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.