San Diego had its own vision of manifest destiny.  An inferiority complex, too.

Dr. Ralph Dailard, superintendent of the San Diego City Schools, announced on Sept. 22, 1959, that 15 area high schools were lined up to become members of the proposed San Diego Section of the California Interscholastic Federation.

Dailard said the schools were the nine in the San Diego Unified School District, the five in the Grossmont Union High School District, and St. Augustine, one of the city’s two private schools.

Dailard said the Escondido Union High School district, with one high school, was tentatively listed as wanting to join.  One report said Escondido was “luke warm” to the idea.

There actually were 31 schools in San Diego County,  but Fallbrook and members of the Southern Prep League were not initially going to be part of a new alignment.

The Sweetwater district, headed by the sports-minded Joseph Rindone, was not ready to join.  The Coronado School District, because of its size, aligned with Sweetwater.

“We were invited and we’re considering it,” Rindone told Jerry Magee of The San Diego Union.  “The constitution had not been completed and we didn’t want to sign a blank check (for membership).”

The board of education authorized Dailard to take steps toward forming a separate CIF section to begin functioning at the start of the 1960-61 school year.

The school board was  made up of private citizens, some of whom may have known whether a football was blown up or stuffed.

Coaches, almost all in favor of staying in the Southern Section and being a part of the competitive and high profile playoffs, were not consulted.

Board members wanted their own, tiny power base.

CAR DEALER HAS VOTE

One board member, a local automobile dealer and sports fan, didn’t like the idea of San Diego schools being “bossed around” by J. Kenneth Fagans, the commissioner of the Los Angeles-based Southern Section and its 308 schools.

There were vague complaints  about the Southern Section’s size, eligibility rules,  sites for playoff games, and length of the playoffs.

“We haven’t found the size of the Southern Section a problem,” said Rindone, who, along with retired Hoover principal Floyd Johnson, was a past chairman of the Southern Section executive committee. “Our representative has a voice, just like everyone else.”

No substantive reason was given for the break.  In reality a  few people in San Diego didn’t like someone in an office 125 miles away holding sway over their fiefdom.

Southern Section officials, while questioning  the necessity of a San Diego Section,  were ambivalent.

At a meeting at Helms Hall in Los Angeles on Nov. 21, the Southern Section executive committee  granted approval for the proposed San Diego Section while declining to make an endorsement.

San Diego wanted to be “big league.”  The city and Union sports editor Jack Murphy avidly pursued  Los Angeles Chargers owner Barron Hilton and persuaded Hilton to move here after the 1960 season.

“Big League” was not easily defined.

Which would you consider big league?  A championship game between 6-3 Clairemont and 6-3-1 Escondido (1962)  or  a semifinals playoff between  10-0 San Diego and 10-0 Anaheim (1955)?

RINDONE LEAVES

‘By 1960, Rindone  would move on to found Southwestern College in Chula Vista. Before he left, Rindone supported the inevitable move by San Diego schools.   The Sweetwater district and Coronado closed ranks and joined the others.

A final step was taken when the CIF state federation approved the San Diego County request after 30 minutes of discussion in Sacramento.  Darrell Smith, head of athletics for the city schools, and Lewis Smith, superintendent of the Grossmont district, represented the local group.

Smith reported that small schools and independent institutions in San Diego would be given the “right of self determination as to whether they want to remain in the Southern Section or be included in the San Diego Section.”

Mountain Empire would remain in the Southern Section for several years and Fallbrook didn’t join in football until 1961-62.  The other small schools fell into line.

The CIF San Diego Section, 31 strong,  was a reality.

Four weeks of playoffs, which were too long in 1959, are the norm in the 21st century, along with a regular-season schedule that essentially has grown from 8 games to 10 and a postseason with the  potential of state playoff games.

This wasn’t the expected route of Duane Maley’s farewell tour.

San Diego High was 0-2 for the first time in 46 years.

Maley also was steaming at The San Diego Union sportswriter Jerry Magee and Maley’s boss, principal Lawrence Carr, was steaming at Maley.

Blunt and outspoken, Maley didn’t realize that reporter Magee was going to write exactly what Maley said when discussing the Cavemen’s preseason prospects.

“We’re small, we’re slow, and we’re stupid,” said Maley, words that in future years would have gotten him fired.

Political correctness was not part of the lexicon in 1959.  Maley got a sharp rebuke from his principal and the coach and Magee didn’t speak again until very late in the season.

Magee, who came to The Union in 1956, was an excellent reporter who covered the preps more comprehensively than any writer before or after he left the high school beat.

Magee became the lead reporter of the new San Diego sports franchise, the Chargers, in 1961, and was one of the country’s most respected football writers and columnists for the next 40 years.

POLY NOT ONLY BEACH TEAM TO BEAT CAVERS

Maley had lined up a rugged  schedule for his final season as coach.  He would go into administration in 1960, partly because San Diego was dropping out of the Southern Section and forming its own alliance.

Maley liked playing those tough teams from the North and he got all he asked for after penciling in Long Beach Wilson, Long Beach Poly, and Las Vegas in the first three games.

The Cavers were upset at Wilson, 14-12, and beaten, 13-0, in Balboa Stadium by the Poly team which numbered many of the same players which knocked out San Diego, 26-18, in the quarterfinals of the playoffs in 1958.

After surrendering 456 yards to Poly in ’58, the Hillmen held the Jackrabbits to 262, but Willie Martin ran 64 yards for one touchdown and returned a kickoff 88 for another.

Led by tackle Mike  Giers, Long Beach defenders made 15 tackles for losses of 94 yards and Giers sacked San Diego quarterback Steve Simon seven times for 57 yards.

Richard (Prime) McClendon led the Cavers with 91 yards in 9 carries.

A 26-13 victory in Nevada got the Cavers rolling.  They routed Lincoln 32-0 with 369 rushing yards and seemed on the verge. But St. Augustine, shut out, 51-0, in 1958, pulled off a 12-12 tie.

San Diego’s starting quarterback, the improving Simon, was ejected after inadvertently kicking St. Augustine’s Paul Nacozy in the head.

Simon had tried to hurdle the Saints player during an attempted tackle by Nacozy on an out-of-bounds play in the first half.

Maley raged on the San Diego sideline at Simon’s disqualification and for almost an hour after the game.

STRETCH  RUN

The Cavers’ 2-2-1 record represented their poorest after five games since a 2-3 start in 1938, but they closed out Maley’s career with a remarkable run of six consecutive victories in which they averaged 45 points a game and gave up only 46.

There would be no opportunity to meet Poly in the playoffs.

As a presumed accommodation to the departing San Diego schools, some of  which had complained of long seasons,  CIF Southern Section commissioner Ken  Fagans announced that there would be two groups of AAA playoff teams.

A three-week, eight-team bracket would be in use only one year.  The playoffs would return  to a four-week, 16-team bracket in 1960, said Fagans.

Poly was aligned in the Northern Division and San Diego in the Southern.

San Diego dispatched a good Chula Vista team, 34-14, in the first round after being seeded fourth, behind Monrovia, Santa Ana, and Redlands.  The seedings had been made weeks earlier, as San Diego was just reaching its stride.

Santa Ana, the semifinals opponent, would be the measure by which the Hillers would determine how far they’d come in the second half of the season.

The Saints were 10-0 and averaging 35 points a game.

With H.D. Murphy, Richard (Prime) McClendon, and Richard Hutchison running in the manner of some outstanding predecessors, the Hillers overcame 12 penalties for 90 yards and rushed for 335 yards in a 26-6 victory.

Murphy gained 119 yards in  14 attempts, McClendon 106 in 11, and Hutchison, in his first start,  58 in 12.

Santa Ana scored with 20 seconds remaining  after many in the Santa Ana Bowl capacity crowd of 9,000 had departed.

SCOUTING? AND FOR WHOM?

Monrovia, coached by Mike Giddings, would be the Cavers’ opponent in the finals at Balboa Stadium.

The 26-year-old Giddings was the nephew of Don Giddings, the former Point Loma High coach who had become the school’s vice principal, and Ed Giddings, a San Diego attorney. Ed and Don played at San Diego High in the 1920s and ‘thirties.

The Giddingses and Pointers coach Bennie Edens were in Santa Ana for the Cavers’ game.

Maley’s camp suspected that the Point Loma group was scouting San Diego for Monrovia.  “Oh, no,” Edens said with a straight face when questioned by Paul Cour of the Evening Tribune.  “We just wanted to see the ball game.”

UNDEFEATED COACH

Giddings had a coaching record of 29-0, including 11-0 in his first season as the Wildcats’ varsity mentor.  He also had been undefeated in two seasons of guiding the B squad.

“We feel this:  San Diego comes the closest to being the same type team we are,” Giddings told Jerry Magee.  “We combine a quick line and fast backs and so does San Diego.”

“And we see no reason to stop now,” Giddings said, discussing his undefeated record.

John Kovac, after scouting the Wildcats with San Diego football aide Jerry Dahms and ex-Coronado star Stew Worden the previous week (Monrovia’s 14-6 win over Redlands before 15,000 at Mt. San Antonio Junior College), made an  interesting remark.

“I know (Monrovia) is very perturbed because they’re not going to be playing Long Beach Poly,” Kovac told Magee.  The Wildcats apparently were unhappy that they were playing the allegedly lesser San Diego squad.

The Jackrabbits were in the Northern Division finals against Hawthorne.

LET THE CARNAGE BEGIN

Jerry Magee’s lead succinctly described Duane Maley’s last game:

“San Diego High’s precisionists last night offered a stunning testimonial to Duane Maley’s coaching career by overwhelming unbeaten Monrovia, 53-0, in Balboa Stadium.”

San Diego players and supporters in the crowd of 11,000 carried Maley to midfield for the postgame handshake.

Giddings afterward remarked to Paul Cour, “I’ll be back in this town someday.”

Murphy scored three touchdowns on 81- and two-yard runs, and on a 79-yard kickoff return, and ran seven times for 127 of San Diego’s 369 rushing yards.

Simon scored three touchdowns (4, 15, and 64-yard runs) and had 119 yards  in 7 attempts and passed for one touchdown and had another called back by penalty.

Hutchison had 60 yards  in 12 carries, and McClendon 30 in six, not including a 15-yard point-after-touchdown run.

Had San Diego reached a point where it might have beaten Long Beach Poly in a return match, which would have been possible under the old playoff format?

The Cavers could only wonder.

QUICK KICKS

Maley’s 12-season career record was 97-19-3 (.828)…Murphy averaged 9.6 yards a carry and scored 21 touchdowns…McClendon averaged 9.3…Simon, who didn’t play enough to letter behind Ezell Singleton in 1958, overcame early-season jitters and passed for 15 touchdowns…San Diego’s defense was led by Oliver McKinney, Phil Cooper, Willie Bolton, Charlie Dykstra, and Tom Meshack…Larry Wohlford was a standout center…Hutchison got his chance to start in the playoffs after Emile Wright ran afoul of the law and was suspended…Charlie Popa was named to replace Maley as head coach the week after the Monrovia playoff…Maley moved on to vice principal and principal positions in the City Schools…Maley’s son, Dennis, was an all-Eastern League running back and a tough defender in  1964 and later played at the University of Arizona before signing a professional baseball contract…Giddings never was “back in this town someday” with a football team…he moved on to became head coach at Glendale Junior College and defeated San Diego J.C., which numbered several ex-Cavers, 7-6, in the opening game of  the 1960 season….

Birt Slater’s sanity was in question.

Why would the handsome, charismatic Slater take the head coaching job at Kearny (three winning years in 15 seasons,  all-time record,  45-66-7), when he could have had the San Diego High  job when Duane Maley retired?

The answer wasn’t nearly as simple, but Slater eventually created his own powerhouse at this different and seemingly much less attractive venue.

Go back to 1953.

Slater that year replaced Bill Burrows as Maley’s chief assistant after one year at Southwest Junior High near the Mexico border and two years removed as a starting end on San Diego State’s 1951, 10-0-1  Pineapple Bowl squad.

Maley and Slater became a formidable tandem.

Birt coached defense and Maley coached offense.  The Cavers were 7-3 in ’53, 9-2 in ’54, 11-0-1 in ’55,  7-2 in ’56, and 11-1 in ’57.

The 45-8-1 record included a 26-1 run against City Prep League competition, 30-1 versus San Diego County teams, and 15-7-1 against schools outside the County.

DOMINO EFFECT

Mary McMullen, the founding principal when Lincoln opened as a junior high in 1949, was leaving at the end of the 1956-57 school year to open Will Crawford High, named for the former San Diego City Schools  superintendent.

Mary Mac, as she was known to the faculty at Lincoln, wanted Walt Harvey to follow her to Crawford.

Harvey had just completed a three-year, start-up program as Lincoln went from junior to senior high and his 1956 team posted a 5-2-1 record with lots of players returning for ’57.

Saying no to McMullen was not easy.  She was a respected administrator and she was persuasive.

Another start-up and a few seasons of taking lumps wasn’t particularly appetizing, but Harvey said yes.  He got a pay raise and the new school was closer to Harvey’s home in the college area.  His two sons would be attending Crawford.

Harvey and basketball coach Don Smith, at McMullen’s behest, approached Slater at a San Diego High basketball game the winter of 1956-57 and offered the Lincoln job. Slater did not commit.  Smith and Harvey sensed that Slater was turning them down.

Other factors were in motion.

Duane Maley urged Slater to stick around for another year.  Maley was going to retire and go into administration.

Then a turnabout.

Slater accepted the Lincoln offer.

An announcement  from the City Schools’ superintendent’s office in early March, 1957, revealed that the position at Lincoln was going to be filled by Slater, who was quoted as saying he would begin assembling a staff and take over the program in the fall.

Then another turnabout.

Slater, apparently satisfied that Maley would retire after one more season and that Slater would be Maley’s successor, backed out at Lincoln and remained at San Diego High.

MORE DOMINOES

Shan Deniston then moved from La Jolla and took over at Lincoln  and Harry West replaced Deniston at La Jolla.

“We had a good year in ‘fifty-seven,” said Slater.  “Ezell Singleton had developed as a quarterback and things looked good for ‘fifty-eight.  Duane told me, “’I can’t give it up now; we’ve got too good a team coming back.’”

Slater did not coach football in 1958 but remained as track coach through the 1959 season. He had been a championship half-miler at Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley in the early 1940s.

(Slater’s track squads posted a 38-6-1 record in dual meets from 1955-59. His band of four, including Roscoe Cook, Bobby Staten, Willie Jordan, and Charles (Sugar Jet) Davis, scored 20 points and won the Southern California team championship in 1957).

MALEY STAYS ON

Charlie Popa took Slater’s place on the football staff in 1958.  Maley again eschewed  retirement and returned for 1959, which would be his final season.

Popa became the heir apparent.  Slater had decided to move on.

Slater was hired at Kearny in 1959 and won the Western League championship in his first season.  He had a team of no names but it scrapped every week against bigger, more talented foes. His arrival on the campus hard by U.S. 395 on Linda Vista Road began a 18-season run of success.

Slater had one losing year and his teams posted an overall record of 134-41-9 (.753) with 15 playoff appearances, 5 trips to the San Diego Section finals, and 3 championships.

After being at San Diego during some of its greatest years, Slater built a program at Kearny that rivaled the Cavers’.

SHEPARD REMEMBERS

The 1963 team which starred Jim (Yazoo) Smith, Steve Reina, Larry Shepard, Charlie Buchanan, John Erquiaga, Steve Jones, Robert Odom, Dennis Santiago, Bill Carroll, Charles Wilker, Dan Fulkerson, Ernie Oyama, John Levi, and a few more, was 11-1 and often described as equal to almost any San Diego High team of the postwar era.

“I always thought of Birt as a father figure,” said Shepard, who recalled a key moment in his life after Shepard had returned home from his freshman year at UCLA.

“I was playing over the line at South Mission Beach and Birt happened by on the boardwalk.”

“What are you doing?”  the fiery Slater wondered.  “I’m playing over the line,” the equally fiery Shepard responded.

“No, what are doing with your life?” demanded Slater.  “I’m thinking about going back to school,” said Shepard.  “Come to the high school Monday morning,” said Slater.

Slater met his ex-player at Kearny and drove Shepard to the City Schools’ office that Monday and announced  he was hiring the former quarterback for the position of “campus security.”

After a few ohs, ahs, and we-can’t-do-this, Shepard was hired.  He went to work at Kearny and coached JV football with Brad Griffith and Don Wadsworth.

Eventually Slater helped Larry get an assistant’s job under Joe DiTomaso at St. Augustine. When DiTomaso moved to Santana, Shepard  became head coach of the Saints and graduated and earned his teaching credential at San Diego State.  He later was head coach at Monte Vista and retired after a long career in the Grossmont School District.

BIRT QUITS EARLY, JOINS CHARGERS

Slater retired at the relatively young age of 52 after the 1976 campaign, but was not long out of football.

Chargers coach Tommy Prothro hired Slater as an assistant to his coaching staff in 1977. Slater broke down and evaluated film of opponents.

Don Coryell was appointed head coach in 1978 and retained Slater on the coaching staff.

Birt retired from the Chargers after the 1983 season.

Ed Imo is going into the Kearny Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 13, in a tribute most fitting for the anchor of perhaps the finest team in school history.

After a 6-6 tie with Sweetwater in the opening game, Kearny rolled to 12 consecutive victories and the San Diego Section championship.

Don Norcross was the quarterback of that team, but for Norcross all props are for Imo, the squat, fireplug nose tackle who took on double team blocking every week and emerged as the San Diego Section player of the year.

“He was simply dominating,” said Norcross, who is known today as a reporter and columnist (“This Just In”) for UT-San Diego.  “I’m guessing he was listed as 5-9, 230 pounds.  He was raw…brutally strong.

“No center could block him one on one,” said Norcross.  “His combination of quickness and strength made him unblockable.  Look at how few points our team allowed that year.  He was the anchor.”

The 12-0-1 Komets outscored their opponents, 345-79, and shut out six teams.

“All I can say is that I’m thankful he was on my team,” Norcross said.  “Had I played against him I would have spent a lot of time face first into the grass.”

Imo recently was named to the first-team, all-time San Diego County prep squad.

Imo also was community college defensive player of the year at San Diego City College, from which he went on to star at  San Diego State.

Imo, who is the physical education/athletics department chairman at American Samoa Community College,  is in Ghangu, China, where he is helping a Samoan team train for the World University Games.

Ed will be represented at the Hall of Fame induction by his son, Ben Imo.

Imo trivia stat:  When Ed played at San Diego State in the  late ‘seventies he had the shortest name of any NCAA Division I player, five letters.

“Fitting,” Norcross added, “because of his stature.”

Kearny also is honoring six  others this year:

–Grady Fuson, Oakland A’s scouting executive who played with Norcross and Imo.

–The late basketball coach and U.S. government teacher Tim  Short.

–The 1998-00, girls’ basketball teams, which won 3 championships.

–The late Leonard Fierro, Sr., history and U.S. government teacher and early proponent of English as Second Language.

–Al Janc, economist.

–Randy Rogel, actor, director, writer, musician.

Ray Baksh, 80, who coached football at Helix, La Jolla, and St. Augustine and lived  with an entrepreneurial spirit, passed away in San Diego.

Baksh was a graduate of Imperial High and is in the Imperial High football Hall of Fame.  A Marine Corps veteran and San Diego State graduate, Ray and his wife Virginia, owned fast food franchises.  Eventually he   was able to pursue a lifelong passion  and  helped coach high school football teams in the area.

“Ray was a no nonsense coach who coached our linebackers for ten years,” said retired Helix coach Jim Arnaiz.

“His no-nonsense approach was backed up by his love for football and his ability to challenge every player in his group.”

Arnaiz remembered something Ray would tell his players.  “He would finish his daily and game meetings with his group by saying, ‘I love you guys.  Leave it on the field.”

Reggie Bush’s high school career ended on a quiet note, but its brilliance probably outshone any other in the 42-year history of the San Diego Section.

Bush scored 75 touchdowns and rushed for 60 touchdowns in three seasons.  He caught passes for nine TD’s, and returned 6 punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns. He even  punted 27 times for a 34.9-yard average.

Every time Bush ran from scrimmage he averaged more than a first down.

Bush averaged 8.8 yards, scored 11 touchdowns, and gained 1,034 yards as a sophomore.  He rushed for 26 touchdowns and averaged 12 yards and gained 2,200 as a junior.

Bush sustained a wrist injury that slowed him in two games and forced him to sit out another as a senior but he still averaged 12 yards from scrimmage, scored 23 touchdowns, and gained 1,691 yards.

It was in the open field where Bush was most dangerous.  He caught 40 passes for an 18.4-yard average, averaged 17.8 yards on 42 punt returns, and 37.1 yards for 15 kickoff returns.

Bush’s 26 touchdown runs as a junior averaged 36 yards.  He averaged 34.8 yards for 6 touchdown receptions, and 84.5 yards on two punt returns for scores.

Bush’s 60 rushing touchdowns were accomplished in 3 seasons.  Leader Markeith Ross of Rancho Buena  Vista rushed for 72 touchdowns in 4 seasons.  La Jolla Country Day’s Rashaan Salaam rushed for 105 touchdowns in three seasons, mostly in 8-man football.