Honorary captains for Battle of the Bay
ROGER CARLSON
When Al Irwin was a 14-year-old freshman starter in the fall of 1932
he played on a surface of grass and dirt -- later known as Davidson
Field -- before his status as a four-year starter for the Newport
Harbor High Sailors was completed.
In 1963 a Corona del Mar High sophomore named Greg George was
ineligible to play for the Sea Kings against Newport Harbor because
he was two weeks shy of his 15th birthday. It was the first “Battle
of the Bay,” although I’m not sure it was billed as such.
In 1978 a coaching legend named Bill Pizzica finished his fifth
year at Newport Harbor with an “unbeatable” reputation at the “Battle
of the Bay” with five straight victories.
And in 1989 Jerrott Willard completed a remarkable run of
domination as Corona del Mar High’s inside linebacker and fullback
when the Sea Kings softened an 8-7 loss in the “Battle of the Bay” to
the Sailors with their second straight conquest of the CIF Division
VI championship.
These four are scheduled to return to Davidson Field Thursday
night as the 2004 edition of the Battle of the Bay unfolds and
they’ll act as honorary captains of their respective sides.
For Irwin, it’s a little different since the “Battle of the Bay”
did not begin until 1963 when second-year Corona del Mar came within
an eyelash of pulling off the upset of the year, as well as the
overall series, in a 13-12 loss in the season opener after an 0-8
season in 1962.
“I think I’ve seen most of them,” said Irwin, who still resides
with wife Lois at his Ocean Front home. “In the beginning, and even
today, the student body attendance is about 2-1 in favor of Newport
and that means you have a heckuva lot of kids. In the last 20 years
Newport has had some great coaches, permanent coaches, with a good
summer program, but Corona del Mar still comes up with the good
teams.”
Indeed, more often than not, Corona del Mar has entered as a
decided underdog, yet more often than not, Newport Harbor has barely
escaped.
The rules were decidedly different when Irwin was playing for the
Tars.
“Our school was only two years old at the time,” said Irwin, who
would go on to play for Amos Alonzo Stagg at the College of the
Pacific. “If you did not turn 21 before Sept. 1 you were eligible
[for the rest of the school year],” said Irwin. “Some of the fishing
families, and others, would go to school six months a year and then
pick it up the next year. Dick Thompson and I were in the same grade,
but he became ineligible during our junior year.”
It made for some interesting matchups, but Irwin, at age 17, was
an All-Orange League choice as a senior.
By that time the PTA has stepped in and helped establish bleachers
on the south side of the field and Davidson Field, named for the
principal, Sidney Davidson, was in business.
Today Newport Harbor’s No. 1 has found himself on an ineligibility
list of his own with orders not to ride his bicycle, swim or drive a
car because of an infection after a cornea transplant of his right
eye.
For Greg George it is a return to the scene of many positives, but
perhaps the moment he most remembers is when he was a tight end for
the Sea Kings in his senior season of 1965.
“I was wide open on a little out pattern,” recalled the son of USC
legend Ray George, “when Ron Peca, a great athlete and one of my best
friends, intercepted and ran 85 yards for a touchdown. “I’ll never
forget that.”
At the outset of the CdM campus the “feeder school” for CdM, as
well as Newport, was Horace Ensign Junior High.
The Sea Kings nearly pulled off the upset of the series in that
first year of 1963 when George was not old enough to suit up for the
13-12 classic which was dominated by the upstart Sea Kings despite
the loss, but as a junior he was one of a very strong crew which
pasted the Sailors, 20-0. George was an offensive tackle and
linebacker. In the “Peca game” of 1965, Harbor prevailed by the
margin of that interception return, 13-7.
George went on to play for Dick Tucker at Orange Coast College in
1966, then was recruited by USC assistant Dick Coury.
Coury tapped four from Coast, in all, which included Mike Ober,
Gary McArthur and Mike Gregg.
It was Ober who scored the game’s only touchdown in Newport
Harbor’s staggering 7-0 victory over Clare Van Hoorebeke and his
Anaheim Colonists in 1963.
All things considered, it was the greatest upset victory in
Sailors’ history, more so than the Sailors’ 10-7 shocker over then
undefeated and No. 1-ranked St. Paul in a 1978 CIF 4-A playoff
opener.
That great ’78 team certainly had the horses. The ’63 team did
not.
On the cusp of a starting berth for USC as a junior, Greg George
suffered a knee injury and finished out his college career on the
Trojans’ special teams.
“Special” took on a new meaning when he met a girl named Lynne
Fears, who just happened to be the daughter of former UCLA football
team captain Charley “Chuck” Fears (1943) and the niece of Tom Fears,
the Hall of Fame receiver with the Los Angeles Rams.
Their son, Austin, is a noted chef after a standout volleyball
career at CdM and Golden West College. His daughters, Colby and
Whitney, played for Dan Glenn at Newport. Colby was a Daily Pilot
Dream Teamer.
Greg has been in commercial real estate with national implications
over the years and resides in the Castaways.
The return of Pizzica is but just another season for the man who
served the Sailors for 22 years, the last 10 as athletic director
when he hired, among others, Eric Tweit and Jeff Brinkley, the
school’s current athletic director and football coach.
As a coach some of his favorite numbers are 16-6, 33-13, 7-0, 10-7
and 9-7.
“We had some real wing-dingers with Corona del Mar,” said Pizzica,
who has resided in Hemet the past 10 years or so with his wife,
Betty.
Probably his fondest memory of his team’s five victories over CdM
is the recollection of Mike Johnson’s charges up the middle in the
1978 game after the Sailors trailed at halftime.
“I was proud of every one of those teams. My first team, we were
so little and still in the Sunset League. But all of them were
great,” said Pizzica, who got his start as a high school player for
Wade Watts in East Liverpool, Ohio.
A senior softball fanatic since retiring 1989, he has been a
fixture at third base in some 150 games a year over the past 17 years
despite battling degenerative back trouble. He is presently on his
feet and recovering from Aug. 17 surgery which resulted in rods
inserted up the side of his spine and fused together because of
arthritis.
And in the past 10 years or so you can count the number of games
he hasn’t been on the Sailors’ sidelines, probably, on your fingers.
As for the hot corner, the Hemet Senior Softball League begins in
October and runs until the late spring.
“I’m hoping sometime in that period I’ll be back,” said Pizzica,
who is 72.
Pizzica has always been one of my true favorites, despite the fact
he often used me as a punching bag.
He would delight, weekly, in luring me into one of his traps about
how little his Sailors had to offer, then expose his players to the
Daily Pilot’s grid predictions, with the Tars often in the role of
underdogs and how they were so unappreciated.
Actually, I knew it going in. The numbers added up, but Pizzica
used them and his Tars responded.
Corona del Mar’s great run in ’88 and ’89 began with an undefeated
season and within the 12-0-2 record was a 27-8 victory over Newport
Harbor.
As a senior, the University of California-bound Jerrott Willard
and his teammates struggled to a 6-4 regular season record, capped by
the 8-7 loss to Harbor in the Sea View League finale to finish 2-3 in
league.
What was the problem? Coach Dave Holland, who always wanted his
best on defense, finally relented and allowed Willard to lead the way
on both sides of the ball.
A dynamo at linebacker, he tore the defenses apart as the Sea
Kings’ fullback with his bullish rushes and Corona went on to post
three straight shutout victories in the playoffs before claiming a
21-10 victory over La Quinta in the final at Orange Coast College.
Willard, the CIF Division VI Player of the Year, was an All-Pac 10
linebacker, a finalist for the Butkus Award and a fifth-round draft
choice by the Kansas City Chiefs. But he paid a price in terms of a
severe knee injury and his pro career was cut short very early.
Thursday night’s “Big Four” comes as a result of a conversation
not too long ago when Corona del Mar High Athletic Director Jerry
Jelnick was chatting with former Orange Coast College football coach
Bill Workman. During the course of the conversation Workman mentioned
he was an honorary captain for Edison in its annual showdown with
rival Fountain Valley.
“Click!”
Tweit jumped at Jelnick’s suggestion, and before it has even
begun, some are thinking honorary co-captains from each school are
not enough.
“We started talking about people and Eric ran off about 16 off the
top of his head, and I ran off about 12,” said Jelnick.
“There are so many, from the administration, the coaches and,
especially, the players,” added Jelnick. “I tried to get Howard
Johnson [Corona del Mar’s first coach] but he was off to Alaska.
“We’ll try for another year for him.”
So Thursday night the “Class of ‘04” takes its bow before an
anticipated sellout at Davidson Field where it will get the
opportunity to say, “Thank you, Al Irwin, Greg George, Bill Pizzica
and Jerrott Willard, for putting it on the line.”
Hey, see ya next Sunday!
* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.
He can be reached by e-mail rogeranddorothea@msn.com.
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