California championship…a few days after the stock market crash Tom Salisbury, a key player for the Hilltoppers, briefly quit school because of “financial difficulties”…another player left the team after choosing a haircut over practice…San Diego’s bus trip to Alhambra necessitated an overnight stay in Santa Ana…Oceanside coach Glenn Wilson announced during the season that the school henceforth would be known as the Pirates… Oceanside opened in 1904 but did not play football until 1926…located in Pacific Beach, Army-Navy had unveiled a new turf playing field a week before the San Diego visit when Covina was the opponent…approximately 500 students boarded a passenger train to Santa Ana, where a crowd estimated at 5,000 saw San Diego score what was termed an upset win, 6-0, that knocked the Saints out of a possible tie with Poly for the Coast League championship… Poly’s record was 4-0-1. San Diego was 4-1, and Santa Ana 3-1-1… an estimated 15,000 was on hand at Peabody Stadium when St. Augustine scored a touchdown with 20 seconds remaining for a 12-12 deadlock with favored Santa Barbara… the Golden Tornado’s Johnny Beckrich returned the ensuing kickoff 98 yards for a game-ending touchdown and 18-12 victory…Coronado gridders were presented gold footballs at an awards banquet attended by more than 300 persons in the Hotel del Coronado…a turnout of 70 invited guests at San Diego Athletic Club, including the superintendent of schools and other civic honchos, honored the Hilltoppers at their season-ending awards dinner…coach Hobbs Adams declared that San Diego would play a 12-game schedule in 1930, with games already lined up with Phoenix, Los Angeles High, and Fullerton…small schools Whittier and South Pasadena left the Coast League and helped form the Foothill League with Pasadena Muir, Burbank, Monrovia, and the new Glendale Hoover…Fullerton and Covina were expected to take their places in the Coast …Covina was out but Fullerton and Long Beach Wilson joined.
