A treasure that’s rare to find

ROGER CARLSON

It doesn’t seem that long, but as summer approaches it will be 15

years since Don Cantrell and his Newport Harbor High Sailors became a

regular feature in the sports pages of the Daily Pilot.

What began with a feature on the 1949 football team became one of

my most valued items in a package dedicated to “Locals Only.”

Cantrell has focused on the Sailors of the ‘30s and ‘40s, and for

many years produced his material gratis. That’s right, he’d bang out

his stories and even paid the postage to get them here from his

Albuquerque home.

There were two factors. After years of pressure in the news

business, he said he didn’t want any more pressure. And, in 1989, let

me tell you, as a sports editor, I virtually had no budget, and was

in a daily scramble to hold on to whatever wasn’t nailed down in the

department, lest it would be sold for firewood.

Time and circumstances eventually turned things around, and

Cantrell remains one of the great constants of Pilot sports coverage.

Cantrell was the Sailors’ quarterback on the fabled 1949 team of

Al Irwin, the one which went 8-1, finishing second to Sunset League

champion Fullerton and without a berth in the CIF playoffs when the

eliminations were virtually a tournament of champions.

But his story with the Sailors begins a little earlier when as an

eighth-grader he and a friend traded a ride on the handlebars as they

bicycled up the grade from PCH to 16th Street to see the Sailors duel

Anaheim at Davidson Field in 1945.

They watched a bull elephant in the backfield named Ralph Freitag

pound away at the Colony, but Anaheim won, 26-13, which helped seal a

winless season (0-6-1) in Les Miller’s last of a three-year run as

the Sailors’ coach.

In time he would become a quarterback for the Tars with a rather

unique background. How many senior quarterbacks have you heard of who

did not take a snap as a junior, and was a two-way starting tackle as

a sophomore?

A career 5-foot-7, 155-pounder, he became Irwin’s field general in

1949 and the Sailors exploded, averaging nearly 36 points a game, but

missed the brass ring when Fullerton prevailed, 43-27, despite three

TD passes by Cantrell in the Sunset League showdown.

With such standouts as Bob Watts, Dick Jones and Bill Kindell all

on the injured list in the Fullerton game, circumstances left the

Tars with a lifetime of wondering, “What if?”

There was a good chance Newport could have gained a berth in the

playoffs as a co-champion, but Fullerton survived with an 18-13

victory over Downey with the latter camped on the Fullerton 1-yard

line as time ran out to claim the undisputed championship. It was the

same Downey team which Harbor had blasted, 40-0.

Cantrell’s athletic career would be short at the University of

Willamette in Oregon, although he did enjoy moments in a freshman

game against the Oregon Ducks when he scored on a quarterback sneak

and completed all five pass attempts.

Cantrell’s career as a quarterback, however, has really never been

the issue on these pages.

I ran into him while covering a prep football game in a tiny press

box at Laguna Beach High in the early ‘70s.

In those days the general attitude for any sportswriter was very

competitive and chit-chat between a Pilot writer and anyone from the

Register or Times was out of the question. You’d better watch what

was going on because the only help you could count on was after the

game when talking with coaches and/or players. And, of course, I was

always delighted when it was apparent the competition was struggling,

which was often.

It didn’t work with Cantrell, who was writing for the Santa Ana

Register at the time. How could anyone stone-face the affable

Cantrell, who would do everything but dust off your chair for you?

We were friends immediately and Cantrell’s persona has never

changed. The nicest guy in town.

A resident in Albuquerque with wife Leslie for the past 23 years

with two sons (Jesse and Dillon) attending the University of Arizona,

he has remained a consistent friend of the Pilot and of Newport

Harbor High.

When looking back his focus often centers around the stories of

Johnny Ikeda and his family’s trials during World War II and the

internment camps, of Vernon Fitzpatrick and Hal Sheflin, of Al Irwin

and the Muniz brothers, among many, many others.

Seasons come and seasons go, but for Cantrell, Newport Harbor is

not 1949, but from the 1930s to the present, and therein lies the

true spirit of a true Sailor.

Cantrell prefers to describe himself as “semi-retired,” which

amounts to “retired,” but with the responsibilities of putting

together a column for the paper.

“You never run out of Newport football stories,” said Cantrell by

telephone. “The old guys can always come up with something that even

I have never heard before.”

Cantrell’s statistics as a quarterback don’t realistically stand

up to a Shane Foley or Steve Bukich, or a number of other standouts

in the Long Gray Line.

Clearly, they had more completions, more touchdown passes, more

yardage and more honors.

But no one even begins to approach the number of Sailors Cantrell

has touched with his special brand of loyalty and interest. And it’s

that asset which gives him that “community treasure” status.

Hey! See you next Sunday!

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

His column appears on Sundays. He can be reached by

rogeranddorothea@msn. com.