Chris Quinn, Millennium Hall of Fame

Richard Dunn

A well-mannered gentleman off the playing surface, Chris Quinn was

Corona del Mar High’s toughest character in the middle of all the blood

and guts during championship football and basketball seasons.

As a power forward in basketball, Quinn was the enforcer on the floor

for CdM Coach Paul Orris’ CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA

championship squad in 1992-93.

And, as a tight end and linebacker in football, Quinn may have

personified Coach Dave Holland’s teams the most in the autumns of 1991

and ’92.

A fundamentally sound three-year varsity player, Quinn was a bruising

blocker with good hands on offense, and a bone-crushing tackler on

defense. As a junior, he was named a first-team All-Sea View League

linebacker.

In 1992, Quinn was a star on both sides of the football, leading the

Sea Kings (8-4-1) to one of their most memorable campaigns in school

annals.

In a season which produced the famous Battle of the Bay II, Quinn was

an All-CIF Division IV and first-team all-league selection at tight end,

catching 31 passes for a team-high 440 yards and three touchdowns.

Quinn, who spent a lot of time blocking for Corona del Mar running

back J.R. Walz, caught a 22-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Matt

Evans for the first score in CdM’s 17-0 Sea View League victory over

Newport Harbor in Week 5 of the ’92 season.

The Back Bay schools would meet again in late November in what is

considered the greatest of all Battles of the Bay, a classic CIF Division

IV semifinal, won by the Tars, 28-21, which will forever be known in

local lore as Battle of the Bay II.

“Just being a part of it was really special, and with the Daily Pilot

(coverage) and playing against your friends (at Newport), it was great,”

Quinn said.

Holland, in his second-to-last season that year at CdM, put Battle of

the Bay II at the top of the then-31-year series, despite the loss.

“That will go down in history as the best CdM-Harbor game. For what

was at stake (a CIF finals berth), and the way both teams played so hard,

it was the best,” Holland said in the aftermath.

The 6-foot-2 Quinn continued the momentum of his football success on

the basketball court, where he posted up, rebounded, played strong

defense and averaged 11.3 points per game his senior year as the Sea

Kings captured their first CIF championship under Orris (following trips

to the CIF 3-A finals in 1989 and ‘90).

Quinn, the key inside element to CdM’s title run, played hoops with a

football player’s mentality, but stayed out of foul trouble and enjoyed a

soft touch around the basket, serving as the ideal complement on the

floor to featured swingman Todd Merriman and point guard Dan MacMillan.

“It was great to play with guys you’d grown up with and were still

friends with, and then being able to accomplish the goals we talked about

when we were playing basketball as kids at the (Harbor Area) Boys Club,”

said Quinn, who earned second-team All-CIF Division IV honors in 1993,

pulling off a rare double as an All-CIF pick in the two major sports.

Quinn, MacMillan, Merriman and Eli Wendell, et al, defeated visiting

St. Bernard, 47-46, in a thrilling CIF IV-AA championship game at

Estancia.

“It was tough playing in the league we played in with Woodbridge,

Tustin and Santa Margarita,” Quinn said. “But playing those (larger)

schools really prepares a small school like Corona del Mar to be able to

compete in CIF. We were a fourth-place team in the Sea View League, but

we could’ve been a first-place team in any other league.”

Quinn went on to play football at Orange Coast College, where he

started for two years at tight end and played on kickoff and punt teams

because of his ability to streak downfield with reckless abandon and

deliver jaw-cracking blows.

As a freshman, Quinn was OCC’s leading receiver in 1993 with 22

catches for 335 yards as Coach Bill Workman’s Pirates (8-3) played in

their third postseason bowl game in four years, beating visiting Antelope

Valley, 26-14, in the Orange County Bowl.

In 1994, Quinn was OCC’s co-captain, finishing his two-year career

with 47 receptions for 724 yards and five touchdowns.

“I think I just played to the speed of the game and had the smarts to

do it, and I definitely had good coaching,” the modest Quinn said of

athletic career.

Only three months after his sophomore season at OCC, Quinn was

seriously injured in an automobile accident in Feb. 1995, spending 1 1/2

weeks in the hospital.

After deciding his football career was over, Quinn refocused on

academics and attended UCLA, where he majored in communications.

The latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, Quinn has

been a walk-on basketball coach at Santa Monica High the last five years.

Quinn, who lives in Brentwood, works in sales for a software company

in Pacific Palisades and moonlights for radio station XTRA as a sports

correspondent. He’s 26 and single.