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Christian can’t get no respect. Pardon the double negative, but maybe the UT-San Diego poll voters should train an eye on the Patriots of El Cajon.  Me included. The Patriots are 4-0 and the No. 1-ranked Division IV team in Southern California, according to Cal-Hi Sports. Should coach Matt Oliver’s club be ranked in the Top 10? It ...

Tomrorow’s UT-San Diego football poll undoubtedly will list Oceanside No. 1. How far will Helix fall from first after its 9-7 loss to Cathedral? I listed them fourth in my vote, behind Oceanside, Mission Hills, and Cathedral. “I told you we weren’t that good,” Helix coach Troy Starr reminded writer Don Norcross. Starr knew whereof he spoke. Slick and fast, ...

The gentle breezes of Oahu were calling San Diego Section football teams. Morse coach John Shacklett, who first brought his club to the Hawaiian Islands in 1985, led a vanguard of four local squads, there to play in the annual Shawn Akina Classic. Shawn was a University of Utah football player who passed away suddenly at age ...

Services for Jeff Staggs will be held at the Immaculate on the University of San Diego campus on Friday, Oct. 3, at 11 a.m. A celebration of life follows at the San Diego State Hall of Fame center on campus. A legion of friends remember and mourn Staggs, who passed away at age 70 at his home ...

Fifty-one years ago almost to the week, San Diego football players sweltered. It was hotter in 1963 than in 2014. Let’s try that again. It was hotter in 1963 than in 2014. Incongruous as its sounds given the recent scorchers, the weather this week was not as warm it was in that long-ago September. Back then Hoover and Helix, the presumed ...

Blown out 63-6 and 84-6 in its first two games, Calipatria appears to have given up more points in successive games than any 11-man team in the history of San Diego County and San Diego Section football. History in this case goes back to 1893, when the first reported game was San Diego High’s 8-0 win over the YMCA and ...

Helix had 16 first-place votes and Oceanside the other three as the two big shots from opposite points of the County are beginning to separate from the rest of  the Top 10 in the UT-San Diego poll. Helix gained only one point to 187 but Oceanside gained 41 to 174, while No. 3 Mission Hills dropped 35 points to 123.  St. Augustine ...

Rick Jackson’s program at Madison took off in 2008.  The Warhawks are 66-9-1 since and success is noted everywhere. The school, hard by I-805 and Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, has a modern, aluminium stadium that hosted about 4,000 persons Friday night when the opponent was St. Augustine. Multiple signage points out the Warhawks’ state division championships in 2010 ...

Dr. Tebb Kusserow, an all Southern California lineman at Santa Monica High in 1960, is involved with the Samohi Archival Project and provided this rare footage of a Southern Section playoff in 1954 between San Diego High (dark uniforms) and Santa Monica at Corsair field on the Santa Monica College campus. Led by future NFL quarterback Lee ...

A come-from-behind-win against a ranked team from the Southern Section resulted in coach Troy Starr’s Helix Highlanders landing 15th in Cal-Hi Sports‘  State Top 25 this week. Oceanside is 16th, Mission Hills 21st, and St. Augustine is “On the Bubble”.  El Capitan is third in Southern California in Division III, and Christian third in D-IV. The Highlanders, ...

Thanks to Hoover  alumnus and  school historian Chuck Hansen, we were able to  acquire footage of Hoover’s celebrated football victory over San Diego in 1956, plus a 1992 televised interview with the late Walt Baranski, a star on that Cardinals team. Baranski, who was slowed by  a progressive, crippling disease and  passed away at age 69 in 2008, was ...

Three more big intersectional battles loom for San Diego Section teams at Oceanside this week, testing Helix’s and Oceanside’s standing in the weekly UT-San Diego poll. The second week of Honor Bowl games at Oceanside will match No. 1 Helix and Loomis Del Oro and No. 2 Oceanside and Mission Viejo on Friday.  Cathedral will meet Westlake Village Oaks Christian ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Now wait just a grape-pickin’ minute! Students at Escondido High were up in arms. They did not cotton to the term Grape Pickers or its use to describe the school’s athletic teams, although the wine-making fruit held agricultural sway in the area and the city had hosted a Grape Day Festival since 1908. The students wanted a tough, ...

With Frank Buncom IV leading the defense and explosive running back Elijah Preston propelling the offense, St. Augustine might have more good players than last season’s 11-2 team but could be hard pressed proving it. The Saints have stayed close to home for most of  the San Diego Section’s first 54 years, but they’re stepping out this season, with road games ...

Preseason games don’t have the import of regular-season contests, which carry the prestige of potential league championships and playoff seedings, but the early intersectionals have their own realities. Do well in these games and gain ratings. Have high ratings and increase the possibility of state playoff invitations. Many intersectionals will be played the week of Aug. 29, with ...