CAL SHORES

As football legend would have it, Cal Shores of Estancia High was

an All-Madden Team candidate long before it was introduced to

television viewers.

Making the big tackles, showing gridiron savvy and sometimes

playing hurt, while leaving most of the spotlight for teammates, are

a few images of Shores under Eagles Coach Phil Brown.

A defensive lineman who once kicked PATs and field goals with a

broken right tibia to beat Fountain Valley, the 6-foot, 185-pounder

helped provide arguably the greatest goal-line stand in Estancia

football history.

It was the autumn of 1970. Estancia enjoyed its first winning

season (9-2), while setting a school record for victories in a season

that would last 19 years.

Shores, an All-Orange Coast Area selection, made the fourth-down

stop in the waning seconds to complete a goal-line stand against

Crestview League champion Orange in the Eagles’ first-round CIF

Southern Section 3-A playoff game, in which Estancia held on to win

the school’s first postseason contest, 19-14, at El Modena High.

“Probably the biggest highlight was our first CIF game, and the

first playoff game Estancia had ever played in,” said Shores, who

added that the Eagles’ quarterfinal matchup the following week

against top-seeded Bonita, featuring tailback Allen Carter, the CIF

3-A Player of the Year, was truly memorable despite the Bearcats’

15-14 win in pouring rain at Orange Coast College.

In the Eagles’ 21-19 victory over Fountain Valley in Week 8,

Shores iced it with his kicking, even though he had a broken tibia.

“Back in those days, you just taped it up,” he quipped.

Shores, a two-sport standout who also played baseball in former

Estancia Coach Ken Millard’s first season, played in the Orange

County All-Star Football Game as a defensive lineman and played two

seasons at Orange Coast with guys like Pat Sweetland (Costa Mesa) and

Alvin White (Newport Harbor).

Prior to arriving at Estancia, Shores attended rival Costa Mesa

his first two years of high school and lettered on the Mustangs’ 1968

football team as a sophomore kicker and outside linebacker. He was

classmates and teammates with Benny Ricardo, the future NFL kicker,

and the late Dan Quisenberry, one of baseball’s best relief pitchers

in the 1980s.

“My parents moved across town,” Shores said of the transfer. “We

were very poor. We used to live in an apartment, then my dad got a

house with a VA loan. He was a veteran from World War II and Korea.”

At Orange Coast, Shores moved to outside linebacker, and, by his

sophomore season, was starting for Coach Dick Tucker’s Pirates, who

finished 6-3 in 1972. “I just remember playing with a bunch of fun

guys,” said Shores, who sprouted to 6-1, 190 at OCC, then continued

his education without football at the University of San Diego, where

he joined former All-CIF Estancia teammate Lee Friedersdorf.

After college, Shores earned his teaching credential and returned

to his alma mater, and, for two years, was an assistant coach under

Jim Bratten. But that’s when Prop. 13 rattled the state’s education

pocketbook and Shores, among the last teachers hired, was among the

first ones let go by the school district. Shores has been an

insurance agent the last 25 years for Farmers Insurance.

Shores, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame,

lives in Mission Viejo with his wife and two children -- son Brett,

20, and daughter Katie, 14. Shores and his wife, the former Ann

Montano, were high school sweethearts at Estancia.