A memorial service for William (Birt) Slater, legendary Kearny High football coach, will be held in the Kearny gymnasium on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013, at 1 p.m.

Slater, 89, passed away recently after a long illness.

Slater was head coach at Kearny from 1959-76, posting a record of 134 victories, 41 losses, and 9 ties for a .753 winning percentage.  His teams made 15 playoff appearances, were in the San Diego Section finals five times, and won 3 championships.

Slater was an assistant football coach at San Diego High from 1953-57, a period in which the Cavers posted a 45-8-1 record.  He also was coach of the 1957 San Diego track team that upset favored Compton Centennial to win the Southern California championship.

San Diego High’s 1955 team posted an 11-0-1 record, won the Southern California championship, and was declared national champion.

A more detailed account of Slater’s career can found in the article  “1959: “Birt, Are You Crazy?”

Oceanside gave up one first-place vote to Mission Hills, Poway made the top 10 after being idle in Week 1, and San Pasqual moved up.

All was almost quiet on the U-T San Diego prep football front.

The only significant changes took place in the “Others” category, which thinned out from a total 14 teams receiving votes in Week 2 to 8 this week.

Oceanside and Mission Hills are on a collision course.  They’ll meet in a Week 5 wrapup of the nonleague season.

Oceanside’s hard-fought, 50-39 loss to Gardena Serra last week may  have dimmed the Pirates hopes for action beyond the San Diego Section season, but it’s too early to rule them out.

*Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.                                                           Others receiving votes with points in parenthesis: Carlsbad (28), Mount Miguel (11), Rancho Buena Vista (10), ), Ramona (8), La Costa Canyon (7), Mission Bay (3), El Capitan (2),  Serra (1).

Thirty-one sportswriters, sportscasters and administrators vote each week, including:  John Maffei, Craig Malveaux, Dennis Lin, Don Norcross, Lisa Lane, and Andrew Burer, U-T-San Diego); Steve Brand, Terry Monahan, Bill Dickens, Tom Saxe, Rick Hoff, U-T-San Diego correspondents); Nick Pellegrino, East County Sports.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Rick (Red) Hill (107.9 FM The Mountain); Jeff Kurtz, playonsports.com; Ernie Martinez, XTRA Sports 1360; John Kentera, Jack Cronin, Ted Mendenhall, Bob Petinak, Jordan Carruth, Bobby Wooldridge, Mark Chiebowski (The Mighty 1090), Rick Willis, Brandon tone, Jake Fadden, KUSI-TV; Craig Elsten, 619sports.net; Rick Smith, Partletonsports.com; Jerry Schniepp, John Labeta, CIF San Diego Section, and Bruce Ward, San Diego Unified School District.

We made five big mistakes,” Oceanside coach John Carroll revealed to the U-T San Diego’s John Maffei, “and nearly every one of them was because of cramps.”

In the high heat of an Oceanside evening, Carroll’s Pirates took a 39-36 lead well into the fourth quarter when a couple lapses were turned into touchdowns by the nimble and swift Gardena Serra Cavaliers.

The visitors, who rank among the country’s top teams, didn’t wilt in the heat or from the glare and noise of a jammed Simcox Field gathering.

The 50-39 loss will haunt Carroll, who pointed out that his team was well hydrated.  The Gardena quarterback “handled the ball about a 100 times (actually about half of that number) and never cramped,” the Oceanside mentor noted.

“I don’t get it,” Carroll told Maffei.  “We played one of the best teams in the country.  We had the lead with 3:30 to play but cramps killed us.”

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

The Cota family’s football lineage goes back more than 50 years, but Adrian Bueno did something at Ramona that eluded his grandfather and uncle.

Bueno, a senior cornerback seeing extended varsity action for the first time, returned an intercepted pass 45 yards for a touchdown, although the Point Loma dropped a 21-19 decision.

Bueno’s grandfather, Ron Cota, was an all-San Diego Section linebacker at St. Augustine in 1961 but never scored a touchdown.  Bueno’s uncle, Stephen Cota, was a second-team, all-San Diego Section linebacker on Point Loma’s undefeated 1987 team, and never reached the end zone.

100 POINTS IN A HURRY

U-T San Diego writer Jim Lindgren doubted whether a San Diego Section team had reached 100 points in a season faster than El Capitan, which, after a 44-0 victory over Mater Dei, had scored 114 points in one game and less than a half in the second game.

The answer is yes, the 100-point level has been reached 49 times by teams in the first two completed games, including three others this season.

There have been more than 45,000 games played by San Diego County teams since the first ball was inflated.

PARKER LEADS AFTER TWO

Many of those 100-point achievements were by teams playing eight-man football, but there are only five that have surpassed the Vaqueros’ total of 114 points in the first two games.

With assists from Calexico and our neighbors to the North, among others:

1—Francis Parker scored 136 points in 2005, when it defeated Parksville of British Columbia, Canada, 62-12, and Temecula Linfield, 74-16.

2—El Camino scored 128 in 1999, with victories of 66-13 over West Vancouver, Canada, and 62-6 over Morse.

3—Escondido topped Calexico, 70-0, and Orange Glen, 49-0, for 119 points in 2008.

4—Escondido  Charter had 118 points in 2009, when it defeated Foothills Christian, 69-41, and Calvin Christian, 49-0.

5—San Diego scored 115 points in 1925, with victories of 69-0 over Sweetwater, and 46-0 over Los Angeles Manual Arts.

6T—Escondido, defeated Calexico, 79-0, and Lancaster Eastside, 35-21, for 114 points in 2009.

LIKES NEW ADDRESS

Coach Mike Wright’s Crawford Colts are showing more life than at any time in the last decade.  Stepping down from Division IV to V may have helped, but Wright thinks, among other factors, the Colts are playing to their strength.

Crawford defeated Julian 49-0 last week, following a 55-0, Week 1 victory over San Diego Southwest.

Wright told U-T San Diego writer Kirk Kenney that only one player could bench press 200 pounds in a 2012 campaign that ended with a 1-9 record, with the victory coming on a forfeit.

Twenty-one players now can bench more than 200 after committing to a summer weight-lifting program.

“We’re a different team,” the coach told Kenney.  “We’re a different Crawford.”

QUICK KICKS—Mira Mesa tied El Camino, 12-12, on a touchdown pass with 50.5 seconds remaining, then lost, 15-12,  when the Wildcats’  David Rodriguez kicked a 35-yard field goal with 7.7 seconds left…”Not being arrogant, I expected a shutout,” said Cathedral coach Sean Doyle, praising his defense…the Dons defeated Torrey Pines, 10-0….

BY GARY MARSHALL

The new Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad is beautiful. The back-to-back baseball/softball diamonds and tennis courts are woven into a school complex that blends smoothly into the canyon hillside. It is a tribute to our community.

The facility that excited me the most was the new football stadium, with its sharply lined synthetic turf field, towering light standards and concrete stadium bleachers — all book ended by big yellow goal posts.

My reason for the excitement is that I played many high school sports — football, basketball and track — and then played college football at West Point. My son played high school football, then played football for an Ivy League college. We lived a part of the American dream. Football was tough emotionally and physically. Coupled with academics it was a real character builder.

Inspired about football in the neighborhood, I approached Sage Creek Principal Cesar Morales to see if I could help with the freshman football team. Big surprise — no football. The school offers 18 other sports, but, again, NO FOOTBALL!

Why is there a football stadium, but no football?

To date, the explanation is that Carlsbad’s school board was modeling the footprint of Canyon Crest/Torrey Pines high schools and San Dieguito/La Costa Canyon high schools. There, only one school in the district has football, supposedly creating a more “comfortable academic environment” at the non-football school.

Motivated to hopefully change the school board’s thinking, I sent “The Boys of Fall” video to Superintendent Suzette Lovely and each board member. The video demonstrates what dreams and experiences students forfeit by removing football. The superintendent and all board members are women, so my hope in having them view the video was to show how the emotion and spirit of football, like no other sport, can be transmitted to students, faculty and the community.

However, all subsequent conversations with school administrators came with the vibe that football is a potential negative and Sage Creek High School would be “a more comfortable experience” without it.

My point to them was that football is the most popular sport in the United States and is a foundational standard of the American high school experience. It teaches emotional and physical toughness, team play and responsibility.

Trying to protect students by creating an academic conclave is a mentality that weakens student experience.

In order to get an expert opinion, I contacted Ed Burke, the head coach I assisted for six years at Torrey Pines High School. Ed coached for 43 years and is in the California Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The football stadium at Torrey Pines High was renamed Ed Burke Stadium in his honor.

Coach Burke and I attended the Aug. 14 school board meeting. We were scheduled next to last of 40 discussion items and given five minutes. Ed eloquently explained that in 43 years he taught many subjects and coached nearly every sport. He said, “Football is by far the greatest school experience a young man can have.”

Our suggestion to the school board was to start gradually with a freshman/junior varsity team for fall 2014. Fielding a team would logically answer to the taxpaying community the question of why build a million-dollar football stadium. Lastly, each board member was given a sheet with 42 reasons a Sage Creek football program would provide a more complete and improved school experience. The board was asked if there was any discussion.

The answer from each board member was silence. No discussion. No committee to evaluate a future program.

These types of decisions, by a select few, are a microcosm of America, where comfort and protection trump individual responsibility, hard work, and endeavors that create stronger citizens.

Are these decisions moving America in the right direction?

The school board owes an explanation to the community as to who made the decision to have a football stadium and no football. The school board also owes an explanation on how it was vetted and why the community was so poorly informed.

The above appeared on the op-ed page in the Sept. 7, 2013, UT-San Diego. The author is  a 1965 graduate with academic honors from Hoover High who has  a long and distinguished background in athletics.  Marshall was a starting quarterback on the football team and also started in basketball and lettered in track and field at Hoover. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where one of Marshall’s  coaches was Bill Parcells and his freshman basketball coach was Bobby Knight, both coaching legends.  Marshall’s football roommate was Gary Steele,  who became the first African-American letterman in football at Army. Steele is the father of ESPN anchor Sage Steele and Baltimore Ravens public relations executive Chad Steele.

I was informed this morning that Birt Slater, the legendary coach at Kearny and San Diego High, had passed away yesterday afternoon , Sept. 3, 2013.

I hope to soon have more information to pass along.

Oceanside, unapproachable in the first half and approachable in the second half of a 47-28 win over St. Augustine, picked up additional support in this week’s UT-San Diego prep football poll.

The Pirates, who led 28-0 at halftime against the Saints, will need all hands on deck for all four quarters this week when they play host to Southern Section power Gardena Serra.

Oceanside out-polled Mission Hills, 23 first-place votes to 7, and scored 302 points to the Grizzlies’ 281.  Biggest improvement went to Cathedral, which jumped from sixth to third after a 38-6 victory over Utah power Sandy Jordan.

*Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.                                                                    .

Others receiving votes with points in parenthesis: Poway (38), Carlsbad (31), Ramona (27), Mount Miguel (13), Rancho Buena Vista (11), Olympian (9), Patrick Henry (5), Del Norte (2), Steele Canyon (2), El Capitan (2),  Steele Canyon (2). Valhalla (2), Brawley (1), Vista (1).

Thirty-one sportswriters, sportscasters and administrators vote each week, including:  John Maffei, Craig Malveaux, Dennis Lin, Don Norcross, Lisa Lane, and Andrew Burer,    U-T San Diego); Steve Brand, Terry Monahan, Bill Dickens, Tom Saxe, Rick Hoff, UT-San Diego correspondents); Nick Pellegrino, East County Sports.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Rick (Red) Hill (107.9 FM The Mountain); Jeff Kurtz, playonsports.com; Ernie Martinez, XTRA Sports 1360; John Kentera, Jack Cronin, Ted Mendenhall, Bob Petinak, Jordan Carruth, Bobby Wooldridge, Mark Chiebowski (The Mighty 1090), Rick Willis, Brandon Stone, Jake Fadden, KUSI-TV; Craig Elsten, 619sports.net; Rick Smith, Partletonsports.com; Jerry Schniepp, John Labeta, CIF San Diego Section, and Bruce Ward, San Diego Unified School District.