From the sidelines, with Don Cantrell:

Two Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Famers, Jim Newkirk and Ted

Trompeter, both Newport Harbor High grads, were connected with the recent

Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo athletic reunion.

Trompeter was temporarily involved with the program planning, but then

stepped aside when he had to take a breather from an ailment.

Trompeter was one of the school’s top college boxers in the ‘50s.

Prior to that, he was an outstanding football lineman at Harbor High,

‘49.

It was an enjoyable visit for Newkirk, who grew up with football and

baseball.

He had an opportunity to study the 2000 Cal Poly baseball program that

contains all the records from past years.

He was amazed to find that he is still in the top 10 in three

categories. In his time as a noted pitcher, Cal Poly only played 30 or so

games. Today, he said the college plays more than 60 contests per season.

Reports indicate that Newkirk, who once ranked high as a pitcher at

Orange Coast College and Cal Poly is second only to Mike Krukow (former

San Francisco Giants pitcher via Cal Poly) in strikeouts per nine innings

(8.8 to Newkirk’s 7.8).

Another major highlight for the athletic members of yesteryear

returning was the emotional impact for many in taking note of some

survivors attending from the terrible football team plane crash at

Bowling Green, Ky. in 1960. Sixteen players died in the crash just after

takeoff.

Newkirk said one survivor, Al Maranai, appeared on campus for the

first time since the crash.

He spent three and a half years in the hospital, still walks with a

cane, and has not fully recovered,” he said.

One jolt returned to Newkirk in looking back on the tragedy. Newkirk

still had a year of football eligibility at that time and may well have

chosen to try out for the grid team that year. However, he had married

and the couple knew their child would absorb most of their time. Hence,

he chose not to think football.

Trompeter had played football at Cal Poly in the early ‘50s for two

years. He wound up his career by turning to golf and now makes his home

near Bakersfield.

An interesting note comes to the Pilot from one of the paper’s Sports

Hall of Famers. Charlie Berry, an all-league Harbor High fullback from

the mid-’50s.

Berry, who once played football and rugby at UCLA, eventually became a

world history teacher at a high school in Hawaii.

It allowed summer travel time to Europe for advanced studies. He also

looked forward to island beach time in the summer, but it seems all he

can ever draw is but a week, then it’s back to school again.

Over the years, however, he had made time for the annual Hawaii

marathon run and climbing mountains in Europe. With amusement, he says he

has the scrapes and bruises to show for it.

He is the younger brother of Harbor High’s great 1947-49 fullback,

Bob. Both Bob and Charlie wound up with about the same yardage marks at

the end and both averaged 6.1 per carry.

Gene Crain, Class of ’51 at Harbor High, and a one-time baseballer,

had reason to cheer toward Riverside College this past spring.

Crain, a longtime harbor area attorney, noted that his son, David, was

the assistant coach this year for the college, winners of the state

community college baseball championship.

The elder Crain once had a habit of showing up to participate with the

Los Angeles Dodgers in spring training at Vero Beach, Florida.

The young harbor area boys of the ‘40s once hustled early on the

weekends to serve as caddies at the Santa Ana Country Club. It often

meant $2 tokes. They could easily elbow young Rex Bell out of their way

and laugh. Sadly for them, they pushed him into a golfer who became a

permanent $5 tipper. It was the late Clarence Hoiles, Register

co-publisher. Bell later became a CIF diver at Newport.