100th anniversary celebration this week

By Ed Piper

This is going to be a big week (Sept. 26-30) for La Jolla High's 100th anniversary celebration. Reading up on the history of the school, which opened in 1922, yesterday and musing on other incidents and anecdotes I have heard over my 18 years of covering Viking sports, I submit the following:

--The original school colors were green and white. Imagine now, if LJHS had retained those colors, should Lincoln, the Hornets being green and white, meet La Jolla in a sports contest--green versus green.

--No freshmen attended what started as La Jolla Junior High until 1990, the fall after baseball coach Gary Frank's graduation. (No connection implied) In Fall 1990, the first ninth-graders began attending to make LJHS a four-year high school.

--Jewel is the only celebrity, a pop singer, that I am aware of who attended Vikingville. I'm sure there are many others. I just don't know who they are/were.

--At one point in the Viking tennis program, boys from La Jolla High were playing tennis players from USC, if you can believe that. I have to get more info on that. I heard this years ago.

--Vickie Eveleth was and is a key member of the La Jolla High community. She and her husband Rick will serve as the grand marshals of the Homecoming Parade Friday night, Sept. 29, during halftime of the Vikings-San Diego Cavers football game.

Vickie served as a long-time coach on staff. I'm sure she would have many stories about the establishment and development of Viking girls sports once Title IX led to CIF sports beginning in 1972-1973.

--In the first yearbook for the school in Spring 1923, 14 sophomores were listed as students at the school. Things only grew from there.