White hot

Don Cantrell

Mike White, a one-time “walk’on” assistant football coach for Mike

Giddings and Newport Harbor High in 1989, and a resident of Balboa

Island, was sittingh on top of the world Sunday as the St. Louis Rams

flattened the San Francisco 49ers, 42-20, in St. Louis.

White, the former Oakland Raiders head coach who moved on to assist

his old friend, Dick Vermeil, grid chief of the Rams, appears to be

drawing bright rainbows after some dim years in the past.

The Rams, who have also been down in recent years, have come to life

this season and are now leading the West Division of the National

Football Conference with a 4-0 record, the only unblemished record in the

NFL at this point.

With a string of 17 straight victories over the Rams in nearly a

decade, the 49ers were favored by experts to continue on with the record.

But they failed.

White, a close friend of Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Famer Ed Mayer,

noted some of the changes that have helped the Rams this season. It

includes a superb quarterback named Kurt Warner, whose experience comes

from Arena and European football.

Another blessed gift to the team comes from a sterling runner named

Marshall Faulk and a new offensive coordinator, who has been delivering

“good ideas,” according to Mayer.

Mayer said Vermeil and White are old friends with close ties dating

back to San Jose State days.

Vermeil has pro football championship experience as he once directed

the Philadelphia Eagles to a pro title. He bowed out from pro grid

coaching for a number of years after that exhausting season.

White, whose title now is “Assistant to the Coach,” recently told

Mayer he was pleased to learn of Jeff Brinkley and the ‘1999 Newport

Harbor team’s performances.

White was a valued help to Brinkley and the Tars back in 1989 as an

assistant coach. He was between pro jobs and offered to help coach the

ends for the ’89 season.

Pro baseball was not cheered in the Southland until the Brooklyn

Dodgers took the name of Los Angeles and moved west to a huge ravine in

the city. The Dodgers fans grew by leaps and bounds and baseball history

would expand from the 50’s to the present.

Agencies like the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce became highly

enthused and started launching “wet buses” to the new Dodger Stadium in

Los Angeles. The fans loved it.

It also drew a major increase in phone traffic to local newspapers

like the Globe-Herald and Pilot around the noon hour when the Dodgers

were playing at home. Locals cared little for the scores until the

Dodgers became “the home team.” And they responded.

It created one problem at the old Globe-Herald during the lunch hour

since only one desk editor was in the office to answer the phone. The

sports desk expected him to cover the sports. He responded in a friendly

way, but had no idea what was coming until the first trial run of lunch

horns were blowing.

The phone calls were essentially the same. “Hey, what is the Dodger

score? Again and again went the hilariouis scene. Firstly, the desk

editor had no use for sports, knew the scores of nothing and could only

struggle to devise a perfect way out.

He was soon grabbing any phone that rang and would be snapping,

“Dodgers, 5-4, top of the fifth.” “Dodgers, 5-4, top of the fifth.”

“Dodgers, 5-4, top of the fifth.”

That was never the score, but he had heard that response once and

figured it would work.

It worked until the sports editor finally uncovered his routine, and

called the main editor to complain.

Bob Woodhouse, a one-time noteworthy gridder at Harbor High, Orange

Coast and Long Beach State, and a few of his Newport buddies from the

late 40’s, once drew a bargain from owners of the Huntington Beach

Speedway.

They had been climging the fence often, never paying for tickets.

The owners finally pulled them aside and offered to let them in free

if they would stop climbing the fence. They agreed, but wanted to know

why. The owners explained that other kids were catching on to the fence

crashing and they needed to discourage the smaller fellows.

On the brighter side of life for Woodhouse, an award-winning prep grid

coach in past years, is due for Hall of Fame honors in San Diego high

school circles in November. One school he formerly coached was San Marcos

High in northern San Diego County.