THE VERDICT

I was delighted to see that the people who pick sports figures for

the Daily Pilot’s sports hall of fame finally got around to picking my

old friend Harold (Hal) Pangle. Of course, they are seven years too late.

In 1992 I wrote an article for the Pilot about Hal. I must admit, it

wasn’t about his football prowess -- for reasons that I hope will become

apparent. Rather, it was about another part of Hal’s life, far removed

from the gridiron.

When the Rendezvous Ballroom opened in 1928, it was a nickel-a-dance

joint. Hal and I were gate boys, or ticket takers, there one summer. A

group of us, seven to be exact, manned so-called gates through which the

dancers went onto the dance floor. Each dance cost the couple a nickel.

So it was our job as gate boys to see to it that each couple deposited a

nickel ticket into a box when they went out on the floor. So far, so

good.

However, at the end of each dance it was also our job to herd the

dancers off the floor so that they could pay another nickel for the next

dance. To do this we gate boys took long ropes which connected the gates

and went out onto the middle of the floor and herded the dancers off the

floor, much like herding a group of cattle into the corral. In so doing

we would from time to time annoy one of the male dancers as his partner

was being dragged off the floor. Altercations were frequent, and this is

where Hal Pangle enters this deathless yarn.

We gate boys were a fairly typical bunch of high school kids. Scrawny

would be a charitable description. All but one. That one was Hal Pangle.

Hal was a veritable giant of a man, even as a kid. He never took

advantage of his size. He was quiet, modest, friendly, but he was big and

he was brawny.

And so when one of us gate boys was about to suffer great bodily harm

at the hands of a male dancer who resented his female partner being

yanked off the floor, we would yell, ‘Pangle!’ at the top of our lungs.

Hal would drop his rope and come trotting over, all 250 pounds of a man

who could scowl with the best of them when the occasion demanded. All of

a sudden the irate dancer became docile, almost apologetic.

Now, that’s the Hal Pangle I remember, not the great football player who

received All-American recognition.

You see, I went to USC during the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. At that

time, USC was a football powerhouse. National championships were regular,

Rose Bowls were automatic, All-Americans were a dime a dozen. And so it

was one year we were on our way to another national championship. We had

a 25-game winning streak when tragedy struck. A lowly Oregon State team

played the great Thundering Herd to a 0-0 tie. And they did it with an

11-man squad, no substitutions. And my old friend Hal Pangle was the

powerhouse of that Oregon State team, racking up huge yards as a

fullback, them becoming a devastating tackle on defense. It was a sad day

for Troy.

So that’s why I choose to remember Hal Pangle as the genial giant who

repeatedly saved me from bodily harm one summer at the Rendezvous, rather

than that dirty so-and-so who ruined USC’s chances for another national

championship.

If this doesn’t make sense, it’s because you didn’t go to USC during its

football powerhouse days.

JUDGE GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and former judge. His column

runs Tuesdays.