Thursday, November 7, 2019

LJ FB: Berry and Taylor, 1961

By Ed Piper

Back in the day (1961), Dan Berry and Butch Taylor led La Jolla High's football team to a 57-7 win over San Dieguito Academy (SDA).

I've gotten the LJHS sports history bug, having talked in the last few days to Dave Ponsford (retired football coach), Rick Eveleth (LJHS basketball star, coach, and athletic director), an attempt to talk to Dick "Hud" Huddleston (football coach in the 90's--left a phone message in North Carolina, no reply yet).

I feel like I've "touched" Gene Edwards, legendary football coach 1961-1989, through Dave's and Rick's words. They know, because they worked and coached with him for years. (Rick even played for him as a student athlete.)

The historical note on Berry and Taylor, who played for Coach Edwards, comes in Rick Smith's blog about San Diego high school sports history at partletonsports.com. I glanced at it a couple of years ago; I just accessed it this morning to see what it had about La Jolla sports back in the day (to overuse that phrase).

The context was quarterback Colin Rugg's explosive game in October 2013 against University City (one of many in his two years as starting quarterback for the Vikings) in which La Jolla scored 63 points, winning by 57.

SDA is one of the county's old-time high schools. In talking to old-timers, I am always told about Hoover (where Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and others played), Sweetwater, San Diego High (where all the teenagers hung out and talked to each other during football games there). SDA no longer has a football team, which interested me in seeing the Mustangs did have a gridiron contingent back in history.

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