GRANT GELKER

Richard Dunn

Even though Grant Gelker entered his high school freshman year

with serious intentions about the game of football, his baptism was

unforgettable at Newport Harbor High under Coach Al Hackney.

At a time when Newport Harbor was bursting at the seams in

enrollment (about 4,000 students), more than 100 kids were trying out

for the 1967 freshman football team.

Gelker, who was hoping to play at Mater Dei but wasn’t Catholic

and didn’t get in, was among the young Sailors.

“Hackney was a former Golden Glove boxer and Marine Corps GI, and

he unloaded on us. Everybody quit,” Gelker recalled. “We went from

over 100 players to just about 20 some people. About three-fourths of

everybody left. But the ones who stayed ... the handful of us who

wouldn’t quit, we were raving lunatics.”

Hackney’s freshman team hammered opponents every week by at least

40 points, lore has it.

“We’d kick off at the beginning of the game and again after

halftime just to give the other team a (scoring) shot,” said Gelker,

a three-year letterman and standout defensive tackle. “We had skinny

kids, big kids, some with experience, some without experience, but we

were all raving maniacs.

“But, throughout the rest of my (prep career), nobody tested me

like (Hackney) at Newport Harbor. Nobody taught me the foundation

like he did of striving to be the best, of attitude, of perseverance,

like Al Hackney.”

Gelker (Class of ‘71), a 6-foot, 215-pounder and a first-team

All-CIF Southern Section 4-A selection, helped a rock-solid Newport

Harbor defense record four shutouts in the season’s first five games

in the fall of 1970 -- Ernie Johnson’s only year as the Sailors’

coach.

Gelker, also a first-team All-Orange Coast Area pick at defensive

tackle in 1970, and fellow defensive standouts Terry Albritton, Billy

Whitford, Jim Swick and Grif Amies, keyed the Sailors’ Sunset League

co-championship, the school’s first football title since 1942.

Under hard-nosed coach Wade Watts, considered the pioneer of

Newport Harbor smashmouth football, the Tars enjoyed back-to-back 6-3

seasons in Gelker’s sophomore and junior years, but the addition of

one-year-wonder Johnson brought more finesse to the offense.

“Johnson changed up the plays,” Gelker said. “He knew how to

finesse another team. With Wade Watts, we would attack everybody the

same way and come straight at them. He was very much into

fundamentals and toughness ... I felt really lucky to play for Wade

Watts. With that staff, I got an incredible foundation of how to play

the game and what was required.”

Gelker’s stellar senior year with the Sailors included a fifth

shutout in the Sunset League finale against Huntington Beach, 13-0,

giving Newport Harbor a share of the title with Loara. But the Tars

lost to Redlands in the first round of the CIF Playoffs.

Then Gelker’s football career took some crazy twists, some not so

good.

Gelker, who signed with the University of Colorado, played in the

1971 Orange County All-Star football game and was selected to play in

the Shrine All-Star Game. Gelker was switched to offensive guard in

the Shrine Game, but strained his back in a practice prior to the

contest at the Rose Bowl.

Gelker eventually underwent back surgery to repair the fourth and

fifth vertebrae, which separated.

“Then I went to Colorado ... and that was a meat grinder,” he

said. “They bring in 100-something guys. It’s like a military. They

brought in bodies and grinded them up.”

Things didn’t work out at Colorado, and after recovering from his

back injury Gelker transferred to Orange Coast College, where he

played one year under Coach Dick Tucker and switched back to

defensive tackle.

As the South Coast Conference’s Defensive Lineman of the Year,

Gelker was in a position to take his pick of top-notch programs, only

this time he was staying in California. USC was Gelker’s dream

school, and, when Trojans Coach John McKay came calling, it was an

easy pass rush for the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall

of Fame.

“I told them if you invite me to your office, I’ll sign, and they

said OK,” added Gelker, whose father, Bruce, played in three Rose

Bowl games for USC in the 1940s.

Gelker, who never minded sitting on McKay’s bench, collected a

1974 national championship ring, among other things, in his backup

role at USC.

These days, Gelker’s a business banker in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has a

son, Jacob, 19, and a daughter, Michelle, 17.