Lee Friedersdorf, Millennium Hall of Fame

Richard Dunn

Parallel to society, football has changed a lot in 30 years, with

bigger, stronger and faster players setting records every autumn.

Lee Friedersdorf was one of the leaders on Estancia High’s small but

feisty band of tough guys who were nicknamed the Cardiac Kids because of

their narrow margins of victory in 1970.

But the 5-foot-9 Friedersdorf, a linebacker and tight end during that

celebrated season, doesn’t think the Eagles of then could stack up

against 21st century powers of today.

“We had a little team,” Friedersdorf said of the 9-2 Eagles, who set a

school record for wins in a single season that stood for 19 years.

That ’70 campaign was also Estancia’s first winning season since the

school opened in 1965.

“When I get out to high school games today,” Friedersdorf added, “(the

players) are bigger than we were and they’re faster than we were --

they’re amazing athletes. We had a guy playing offensive guard at 160

pounds and we won nine games doing it. It was a different era back then.”

Turning the clock back three decades ago, Estancia’s collection of

undersized but savvy players edged Costa Mesa and Fountain Valley by two

points each in Irvine League action, then defeated Corona del Mar, 27-21,

in the regular-season finale to clinch a CIF Southern Section 3-A playoff

spot.

Heading into the school’s first postseason, the Eagles had lost only

to league champion Edison, also the eventual CIF 3-A champion.

Facing Crestview League champion Orange in the first round, visiting

Estancia knocked off the Panthers, 19-14, with a tremendous goal-line

stand in the waning moments.

“(The ball) was like on the 6-inch line ... (the Panthers) were

convinced they were going to score,” Friedersdorf said. “There was less

than a minute left .. if they scored, they’d win. But we held them off.”

Today, Friedersdorf bumps into former Panthers from that memorable

game who swear their running back crossed the goal line on fourth down.

But Friedersdorf, in the middle of a giant pileup, always assures them:

“Hey, I was right there, and he didn’t score.”

Estancia lost in the quarterfinals to top-seeded Bonita, 15-14, the

following week at Orange Coast College. The Bearcats featured tailback

Allen Carter, the CIF 3-A Player of the Year in ’70 who later starred at

USC.

“He was about 240 pounds and bigger than anybody on our team, and he

was the running back,” Friedersdorf said of Carter, listed that year at

6-1, 205.

A second-team All-CIF 3-A selection on defense his senior year and a

first-team All-Orange Coast Area pick by the Daily Pilot on offense, the

165-pound Friedersdorf and players like Mike Shaughnessy, Cal Shores,

Doug Brant, Lee Joyce and quarterback Curt Thomas blazed a trail never

before seen in Estancia gridiron circles.

“Thomas was always accused of having no arm, but he threw me a lot of

passes and he threw it as far as he needed to in order to make a

touchdown,” said Friedersdorf, who caught no fewer than eight touchdown

passes from Thomas, the only other All-CIF honoree for the Eagles that

season.

It was also a time before the Daily Pilot kept receiving statistics,

and an era when Estancia Coach Phil Brown emphasized a smashmouth style

of play with limited fancy footwork. It was the way Friedersdorf & Co.

had been groomed from the beginning.

As freshmen, they went undefeated as coaches like Ken Millard “cut us

down to size” from hotshots out of eighth grade to high school football

players.

Friedersdorf, a three-year varsity player known as an excellent

blocker, opted to continue his career at Golden West, where his old

buddy, Shaughnessy, was one year ahead of him in school and helped

recruit him for Rustlers Coach Ray Shackleford.

“I surprised a lot of people going to Golden West College and not

Orange Coast,” said Friedersdorf, who selected GWC “mostly because

Shaughnessy and Shackleford came around and made an effort to talk to us

and Orange Coast College basically didn’t. When you’re a high school kid,

it doesn’t take much to sell you.”

At Golden West, Friedersdorf was switched to cornerback and was a

part-time starter. “That’s when your size starts catching up with you,”

he said of playing at the community college level.

Friedersdorf also played one year at GWC with Shaughnessy, who went on

to play at Cal and later finished up college at San Diego State, where

the two ended up roommates before graduating.

Friedersdorf was a journalism major at San Diego State and, later,

earned his MBA at Pepperdine.

Friedersdorf, the latest featured member of the locally famous Daily

Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, lives in Costa Mesa about two blocks from

where he grew up in Mesa Verde.

He has been a manufacturing manager for RR Donnelley the past 17

years.

Friedersdorf’s wife of 24 years, Diane, graduated from Estancia in

1972, one year after him. They have two children: Conor, 20, and Kristin,

16.