Football blends community spirit

RICHARD DUNN

What is Coastal Football? That, of course, depends on how you choose

to define the small, two-letter word made famous by our 42nd

president of the United States.

In this case, all one needs to imagine is a drive up Pacific Coast

Highway on a warm summer twilight, from the southern tip of Laguna

Beach to the northern reaches of Huntington Beach. You could spend a

week making stops along the way at art galleries, shopping centers

and museums, while exploring the nook and crannies of the sand and

piers and sometimes rocky shoreline of this great Orange County

coastal stretch.

Not far off PCH are the high schools and community colleges in the

circulation of the Daily Pilot and its weekly sister papers, the

Huntington Beach Independent and Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot. Aha.

Now you’re getting the picture. The combined effort of all three

newspapers has shaped the inaugural Coastal Football Preview.

Presto. Welcome to the 2003 version. Our first as a unit. We hope

you enjoy the pages as much as we love covering high school and

community college football in our newsroom.

You see, the start of football season is much more than 11 guys

lining up on each side of the ball with 100 yards of countable real

estate on which to perform, deemed as a school’s battleground for an

evening.

This is about community and school spirit. It’s everybody pulling

on the same rope. Countless boosters volunteer to work in the snack

bars and ticket booths. Cheerleaders and band members, song leaders

and flag twirlers, all refine their skills prior to the opening

kickoff.

Oh, sure, fans come to watch their favorite team or an intriguing

game or simply to support their alma mater or local school. But let’s

face it. When you show at Newport Harbor High and the home side is

packed and the aroma of the barbecue is everywhere and the Sailors’

marching band is blaring its famous version of “Anchors Aweigh,” it’s

an experience. It’s not just a football game. It’s an event.

Go to just about any stadium on a Friday night and you’ll see a

community pulling together, bonding as at no other time.

And, from a Coastal Football Preview perspective, one thing the

high schools all have in common along this golden coast is the just

that -- beaches and sand, sunsets and cool ocean breezes. It’s rarely

muggy enough to sweat. You usually don’t break out the sweaters until

some time in October. Sportswriters are lucky if they sit in the

press box. The autumn climate is usually comfortable throughout the

campaign and jackets are not required.

My first experience covering high school football games began in

the fall of 1981 as a Daily Pilot stringer. In that time, the Pilot

was still in South County, covering San Clemente and Dana Hills,

Mission Viejo and Capistrano Valley.

I remember covering Todd Marinovich in the mid-1980s when he

played for the Cougars, on his way to setting the national high

school record for career passing yards.

I remember covering quarterback Bret Johnson at El Toro, then his

younger brother, Rob, who played wide receiver as a junior, because

the Chargers had Steve Stemstrom at quarterback. Rob Johnson was also

an excellent three-pointer shooter in basketball and pro baseball

prospect as a pitcher.

As we entered the 1990s, the Daily Pilot turned to covering only

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. We started doing more with Estancia,

Costa Mesa, Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor than ever before. In

fact, when Harbor and CdM would play, and Estancia and Mesa, we

played up those games like the Super Bowl.

Amazingly, in 1992, there was the Battle of the Bay II, when

Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar clashed in the CIF Southern Section

Division IV semifinals at Davidson Field, perhaps the greatest single

high school football game in Newport-Mesa history.

I’ve covered football games at every stadium in Orange County, and

then some, and always looked forward to each opportunity to cover a

game and bang out the story on deadline.

It’s a different era now. Schools like Tesoro are popping up.

Northwood intends to become a CIF superpower. Ocean View has its own

stadium.

Finally, as boosters fill lunch requests during football

two-a-days and band members attend band camp in anticipation of this

week’s openers, we have been hard at work at the Daily Pilot. It has

been more than a decade since the last Daily Pilot-generated football

special section and I can clearly remember those long days in late

August and early September.

One year, in preparation for football season, all the

sportswriters here shaved their heads. Another time, we lost weight

as a staff in a fund-raising campaign, which concluded as the

football season was starting. There is indeed something special about

this time of year. If sport mirrors life, then football seems to

imitate society’s greatest passion for togetherness.

Enjoy the season.