The headline below  screamed at the top of the lead sports page in The San Diego Union on Nov. 13, 1945.

The Scholastic Statistical Bureau  of New York, “which every week rates the performances of thousands of high school grid aggregations throughout the country,” selected coach Bill Bailey’s team as No. 1 in the country, according to Bob Lantz of The Union.

Lantz, a 1940 graduate of the Hilltop, had dutifully been sending Dick Dunkel of the statistical publication information on San Diego’s high scoring successes of the last two seasons.  It was welcomed cachet for the Baileymen.

Lantz wrote:  “Dunkel, who for the past several years has endeavored to rate high school teams in the same way other systems rank collegiate elevens, tabulates scores on high school games played all over the country from week to week and from those compiles a rating sheet.”

With a 6-0 record and 305 points for and only 12 against, the Cavers were prime candidates.

Word of the San Diego acendency had traveled slowly across the time zones.  An eastern newspaper mentioned earlier that San Diego was number one through games of Oct. 27.

HEY, WESTERN UNION MAN!  

A telegram from Dunkel to Lantz on Nov. 12 confirmed that the Cavers had been on top for the previous two weeks.

San Diego stayed there a fourth week after a 61-13 victory over La Jolla.  The Hillers had clinched the last Victory League championship and were gearing up for the revived Southern California playoffs.

Seeking stronger opponents for his team as the CIF loosened rules on travel and number of games, Bailey scheduled a late-season, nonleague contest at Pasadena, which had a 6-1 record and had just beaten Glendale 22-6 for the Pacific League championship.

Bailey and other local coaches were free to seek additional competition after the CIF allowed schools to schedule one or more games, as long as the regular-season schedule ended by Dec. 1.

The Dec. 1 rule, long in effect, was in place to allow a scheduling of postseason playoffs.

Before hooking up with Pasadena, Bailey unsuccessfully  sought game(s) with several schools, including Glendale Hoover, East Bakersfield, L.A. Loyola, L.A. Cathedral, South Pasadena, and Redondo Beach Redondo.

CAVERS STRUGGLE

Pasadena never got past San Diego’s 35-yard line.  The Cavers had 14 first downs to five and had been inside Pasadena’s 20-yard line on five drives.

For all that domination, the Cavers had to recover a Pasadena fumble at the host’s 18-yard line, needed five plays to score, and did not pull out a 6-0 victory until the final three minutes before about 10,500 at the  Rose Bowl.

The Hillers’ mystique had been diminished.

IT’S NOT THE VICTORY LEAGUE

At 8-0 San Diego’s  chances were considered about even in the first round (quarterfinals) of the playoffs against  the Bay League’s 7-1 Long Beach Wilson, which had beaten Long Beach Poly, 24-7 (the last team to defeat San Diego, in 1944) and Redondo Beach Redondo, which had won 22 consecutive games.

San Diego’s “Touchdown Twins”, Harry West and Cosimo Cutri, were matched against the Bruins’ flock of playmakers, led by 205-pound fullback Harry (The Horse) Minor, speedsters Vance Randolph, Morley Bockman, Ray McCoy, Lyle Brown, and quarterback John Crutchfield.

Thirteen-thousand were on hand in Balboa Stadium.  San Diego, fighting from behind, tied the score at 13 in the third quarter but Wilson’s power and balance overcame the Cavers with two touchdowns in the fourth fourth quarter for a 27-13 victory, which snapped the Hillers’ 13-game winning streak.

Wilson was eliminated in the semifinals by Santa Ana, which defeated Alhambra, 33-21 for the championship.

WELCOME BACK, WALKER

Lt. Cmdr. Pete Walker, released from the Navy on Sept. 19, returned on Sept. 21 as head football coach at Hoover.  Raleigh Holt had coached the Cardinals in 1943 and ’44 and had been in charge of the Cardinals’ preseason practices.

Hoover principal Floyd Johnson said Walker would meet with school superintendent Will Crawford and that it had been Crawford’s policy to return servicemen to their pre-war positions. Walker was head coach from 1940-41.

John Perry was scheduled to return to Hoover as line coach but his discharge from the Navy had been delayed.  Holt remained on the staff as Walker’s assistant.

I SAY FINNIN, YOU SAY FINNAN

Tom Finnin was a fullback  at St. Augustine.  He attended the University of Detroit Mercy and was a lineman in the NFL from 1953-57 for the Baltimore Colts, Chicago Cardinals, and Green Bay Packers.

Finnin is a footnote in football history, but his 1954 Bowman bubble gum trading card resonates with card collectors.

Bowman originally printed a card that identified the player as “Tom Finnan”.  When the spelling error was discovered, Bowman pulled “Finnan” from production and reprinted Finnin’s card with the correct spelling on the back of the card.

His name was on front and back of the card.

Finnin still was “Finnan” on the front.

The believed scarcer “Finnan”  on both sides became a favorite of those who collect “master sets”, which are sets that are complete with error cards and variations.

Apparently no card was printed correctly, with “Finnin” on both sides of the card.

“Finnin” on back of card  in nice condition sells for about $20  on the card circuit, but “Finnan” on both sides of the card, depending on condition, could sell from $75 to $200.

Finnin, drafted in the 24th round in 1950 by the New York Giants, was born in Chicago and returned there after college and having served in the Army military police in the Korean War.

A Chicago police officer following his five seasons in the NFL, Finnin retired after 33 years as a sergeant of detectives in the violent crimes unit.

GREAT WHILE IT LASTED

Bob Tomlinson ran 68 yards on the first play of the game at Balboa Stadium to give Sweetwater a 6-0 lead on San Diego.  Final score, San Diego 79, Sweetwater 6.

Harry West, Cosimo Cutri’s touchdown twin, ran 7, 47, and 32 yards in the first half and added a 60-yarder before Bill Bailey pulled his regulars after the first series of the second half, San Diego leading, 45-6.

Glen Collins, a 15-year-old sophomore lineman for Sweetwater, was taken to nearby Quintard Hospital with a broken leg.  Collins recovered and became a member of the local photographers’ community, shooting Chargers games for 30 years and still was active in his late ‘seventies.

FALSE INJURY INFO?

St. Augustine coach Fr. William McDermott declared end Joe Galindo out of the season opener with Coronado because of a fractured rib sustained in a scrimmage on Tuesday.

As The San Diego Union reported on Saturday, “Joe Galindo, supposedly injured wingman,” scored the Saints’ only touchdown in the 7-6 loss on a 15-yard end-around play.

VICTORY’S 8 ALL IN

The seventh annual carnival was unique in that, for the first time, eight teams each played one, 15-minute quarter.  All Victory League squads participated, including Kearny, making its debut.

Football in this postwar event showcased various offenses.  San Diego, Coronado, and Grossmont used the T formation.  Hoover, Sweetwater, and Kearny favored the single wing.  Point Loma operated behind the double wing, and La Jolla the so-called “hocus-pocus” spread formation.

A record throng of 24,000, largest to see a football game in the city’s history, saw San Diego score three, fourth-quarter touchdowns to pull out a 25-14 victory for the West, which included La Jolla, Kearny, and Sweetwater. Grossmont, Point Loma, and Coronado had given Hoover a 14-6 East lead going into the fourth quarter.

Cosimo Cutri, the Cavers’ 150-pound scatback, ran 70 yards for one touchdown and set up another with a 79-yard run.  John Brown went 48 yards with a pass interception to give the Cavers an 18-0 edge on Hoover.

Cutri also punished the Cardinals, scoring on runs of 4 and 20 yards, and on a 25-yard pass play with quarterback Joe Adamo in a 38-6 victory later in the season.

WITHER VICTORY LEAGUE?

The wartime circuit, hastily put together by school officials in 1943, would be disbanded.  San Diego and Hoover were returning to the Coast League. The Metropolitan League would be revived in 1946.

San Diego wanted stronger competition.  Hoover supported its entire athletic program by finding opponents who would play night football and never was happy with the wartime alignment.

HOOVER’S FUTURE PROS

Coach Pete Walker’s Cardinals were 38-6 losers to San Diego, but two Hoover players went on to long careers in pro football.  Sophomore starting end Bill McColl became a Stanford University all-America and played eight seasons for the Chicago Bears of the NFL.

McColl was a third-round pick of the Bears and the 32nd player in the 1952 NFL draft.

Junior starting tackle Volney Peters was a standout at USC and played seven seasons in the NFL and was drafted in the 13th round by the Chicago Cardinals in 1951.

Peters played nine seasons in the pros for four teams, including the 1960 Los Angeles Chargers, and earned an NFL Pro Bowl invitation after the 1956 season.

FOOTHILLER’S FOOT

Grosssmont’s Duane Close sailed a kickoff 70 yards, through the Point Loma goalpost uprights.  Veteran observers said it was an area high school record.

Another Close kickoff landed in the Pointers’ end zone.  Apparently stunned by the length of the boot, Pointers return men appeared undecided.  Grossmont’s Jimmy Salas fell on the ball for a touchdown.  The Foothillers won, 19-0.

Close kicked off with regulation shoes, but was barefoot when kicking extra points.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Free lip-reading classes were being offered for hard-of-hearing adults and students at Hoover and San Diego.

ROLANDO DISTRICT CRASH

Neighbors were frightened when a Navy fighter plane went out of control crashed and struck a power line on 67^th Street near El Cajon Boulevard, then plowed through a garage and part of a house on 68^th Street, and plunged into a canyon, killing the pilot.

TRUE GRID

Grossmont coach Jack Mashin was referee for the San Diego Hoover game…Mashin had worked every Hoover-San Diego clash since 1935…San Diego end Charlie Coffee was on the all-Southern California first team…Coffey’s teammate, Joe Adamo, the Cavers’ T formation quarterback, was on the third team…Touchdown Twins Harry West and Cosimo Cutri did not make any of the first three teams… guard Bill Stapp of Coronado also made the third team…Kearny coach  Algy Lambert could only shrug over the loss of five starters who were members of “war families” that were returning to their home towns…St. Augustine announced plans to build a football stadium and basketball auditorium on campus…the tiny basketball facility, not completed until 1952,  was still standing at 32nd and Bancroft streets until a basketball arena was erected in 2017 but the football stadium plan was shelved…St. Augustine found a halfback, although he was easily lost in the crowd…5-foot, 5-inch, 115-pound Kenny DeLao earned a starting bid in the second game against Los Angeles St. Agnes after running well in the opener at Coronado…the Saints-Coronado contest was the first peacetime game since 1941 and attracted 9,000 fans to Balboa Stadium as Coronado won 7-6…280-pound Adolf (Choppo) Romero kicked extra points for St. Augustine…200 coaches from the CIF Los Angeles City section refused to participate unless they received overtime pay for working after school hours…the coaches, who had been trying to receive at least two hours overtime since 1931, voted to return to their normal teaching day but  apparently were to be compensated and went back to their teams three days later…five-foot, three-inch, 140-pound running guard Bob Bower “is the toughest man in our line,” said La Jolla coach Larry Hanson, who had a pair of 270-pound tackles in reserve…San Diego’s Cosimo Cutri, one half of the “Touchdown Twins”, had three runs of 65 yards each for touchdowns in a 40-0 victory over Santa Monica…Sweetwater’s Gordon Cox and Hoover’s Raleigh Holt were the area’s only pipe-smoking coaches and Bill Bailey wore a brown fedora at every game…Holt was a former newspaper reporter…reliable blank cartridge pistols were wanted…more than once timekeepers vaulted onto the playing field, arms akimbo, to signal the end of playing time because the gun failed to function……San Diego’s 38-6 win over Hoover was witnessed by an estimated 20,000 persons in Balboa Stadium…St. Augustine declined an invitation to play in the Copper Bowl in Douglas, Arizona…the game, scheduled Dec. 29, would have pitted the Saints against St. Mary’s of Phoenix, or a school from El Paso, Texas….

From the Nov. 24, 2012, UT-San Diego:

–Writer John Maffei, at Mission Hills’ 42-17 victory over San Pasqual: “The fog was so thick that the Grizzlies and San Pasqual looked as if they were playing in clam chowder.”

–Dennis Lin, at Lincoln’s 20-7 win over undefeated Olympian: “Looking like some shrouded figure stepping out of an action movie, Tyree Robinson emerged from the fog hovering over Devore (sic) Stadium….”

— Jim Lindgren, quoting St. Augustine coach Richard Sanchez describing freshman running back Elijah Preston, at the Saints’ 38-20 advance against Valley Center: “Throw in a blanket of fog and you really can’t see him until he’s gone.”

–Craig Malveaux, on Francis Parker’s Gabe Harrington, who passed for four touchdowns in a 27-24, double-overtime victory over visiting Christian: “…battled Christian defenders and a billow of fog….”

Fog was  so intrusive  in the San Diego Section semifinals playoffs this week that writers at four games were moved to include descriptions of  the low-lying mixture of suspended water droplets or ice crystals in their game coverages.

Fog and football in San Diego go together like passes and catches.

Hundreds of games have been affected, going back to when the first night games were played in the 1930s.

Elsewhere on this website are examples, a few cited below.

–Helix’s record-setting passing attack (quarterback Jim Plum, receivers Karl Dorrell, Allan Durden, and Craig Galloway) was crippled in 1981 in a championship game loss to Vista.

Fog was so bad that The San Diego Union writer Steve Brand and other members of the media descended from the press level at San Diego Stadium and went to the field.  Visibility was just as limited, or poorer.

NOT A CELL PHONE, BUT…

–A 1939 Long Beach Wilson-Hoover game drew a crowd of about 4,000 to the Cardinals’ field, but those in attendance had only an idea of the playing area.

Ex-basketball coach Bruce Maxwell, and former Hoover athlete Bob Beckus got together and brought a play-by-play to the fans.

Beckus, armed with a portable telephone, roamed the sideline and Maxwell announced Beckus’ reports over the stadium public address.

The only complaint came from a Long Beach Poly scout who drove 200 miles roundtrip and had nothing to show for his effort to chart the Wilson Bruins, who tied Hoover 6-6.

Union reporter Charlie Byrne’s game account began “By Bruce Maxwell and Bob Beckus, as told to Charles Byrne.”

–Los Angeles Loyola’s Al Pollard ran virtually untouched and unseen for two 70-yard touchdowns in  the Cubs’ 19-6 playoff victory in Balboa Stadium in  1946.

WHO?  WHERE?

San Dieguito coach Curtis French complained that fog “was so thick we lost track of the ball and didn’t know who to tackle” on a kickoff return that went for a 103-yard touchdown in a 20-13 loss to Escondido in 1949.

Evening Tribune reporter Jerry Brucker advised the need for radar after he caught only glimpses of a 1949 Hoover-Pasadena game in Aztec  Bowl.

FOGOUT

Fog blanketed Orange County as San Diego and Fullerton prepared for a first-round playoff in 1950.

San Diego center Fred Thompson recalled that he could not see to whom he was snapping the ball in the pregame warmup.

But Thompson, his teammates, and Cavers coach Duane Maley were stunned when officials postponed the game, after the national anthem.

The  Cavers lost the next day, 20-19.

MOST FAVORITES GET THROUGH

There were 10 semifinals games in five divisions, with arguable favorites posting a 7-2-1 record.

Mission Hills and Eastlake (Division I), Oceanside (II), Ramona (III), Madison and St. Augustine (IV), and Santa Fe Christian (V) were favored semifinalists who will play a fourth and final postseason game for championships.

Poway scored a mild upset of Helix in D-II and Lincoln a moderate upset over Olympian in D-III.  Francis Parker and Christian were rated a tossup in D-V and Parker won 27-24 in double overtime.

Average scores: D-I, 51-23; D-II, 26-18; D-III, 38-7; D-IV, 37-30; D-V, 38-30.

Not exactly modern hard rap, but school administrators weren’t amused when they heard students in the San Diego High cheering section “dissing” their  Hoover counterparts.

The Hilltoppers sung to the tune of an old Army field artillery ditty, “Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail…as those caissons go rolling along”.

With apologies to Tom Ables, San Diego High, Class of ’44.

“Give a jeer, give a jeer,
for the  boys who drink the beer,
in the cellars of old Hoover High.

“They are drunk, they are bold,
and they always have a cold,
in the cellars of old Hoover High.

“So drink, drink, drink,
the beer is in the sink,
the scum is floating to the top.

“Scrape off that scum,
And drink, you dirty bum,
in the cellars of old Hoover High.”

Oct. 5 was bearing down on Kearny High football coach Darrell Smith.  His team would play the first football game in school history, a night game no less, at Coronado High against the Islanders’ junior varsity.

Problem.

An important component of the  Komets’ uniform was missing, caused by a delay in shipment  by the manufacturer.

Coronado coach Hal Niedermeyer stepped up and loaned Kearny enough football pants so the Komets could get through the game.

Kearny’s sewing class of future seamstresses also came to the aid of Smith, patching holes and tears (these weren’t Coronado’s varsity whites).

The Komets’ maroon jerseys were a good-enough match for the Islanders’ toggery, but there was little else to compare.  The Islanders’ JV won, 19-7.

The lack of  football clothing was a microcosm of the community of Linda Vista, where the school opened as a junior high, grades 7, 8, and 9, in 1941, and which was bursting at the seams.

Although housing lots had been marketed on the Kearny Mesa since the 1920s, Linda Vista was relatively untouched, sitting about two miles north of the city’s urban base and separated by the wide and expansive Mission Valley.

BOOM TOWN SAN DIEGO

The looming World War II changed everything.

Almost overnight San Diego was transformed, from a “sleepy border town to a teeming wartime metropolis”, according to The Journal of San Diego History.

Linda Vista would be known as the “Temporary Suburbs”, where eventually as many as 16,000 persons occupied almost 5,000 Federal housing units, most of which would be taken down in the years following the war.

San Diego’s population increased almost 70 per cent from 1939-45, from barely 200,000 to more than 350,000.  Aircraft workers and their families began pouring into the area at the rate of about 1,500 a week in late 1940.

Families reportedly slept in cars, garages, barracks or tents.  Even in all-night movie theaters and abandoned streetcars in Mission Valley, according to The Journal of San Diego History.

The federal government, acting to find shelter for defense workers and military personnel, quickly began to throw up single-family homes and duplexes.

THREE-THOUSAND HOUSES IN 200 DAYS

Defense Housing Project #4092, AKA Linda Vista, was typical of federal  projects designed to alleviate the housing problem.  In just under 7 months 3,000 units went up.

City resources were stretched.  And stretched.

The Linda Vista instant community lacked adequate access roads, retail shopping,  fire and police protection,  rubbish collection, and other essentials.

There was one Safeway. Checkout at any of the six lines sometimes took up to two hours.

KEARNY NOW GRADES 7-12 

Kearny Junior High became a junior-senior high.  The new school  had progressively added a grade each year, with the first senior class beginning in September of this year.

The 1945 graduating seniors numbered 140, not counting another estimated 120  who left school for the military.  Kearny numbered 536 students in six grades.  Sixty turned out for the 1944 football team.

The Komets played a schedule against largely junior varsities.  Behind quarterback Dick Rose, they posted a 2-5 record, the only varsity opponent being Brown Military, which shut them out,  27-0.

WHO WAS KEARNY?

Kearny High, Kearny Mesa, and various Kearny streets, towns, military installations, and land masses from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast, was named after Stephen Watts Kearny (pronounced Kar-nee and often misspelled “Kearney”),  a decorated, 19^th century army general known as the “father of the cavalry.”

Kearny fought in the War of 1812 and almost 35 years later was in a losing battle against the San Pasqual Indians, south of Escondido in 1846.

Kearny’s troops were outnumbered  and their weapons would not fire because of wet gun powder in what became known as  the “Battle of San Pasqual.”

Slightly injured in the skirmish, Kearny and his group of 18 men retreated to an  area known today as “Battle Mountain” on the northern edge of the Rancho Bernardo community.

As reported in  some journals, Kearny and his troops would follow scout Kit Carson and make their way South to the area that now bears Kearny’s  name.

The San Pasqual battle site still is visible.  The fight took place on a rocky knoll east of Interstate 15, next to Lake Hodges.

HILLERS’ REIGN BEGINS

San Diego High was entering an unparalleled period of success.  A 7-1 record  would be followed by  16 consecutive winning seasons.  From 1944-59 the Cavers were 127-24-4, an .832 winning percentage

And playoffs were back, sort of.

The California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section decreed championships in four districts.

No postseason play took place in 1943. Playoffs in 1942 and ’44 were given special sanction by the CIF executive committee but were not major playoffs.

Billed as the County championship, the 6-1 Cavers met the 7-0 Escondido Cougars, led by quarterback Bob Embrey, who, better known as Chick Embrey, would forge a legendary coaching career at the school.

San Diego took a 13-0 halftime lead and cruised to a 20-0 victory before about 3,000 persons at Escondido High. The Cavers outgained the Cougars, 312-146, and had 23 first downs to 8.

The Hillers thus shared CIF Lower Division laurels with Alhambra Mark Keppel, which defeated Pasadena Junior College’s lower division (comprised of junior year and senior year high school students from John Muir High), 19-13; Bonita, which topped Calexico, 12-6, and Santa Ana, which defeated Norwalk Excelsior, 15-13.

Redondo Beach Redondo, which signed Hoover for a final regular-season game and warmed up for the playoffs by routing the Cardinals 54-0, knocked off Santa Monica, 31-7, in the upper division title game, then was declared co-champion with Mark Keppel.

Redondo finished the  season with a 20-game winning streak dating to 1942 and Keppel’s season ended with an 8-0 record.

HONORS

Tackle Tom Dahms, the fourth of five brothers who played football at San Diego High over a span of two decades, was all-Southern California first team.  Embrey made the second team.

St. Augustine center Jim Orsborn earned honors on the all-Southern California Catholic schools team.

Dahms played at San Diego State and in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Cardinals, and then coached 20 years in the American Football League and NFL.

POINT-A-MINUTE HILLERS

San Diego’s 49-0 victory over Coronado represented its highest point total since a 69-0, season-opening win over Sweetwater in 1925, a span of 156 games.

The Hillers bettered that total five games later in an infamous, 72-0 rout of Hoover.  Although at Balboa Stadium, that contest was Hoover’s home game.

Heavy rains during the week promised a “slow” track and game manager Lawrence Carr, the Hoover vice principal,  considered  a postponement and playing the game on Saturday afternoon at Hoover.

STADIUM SITE OF CARNAGE

As Bob Lantz wrote in  The San Diego Union:  “Reveling in its ability to score at will, the San Diego High powerhouse gave future Hillers and Cardinals teams a mark at which to shoot by burying Hoover under a 72-0 avalanche in the 12^th annual meeting of the crosstown rivals before 18,000 fans last night in Balboa Stadium.”

The Cavers never punted and Hoover never crossed the 50-yard line. San Diego returned five intercepted passes for touchdowns.  The Cardinals fumbled on their first play from scrimmage, setting up the Hillers’ first score.

The ultimate indignity came when Hoover backs more than once ran into each other on attempted single or double reverses.

Hillers coach Bill Bailey told Bill Cordtz of The San Diego Daily Journal that his team had 40 players dressed and every one got into the game.

San Diego’s Tom Powell set a “modern” school record with 25 points on four touchdowns and a conversion, which propelled Powell to the league scoring championship.  San Dieguito’s Ralph Swain was the County leader with 100.

CAMP LOCKETT ROCKS

Brown Military traveled from Pacific Beach to Campo, more than 60 miles east, to play a team representing the Camp Lockett horse soldiers, who patrolled the Mexican border a mile away.

The Rocketts, whose roster included ex-college players, won 33-0, before a crowd of about 1,000 convalescing soldiers and Italian prisoners of war.

CAVERS’ HOMECOMINGS AGREE WITH POLY

Two of Southern California’s oldest antagonists, San Diego and Long Beach Poly, met for the 31^st time and the first time since 1941 on the Cavers’ 12^th annual Homecoming weekend.

Poly also was the visiting team when Homecoming was inaugurated in 1933 and the Jackrabbits furnished the opposition in 1939.

Poly extended its lead in the series to 21-9-1 with  a 20-6 victory before 13,000 Friday night fans.

EAST IS EAST, WEST IS BEST

Point Loma, La Jolla, San Diego, and Coronado combined to give the East a 13-6 victory over the West, comprised of Hoover, Grossmont, and Sweetwater before about 18,000 persons in the sixth annual preseason carnival.

Hoover played the first and fourth quarters for the West.  The Cardinals’ Freddy Espy ran 94 yards against Point Loma for the West’s only score.

Ed Teagle of La Jolla ran two yards and Tom Powell’s pass to Harry West for 30 yards against Hoover provided East touchdowns.

Instead of the usual 12-minute quarters, teams played for 15 minutes and were allowed a timeout.

FROM VIKINGS TO BOMBERS

La Jolla coach Larry Hanson lived a dual life.

He coached the Vikings and the San Diego Bombers.

Led by running backs Ed Teagle and George Pinnell, A.K.A. “The Vanishing Viking”, La Jolla posted a 4-2-1 record and overcame  the loss of two returning lettermen starters who had 1-A draft status and left the team before the season.

Hanson was  more successful in his weekend job as the moonlighting coach of the San Diego Bombers, which won  the Pacific Coast Professional Football League championship with  a 9-0 record.

The Bombers played a two-game, home-and-home, postseason series against the American Football League champion Hollywood Rangers and lost, 42-7 and 21-0.

Hanson’s workload apparently was not considered extraordinary, in comparison to that period in most Americans’ lives.

A story about the Vikings’ preseason opener against St. Augustine and casually featuring Hanson was on the front page of the Tribune-Sun sports section. Three columns to the right was a photograph of Hanson, also featured in an advance  on the Bombers’ game with the March Field Fourth Air Force Flyers.

SIGNS OF THE TIME

A 25,000-year-old tooth was found in the backyard of a home at 1844 Palm Avenue in National City.

The homeowner discovered the 2 ¼-inch-wide chopper as he excavated a cesspool. Scientists said the tooth was from a tapir, a large mammal shaped similar to a pig and still extant in other parts of the world.

TRUE GRID

Including freelance  members, such as Phoenix Union, Yuma, and Tucson in Arizona and a few junior highs, the Southern Section counted 139 schools…Escondido star Chick Embrey also was sports editor of the school newspaper…La Jolla halfback Ray Hoobler sustained a broken leg in a preseason scrimmage and was lost for the season…Hoobler  was better known later in life as  the San Diego Chief of Police from 1971-75…San Diego County teams began scheduling after-dark games as restrictions on night contests were being lifted…the lights went out for 18 minutes before the Lane Field kickoff between St. Augustine and San Bernardino St. Bernardine…the Saints won 21-0 after the lights came on…Fr. McDermott, the St. Augustine coach, attended a meeting in Los Angeles at which the Saints agreed to become members of the Southland Catholic League, which would begin play in 1945…an expansive loop, the Southland also promised to invite St. Mary’s High of Phoenix once wartime travel restrictions were lifted…the Arizona team did not join…former Southern League schools competed in the CIF-designated Group 12 League…there were 15 “group” leagues, created to put schools within short distances of each other…six Point Loma seniors played as sophomores for Cavers coach Bill Bailey’s last Point Loma team in 1942…local knowledge did not help the Pointers, San Diego winning, 45-0…Escondido businesses announced that they would be closed on Armistice Day, Nov. 11…the unbeaten, 6-0 Cougars were playing at 5-0-1 Oceanside for the Group 12 championship…San Diego’s Tom Powell, Joe Adamo, and Marcus Miranda visited Hoover’s Al Grandstrom in the hospital after Grandstrom sustained a severe knee injury in the rivalry game…St. Augustine  dropped a 6-0 decision to the Coronado varsity in the final game of the season after losing to the Coronado JV, 7-6, in Week 2….

Cathedral’s honored program took a body blow this week when the Dons were forced to forfeit eight victories in an 8-2 season and were knocked out the postseason.

The Dons self-reported an ineligible player, who appeared in all 10 Cathedral games. San Diego Section rules state that a team with three forfeits cannot participate in the playoffs.

The violation seems minor, at worst.

According to sources, the player attended Cathedral as a freshman, transferred to another school for his sophomore year, and came back to Cathedral this year.

Routine paper work that would have allowed the player to be on the Cathedral squad this season apparently was not completed, misplaced, or overlooked.

Cathedral’s staggering loss was good news to Serra, which lost to the Dons, 55-7, in the final regular-season game and was to play Cathedral in the quarterfinals this week, the Dons having received a first-round bye.

Serra now will play at Ramona, which eliminated West Hills 41-21.

Cathedral was the San Diego Section’s preeminent Division III team.  The Dons topped No. 2-ranked Helix 16-9 and battled state-ranked No. 1 Vista Murrieta before surrendering a fourth-quarter touchdown and losing 21-10.

IT’S HAPPENED MANY TIMES

Cathedral’s misfortune is not new in any sport on the high school landscape.

Most recently Madison was forced to forfeit the D-IV title in 2010 because of a residential transfer beef.  The Warhawks, with help from the City Schools, litigated and had the judgment overturned.

Chula Vista forfeited 4 victories and went from 9-0 to 5-4 in 1976 and was out of the playoffs.

The 1958-59 San Diego High basketball team, 16-2 and poised for a deep run in the Southern California playoffs, forfeited all 16 victories. Starting forward Otha Phillips was beyond the age limit to be athletically eligible.

The Cavers, behind the great Arthur (Hambone) Williams finished the season 24-2 competitively but 8-18 legislatively.

PLAYOFFS RESULTS AS EXPECTED

Seeded teams successfully moved through the  rounds.  Semifinals will match the top 4 in divisions I, II, IV, and V.  Serra is No. 7 in III.

Quarterfinals average scores:  Division I, 35-17; II, 41-16; III, 35-15; IV, 34-23; V, 41-11.

And then there were 40.

Twenty teams were eliminated in first-round, San Diego Section playoff games last week.

There were no upsets but maybe a mild surprise or two.

Army-Navy, 10-0 and coming off the best regular season in the school’s 102-year history, was knocked out by Calipatria, 41-21, in Division IV.

The teams had one common opponent. Army-Navy defeated Mountain Empire 30-16 and Calipatria topped the Redhawks 40-28.

Calipatria, 8-2 in the regular season, competed in the more robust Manzanita League.  Army-Navy is a member of the Pacific League, of which Calipatria and other Manzanita clubs were members as recently as 2010.

Olympian, which drew a first-round bye and meets Mt. Carmel in the quarterfinals this week, is the County’s remaining unbeaten team at 10-0.

MANY BLOWOUTS

Hilltop’s 35-28, overtime victory over Orange Glen represented the most closely contested game, in D-III.  Of historic import, Del Norte’s first-ever playoff appearance in the school’s fourth year was a success. The Night Hawks overcame Mission Bay 34-28 in a D-IV matchup after trailing 28-20 at halftime.

Average scores:  Division I, 43-18; II, 35-16; III, 30-9; IV, 31-17; V, 49-18.