Bill Jenkins, Millennium Hall of Fame

During spring practice at USC in 1970, legendary former head coach

John McKay, as football lore has it, once turned to an assistant after

hearing a “splat,” figuring it was that defensive back from Orange Coast

College again, killing some poor Trojan wide receiver going over the

middle.

“Is that,” McKay reportedly said upon hearing the midfield crash,

“that kid (Bill) Jenkins again?”

Jenkins, you see, was penciled in to start in the secondary that fall

for USC, but a tragic automobile accident in the summer at Mammoth Lake

ended his life.

“(Jenkins) was getting a reputation around USC for just nailing guys,

and he epitomized what that was,” said former Orange Coast football coach

Dick Tucker, who named the program’s “Hitter of the Year” Award after

Jenkins following his untimely death.

Jenkins, a two-sport standout at OCC and the Pirates’ Athlete of the

Year in 1968-69, redshirted his first year at USC, then “McKay told me he

was going to start the next year,” said Tucker, who added that Jenkins

“was one of the greatest kids I’ve ever known, a natural born leader.”

Craig Zaltosky won OCC’s inaugural Bill Jenkins Memorial Award in

1970, which is given annually to the Pirate who most typifies his style

of play.

Jenkins, a defensive back for OCC in 1967 and ’68 and a former

Huntington Beach High standout, was also Tucker’s backup quarterback and

saw plenty of game-time snaps. He was a first-team All-South Coast

Conference selection on defense in ’68.

“I’ve been around a long time, and he’s a guy, I think, who could have

had a great career at USC and I think he stood a chance, or at least the

possibility, of being a pro,” Tucker said. “But I don’t know. He didn’t

have blinding speed, but he was big, about 6-foot-3, and wasn’t real

heavy (about 210 pounds). He was a good offensive player, but a great

defensive player.”

Tucker, a Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Famer, said he was close to

Jenkins’ parents, Maynard, his father, and his late mother, Jane.

“Boy, they were good people and supporters ... just solid parents,”

Tucker said.

The Jenkinses reportedly moved to Bishop. Maynard Jenkins was an

engineer who designed and built ski lifts at Mammoth Mountain.

But, one day, Bill Jenkins apparently went off-roading by himself and

was thrown from his vehicle because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

“He was one of our favorite guys,” Tucker said of the latest honoree

in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, celebrating the millennium. “It

was one of those things that happen. It’s a horrible thing to hear, but

(disasters) happen.”

Jenkins was also a baseball player who was once offered $25,000 to

sign professionally out of OCC, but turned it down (at the time an

enormous sum) to play football for USC.

Jenkins played baseball at OCC in 1968 in Coach Wendell Pickens’ final

season after 20 years and in ’69 in Coach Dale Wonacott’s only season and

the Pirates’ first in the new South Coast Conference. Jenkins is among

OCC’s all-time leaders in doubles (11), accomplished in 61 games.

“(Jenkins) was one of the finest young men I have ever had the

pleasure of coaching,” Tucker once said. “He could have played either

professional football or baseball. He was a fine leader, an excellent

student and an outstanding citizen.”