The old Model T

Don Cantrell

Many early day prep football fans still believe that the

T-formation didn’t surface in the harbor area until September 1948 when

Coach Al Irwin returned to his alma mater and installed it at Newport

Harbor High.

Even Irwin felt that was the case until a friend related some past

commentary from the late Les Miller relative to his head coaching scene

at Harbor from 1943-45.

Irwin was surprised, so evidently Miller never related any past

experiments with the T-formation to Irwin.

Miller basically rolled with the old short punt, but also had

occasions to experiment with the spread formation and the “T”.

He had little experience coaching 11-man football, but did coach one

Iowa junior college 6-man team to a championship before coming west to

assume the coaching job held by the late Wendell Pickens. Pickens had

enlisted in the Navy while an eye disorder had kept Miller out of the

military.

The T-formation did make one stroke of history under Miller in the

fall of ’43 when a hefty back named Lorrie Langmade, a ’42 championship

team veteran, rumbled around left end and scored on a short touchdown run

against Huntington Beach. The Tars won, 6-0.

Another T-play was called on for the Tars against the Santa Ana Saints

in 1944 before 6,500 fans at the old Municipal Bowl “and it let us down,”

said stout blocking back Joe Muniz, a brother of second-team All-CIF

Manuel Muniz from the ’42 champ team.

A handoff from quarterback Donnie Miller was planned for one of the

backs, but something went haywire and the ball slipped away.

From one angle, Muniz felt the fumble loss and it cost the Tars the

game. An interception by Muniz had set up a potential touchdown in the

“red zone,” but the luck ran out.

Newport lost the contest, 7-6, on a controversial conversion kick by

6-foot-7 center Don Vaughn. One ref claimed he missed the uprights,

although many alarmed and angry fans disagreed on the Harbor side.

Muniz, a 1943-44 veteran, said, “We just got into the T-formation

sparingly when Miller arrived. We had about a dozen T-plays, but most of

the attention by the coach was on the short-punt.”

Upon his discharge from the Navy, Pickens resumed his operation of the

short-punt at Newport for two grid seasons, then moved on to Orange Coast

College where he would assist grid chief Ray Rosso one year and coach

baseball.

At any rate, Irwin was definitely geared to the T-formation at Harbor

High and never opened the door for a return of the old power formations.

In fact, he carried on with the T-formation even when he advanced to

Orange Coast in ’56 as head grid chief. His two new assistants, Jim

Stangeland and Bill Poore, were also harmonized.

There was one shift at Newport in 1958 when the late Don Burns moved

on to the head job at Costa Mesa High. He was replaced by UCLA graduate

George Hunter, who dropped Burns’ T-formation and chose to install the

old single-wing that he drew from Bruin Coach Henry (Red) Sanders.

Unfortunately, neither Hunter nor Burns experienced many victories on

the scoreboard from 1956 through 1959 at Harbor. Hunter served two years

at Harbor, then advanced to new Marina High in Huntington Beach and

established a sound reputation for himself.

After Irwin’s arrival at Newport, Miller, via Athletic Director Ralph

Reed, was granted coaching room on the sports staff to coach Cee, then

Bee football, in the late ‘40s.

Regrettably, Miller had a habit of creating fancy plays with the

younger players and it sometimes created chaos on offense. Twice in ‘47,

two Bee players got confused and collided with their tailback out of the

razzle-dazzle reverses. Both scenes found the tailbacks knocked out and

taken from the games.

The varsity players generally followed Miller’s offensive action with

little trouble, but it was too frustrating for the younger fellows.

Ironically, Miller, despite the early day tries with the T-formation,

chose not to follow it with Irwin at the varsity level in ’48.

It disgruntled some because they claimed the varsity program wouldn’t

grow if all the coached didn’t follow the varsity.

One 1948 team Bee player only recalled Miller using short-punt and

spread formation plays, no T-formation at all. The ’48 Cee team was

coached by John McGowan, who started with short-punt, but switched over

the the T-formation in 1949.

Miller remained popular with the varsity players out of the mid-40s,

but the younger players from the late ‘40s were not always in harmony

with the coach.

In later years, Miller once had an occasion to extend apologies to

anyone he ever offended on the gridiron. He was quick to admit to a past

temperament with some, but had hopes of mellowing out any differences.

Oh, and for all of you who don’t have a clue to what was a Bee or a

Cee ... in those days everything was done on a scaled chart of

“exponents.”

You could be a senior and still be a Bee, if you were small enough.

And, you could be a varsity player as a sophomore, if you were big, and

15 years old.

It was all finally done away when coaches got their wish - moving to a

system of varsity, junior varsity and frosh-soph levels.

As for coaches on lower levels using their own systems, contrary to

the varsity program ... I don’t think you’d see that very often these

days.