Charlie Powell, the oldest and most renowned member of an iconic  San Diego family, passed away  Labor Day morning at age 82.

A resident of  Altadena, Powell was in San Diego for a family function when he became ill on Friday.  He died at Scripps Mercy Hospital.

“He was my big brother and I respected him so much,” said younger brother Jerry. “He was always there for me with an encouraging word, always positive. That’s the kind of man he was.”

The brothers Charlie, Ellsworth, and Art were outstanding athletes at San Diego in the early ‘fifties, and Jerry was a star at Lincoln a decade later.

Charlie was the Southern California player of the year in football in 1950, starred in basketball, held the school track-and-field shot put record for 31 years, and signed as a professional baseball player upon high school graduation in 1951.

His greatest thrill, Powell once said, was when “Duane Maley told me that I would be the only man ever to earn twelve varsity letters at San Diego High.”

Powell did that, lettering all three years in four sports, football, basketball, track, and baseball. Maley was his football coach.

Powell went from one season in the St. Louis Browns’ farm system and signed an NFL contract with the San Francisco 49ers in 1952. He had 10 tackles for loss including quarterback sacks of Bobby Layne against the Detroit Lions in one game his rookie season.

Powell turned to boxing in the mid-fifties and rose to become No. 4 in heavyweight rankings.  He returned to pro football with the Oakland Raiders in 1960.

Helix beat a good Ventura St. Bonaventure team, 24-20, Saturday night, but Mission Hills was beaten by Timpview of Provo, the No. 3 team in Utah, 42-28.

San Diego Section teams thus finished the first weekend far  in arrears against intersectional teams.

In games involving teams from the city and county, the area was 2-8 in California and 5-11 including Utah, Hawaii, and Arizona.

Included was the carnage of dishearteningly blowout losses of 55-10 for Cathedral against Folsom of the Sac-Joaquin Section and 38-0 for La Costa Canyon by Newport Beach Corona del Mar of the Southern.

Cathedral gets another shot this week, taking on strong Westlake Village Oaks Christian, which lost to Bakersfield, the defending state Division I champion, 34-21.

Helix is back at it against Loomis Del Oro, another Sac-Joaquin Section entry with big biceps, while Oceanside takes on Mission Viejo.

Del Oro, 9-3 in 2013, was beaten by Helix, 35-24, in the state D-II championship in ’11. The Golden Eagles lost a home game to Honolulu Kamehameha, 25-17, in their 2014 opener.

Mission Viejo, 11-1 a year ago, was surprised by Bakersfield Liberty, 18-7.

The UT-San Deigo top 10 will be out in a couple days.  My ballot, cast this morning, was:

1—Helix (1-0).
2—Oceanside (1-0).
3—Mission Hills (0-1).
4—St. Augustine (0-1).
5—Eastlake (0-1).
6—Poway (1-0).
7—Ramona (1-0).
8—El Capitan (1-0).
9—Rancho Bernardo (1-0).
10—Rancho Buena Vista (0-1).

 DEADLY VIRUS

Helix’s victory marked the first time the Highlanders have played a Ventura County team since 1957, when they bused North to Oxnard and went home with a 52-6 loss that became part of a footnote in area football history.

The 1957 season was marked by the Asian Flu epidemic which killed 70,000 Americans and about two million world wide.

Most area teams were forced to cancel games.  Twenty-two of Helix’ 45 players were home with the flu, including seven starters, but coaches and school officials decided to go through with the game.

Read about the effects of the flu in San Diego  in “1957:  Different Kind of Enemy“.

I feared for Cathedral and didn’t want to battle I-5 traffic on a Friday night to get to Oceanside, so the veteran blogger took in Rancho Buena Vista at Poway and was impressed.

With the winner and the loser.

Poway, 4-7 in 2013 and stung by the recent loss of two potential sophomore stars, quarterback Tate Martell and receiver Tyjon Lindsay, who moved together to Las Vegas and hooked up with nationally ranked Bishop Gorman, rolled to a 24-0 halftime lead over the Longhorns, then hung on with a late touchdown to win, 30-28.

(Martell and Lindsay meanwhile were 100 miles up the road, leading Gorman to a 48-27 win over Southern Section and Trinity League toughie Anaheim Servite at Cerritos College.

Martel threw for three touchdowns and ran for 130 yards.  Lindsay returned a punt 92 yards for a touchdown and caught touchdown passes of 10 and 29 yards).

INELIGIBILITY BLUES

Rancho coach Paul Gomes, who has led a resurgence at the South Vista campus, was playing with less than a full complement.

“We’ve got fourteen players ineligible for six weeks because of grades, including twelve starters,” said a parent whose son starts for the Longhorns.

But quarterback Malik Taylor, a sturdy, 6-foot, 2-inch, 200-pounder with a live arm, passed for four touchdowns in the second half and had his team in front 28-24 with less than three minutes remaining.

INTERSECTIONAL BLUES

Folsom 55, Cathedral 10.

Newport Beach Corona del Mar 38, La Costa Canyon 0.

Temecula Great Oak 38, Carlsbad 21.

Capistrano Valley Christian 52, Maranatha 0.

OUTSIDE CALIFORNIA

Avondale Westview, Arizona, 48, Westview 13.

Francis Parker 22, Honolulu Arthur Radford 20.

Mesa Desert Ridge, Arizona, 23, Eastlake 11.

Torrey Pines 34, Pleasant Grove, Utah, 21.

TRUE GRID

Best  local matchup saw No. 2 Oceanside defeat No. 5 St. Augustine, 34-28…No. 1 Helix and 4 Mission Hills have intersectional battles tonight, Helix vs. Ventura St. Bonaventure, and Mission Hills vs. Timpview of Provo, Utah…Paul Gomes is in his third season at Rancho Buena Vista, improving from 6-6 in 2011 to 9-4 in 2013…the Broncos were 5-24-1 in their three previous seasons…

Farewell, old friend.

Those words were heard over the summer for at least four former San Diego-area football players.

Doug Dunnam,  75,  was a starting guard on the 1956 City Prep League-champion Hoover team that upset San Diego High, 20-12, before a roaring, record, overflow crowd of  9,000 persons at Hoover.

Dunnam  also was a member of the San Diego team that played the Los Angeles City Section all-star squad in the annual Breitbard College Prep game after his graduation  in 1957.

Hal Krupens, 78, was a standout on Don Giddings’ 1953 Point Loma squad and scored 7 touchdowns and 42 points, plus touchdown runs of 72 and 2 yards as Point Loma routed Hoover in one quarter of play, 14-0, in the annual City Schools’ carnival before 24,000 fans in Balboa Stadium in 1952.

Krupens was head coach at Clairemont from 1986-90 and also coached track at Crawford.

Bill Harvey, 76, quarterbacked Bennie Edens’ first Loma squad in 1955 and was named to the Breitbard Athletic foundation all-City Prep League backfield.

Dave Saska, 68, whose family has owned a popular Mission Beach restaurant since the early 1950s, was a 210-pound all-San Diego Section lineman at El Capitan in 1963.

The Vaqueros upset Hoover, 27-12, in the playoffs and were beaten, 20-6, by Kearny in the finals.

Ron Loneski who coached Lincoln to six section basketball championships and state runners-up in 1988  and ’91, passed away at age 77 in Lawrence, Kansas.

Dick Huddleston won championships in multiple sports, as player and as coach

—He was a  tight end and linebacker on the 1960 Escondido team that won the first  large-school San Diego Section football championship.

–Huddleston coached Point Loma to the 1973 San Diego Section baseball title.

And  led La Jolla to the 1993 San Diego Section Division III championship and the best record, 13-0, in school history.

The unbeaten season was the second for the Vikings and their first in 58 years.

Lawrence Carr guided the Vikings to a 9-0 season in 1935. Carr also happened to be the principal at San Diego High when the Cavemen were surprised but not upset, 19-13, by Huddleston, 180 pounds, and other similar-sized Cougars in 1960.

70 WINS IN EIGHT YEARS

Huddleston’s coaching record ranked among the elite. Although serving as the Vikings mentor for a relatively short eight seasons, 1990-97, Huddleston’s teams compiled a 70-24-1 record for a .742 winning percentage.

DID HE OR DIDN’T HE?

Neighboring Mission Bay, the school that took much of La Jolla’s strong Pacific Beach and Mission Beach enrollment connection when that school opened in 1953, almost denied the Vikings’ chance for an undefeated season.

“I still haven’t heard from anyone close to the play who said the kid (Jaime Blake) ever got into the end zone.” said Mission Bay coach Jerry Surdy.   “I would say, without a doubt, it’s the toughest loss I’ve had here at Mission Bay….”

Surdy was visiting with Union-Tribune writer Frank Brady after the Buccaneers’ 8-7 loss.

This one went down hard, not only because of La Jolla’s Blake had transferred from Mission Bay.

Blake’s involvement in the game’s winning play created additional acid reflux

DREADED PENALTY

The Buccaneers had committed a dead ball foul as La Jolla kicker Jason Green was lining up to kick a point after following a La Jolla touchdown with 6:33 left in the game that made the score 7-6.

Huddleston, whose team had trailed all afternoon, took a time out and assessed the benefits of the penalty.

The foul moved the ball half the distance to the goal line, to 1½ yards.  Now Huddleston opted for a two-point try and Blake squirmed toward the goal.

Did he score?  Yes, according to the official furthest from the play.

“Hey, we dodged a bullet,” said Huddleston.

BOUNCING BACK

With 13 offensive and defensive starters returning and Blake looming as a potentially outstanding successor to 1991’s sensational E.J. Watson, the Vikings were optimistic when they began the season.

But how far could they come back from 2-7-1  in 1992?

Their opening game said much. La Jolla defeated Santana, 20-17, on a 43-yard touchdown pass play with 3 seconds remaining in the game, after the Sultans had driven 88 yards to take the lead.

The Vikings offered a preview of what to expect in the playoffs when they beat St. Augustine, 35-12, in Week 3.  They repeated with a 14-6 win over the Saints as Blake rushed for 206 yards and a touchdown in the San Diego Section championship.

OTHER SIDE OF COIN

While Surdy ruminated about a victory lost, San Marcos’ Ken Broach, declared a 20-16 win over El Camino to be one of the biggest victories of his career in a season in which the Knights finished 10-3.

Quarterback Luke Underwood threw two touchdown passes in the final 3:31 as the Knights rallied from down 16-7.

El Camino’s first loss to San Marcos since 1987 slowed the Wildcats temporarily, but they went on to finish 10-4 with a 24-14 D-II championship victory over San Pasqual.

HORNETS FOUL OUT

This time the officials’ flags favored Mission Bay in a 21-17 win over Lincoln.  The Buccaneers drove 99 yards in the fourth quarter, with the help of three, 15-yard penalties.

BIG, BIG MEN

Seventeen Morse players were at least 205 pounds, including five who needed an industrial-sized Toledo scale when they weighed in at preseason training camp.

The Big 5 pushed the needle from 275 to 330.

Tigers coach John Shacklett weighed 205 and was the second heaviest man on the squad when he turned out for his senior season at Grossmont in 1956.

Reasoned 282-pound David Gates: “Athletes today spend a lot of time in the weight room. Everyone knows muscle is heavier than fat.” The Tigers’ offensive line averaged a close-to-NFL standard of 286 pounds.

BIG, BIG MEN, CON’T.

Not exactly, but when Morse was vacating the field at Brigham Young-Hawaii, the Torrey Pines squad was entering for its practice. ‘Pines coach Ed Burke had an idea.

Kiddingly (maybe) Burke attempted to persuade some Morse linemen to make a U Turn. “Okay, fellows, over here,” implored Burke.  “I’ve got some Torrey Pines shirts for you.”

Pointing to David Gates and others, Burke said, “I’ll take this one, this one…this one”.

Union-Tribune writer Tom Shanahan was on the premises, covering the one-week trip by Morse, which dropped a 29-8 decision to Oahu Kahuku, and Torrey Pines, which defeated Honolulu Punahou, 32-21.

Meanwhile, Marian Catholic topped the Yakota Air Force Base squad, 26-8, in Tokyo.  The base team, which plays other U.S. military schools, had won nine consecutive Far East championships.

GO FIGURE

Early-season ratings can be disastrous.

No. 1 Mt. Carmel fell to No.  9 San Pasqual, 47-7, in Week 2 as the Golden Eagles, paced by Ethan Barkett’s three touchdowns and 117 yards, rushed for 494 yards.

Two weeks later Mt. Carmel defeated Rancho Bernardo, 17-9. Coach Bill Christopher’s surprising Broncos overcame the setback and finished with a 12-1 record, claiming the  D-I championship with a 7-3 victory over Poway.

Mt. Carmel up and downed its way to a 7-6 record, but not before shocking No. 1–ranked Rancho Buena Vista, 45-7, four weeks after its loss to San Pasqual.

San Pasqual, supposedly rebuilding, went 10-3 and all the way to the D-II finals before losing to El Camino, 24-14.

THE HIP COACH

Tom Shanahan  had an interesting read on Rancho Bernardo’s Christopher:

“Bill Christopher, the football coach with the pierced ear and who coached NFL star Ronnie Lott (at Rialto Eisenhower), now has a new identity, coach of Rancho Bernardo, CIF San Diego Division I champion.”

Christopher, who played for Bennie Edens at Point Loma in the late 1960s, promised his team he’d wear an earring if the Broncos won the Palomar League.

Christopher affected the jewelry during the playoffs and, after the title game win over Poway, agreed to continue with  the adornment through the team banquet. He was not excited about the prospect.

The issue arose during preseason practice when several players turned out with earrings, to Christopher’s disdain.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE…

Ethan Barkett was an all-San Diego Section running back for coach Mike Dolan’s San Pasqual Golden Eagles.

Thirty years before, Ethan’s father was a starting forward on the San Diego City College basketball team that was runner-up to Fresno City in the State Junior College tournament.

Nick Barkett also was the first San Diego Section basketball player of the year.  He led 24-3 Hoover to the 1960-61 championship.

THEY STAND ABOVE

Three South Bay coaches each won his 100^th game, bringing to 16 the number of 100-game winners in County history.

Joining the prestigious group were George Ohnessorgen of Chula Vista, Gil Warren of Castle Park, and Gene Alim of Sweetwater.

Steve Brand of the Union-Tribune visited with some of the  group’s active members:

“The one-hundredth is a milestone,” said Point Loma’s Bennie Edens (229).  “After that you kind of go from victory to victory.”

“I was at about one-twenty when someone brought it to my attention,” said Dick Haines of Vista (127 at Dover, Ohio, and 180 at Vista). “The two-hundredth was no big deal.  The three-hundredth, I thought it would never come.”

“To win one-hundred games you need an understanding wife,” said Helix’ Jim Arnaiz  (156).  “You need good assistant coaches.  You need to have good parents and good players, and you need lots of luck.”

“All one-hundred means is you’re getting old,” said Ohnessorgen.  “These players weren’t here when I started (in 1982), so our first goal is winning the Metro League and, in the long term, the CIF playoffs.”

ZEIG AND ZAG

Mark Zeigler of the Union-Tribune covered Chula Vista-Sweetwater, the premier, continuous rivalry in the County.

Chula Vista won, 14-12, when Sweetwater missed a two-point conversion attempt with 15 seconds remaining.

“It was,” Zeigler wrote, “the kind of game that embodies high school football, where you can’t find a parking place, where even those who can find a seat stand, where players hold hands in the huddle…”

…and only where the coach promises his players they could shave his head if they won. Ohnessorgen’s hair, soaked from the contents of a water cooler dumped on his head, would be gone by Monday.

ONE FOR THE BOOK

Bonita Vista’s 6-2 victory over Sweetwater, giving the Barons a best-in-school-history 7-0 start, was manufactured by one man.

Bonita’s Scott Shields kicked field goals of 37 and 47 yards before a full house at Sweetwater’s Gail Devers Stadium, then retreated out of the back end of the end zone from punt formation with five seconds remaining, giving the host Red Devils a safety and making for a final score of 6-2.

How often have games ended 6-2?

In the almost 100 years of football in San Diego County there had been 11 other games by that score.

The first teams listed in the table below were the 6-2 winners, except for Monte Vista, which was the 6-2 loser.

Year	Team	Opponent
1927	San Diego	=Santa Ana
1928	San Diego	St. Augustine
1934	Escondido	=Grossmont
1946	Fallbrook	=Ramona
1949	Grossmont	Sweetwater
1952	San Dieguito	Hemet
1959	Coronado	=Oceanside
1967	Grossmont	=Mount Miguel
1979	Clairemont	Mira Mesa
1985	San Marcos	=@Oceanside
1992	Monte Vista	@Oahu Kaneohe James Castle

=League game.

QUOTABLE

“I just made the cuts, put my shoulders down, and executed.” Vista’s 6-foot, 240-pound sophomore Eddie Lologo, to Ed Graney of the Union-Tribune.

Lologo rushed for 165 yards in 28 carries as Vista defeated Rancho Buena Vista, 14-7, in the teams’ annual battle for city bragging rights. Lologo added, “We played our hearts out.”

It gets no better than that.

MARKS

Morse’s 1990 state record of 649 points in 14 games was topped by Concord De La Salle, which had 665 in 13 this season.

Chad Davis’ career national passing record of 9,337 yards, achieved at Palm Springs, Torrey Pines, and Mira Mesa, was broken by Newbury Park’s Keith Smith (9,967).

Crawford’s Altie Parker caught 95 passes in 12 games, but was the state runner-up to Newbury Park’s Leodes Van Buren, who caught 101 in 14 games.

MON”DAY”  AND NIGHT

For awhile it appeared the preps would be out of luck.

Saturday night, Dec. 11, at Jack Murphy Stadium, was out because the Chargers would have a game on Sunday, Dec. 12.

The stadium manager had been fired in 1983 after Long Beach State and San Diego State had chewed up a rainy field the night before the Chargers were to play the Dallas Cowboys on national television.

Stadium manager Big Bill Wilson worked with CIF honchos to arrive at a Monday, Dec. 13 date.

Combined attendance of 14,395 watched a triple header that began at 1 p.m. and ended about nine hours later.

QUICK KICKS

Castle Park freshman linebacker Zeke Moreno did not pass age-eligibility to play football until near the end of the season…Moreno finally got his chance and had 13 tackles in a playoff loss to El Capitan…Dick Huddleston also was captain of the 1961 Escondido team and played collegiately at Cal Western University…Mission Bay’s 21-17 victory was its first over Lincoln since 1973 and ended a string of six losses in a row to the Hornets…his life would end prematurely in an auto accident after playing for the Los Angeles Raiders, but, for now,  there was unlimited promise for St. Augustine’s Darrell Russell, a 6-foot, 5-inch, 280-pound defensive tackle who also was a standout on the Saints’ basketball squad…Rancho Bernardo’s 21-6 win over Monte Vista marked dedication of the Broncos’ stadium…CIF officials ratified in February a long-discussed and ping ponged decision by the Coordinating Committee and Board of Managers to drop the 3-A, 2-A, 1-A designation for football playoffs in favor of I, II, III, and IV….