Tar proud of anchor

DON CANTRELL

The Ted Trompeter family is proud to be waving its Newport-Mesa

banner again, this time in the TV limelight.

Trompeter, a gridder on the great 1949 Newport Harbor High

football team and a one-time light heavyweight champion in the

Pacific Coast College boxing ranks, has disclosed that daughter

Jeanette has been named a 5 p.m. news co-anchor for one of the top

CBS-TV stations in the Midwest, WCCO in Minneapolis. She begins in

March.

Jeanette, who played a major role in staging the John Madden

Athletic Fund Drive for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo several years ago,

is currently working the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. co-anchor slot for KCCI

-TV (CBS) in Des Moines, Iowa.

Jeanette, her father and Madden are all friends and graduates of

the Cal Poly institution and have also been stout supporters of the

college’s sports programs.

Ted once claimed to be a member of the Madden pro team, “but not

in pro football. No, I served once on the team to wash down his

travel cruiser for his TV coverage of Monday night games across the

nation.”

Ted said his daughter has drawn numerous outstanding TV journalism

honors over the years. She won the coveted Edward R. Murrow Award for

Overall Excellence in 2004 and has won Emmy awards for best live spot

news and best newscast, as well as three Associated Press awards for

best feature reporting during seven years at the Iowa station.

WCCO-TV vice president and general manager, Ed Platte, said,

“Jeanette comes from an award-winning and highly respected news

organization. She possesses many of the characteristics that

Minnesotans value: honesty, approachability and integrity.”

Long before the connect with Madden and Cal Poly, Ted was often

greeting a future basketball Hall of Famer George Yardley at his

Costa Mesa family home in the mid-1940s.

Reflecting back, Ted said, “George was going steady with my sister

Jean and I was continually asked to approach the front door and allow

him into the house. He was always a fine gentleman and a great

athlete.”

Old friends recall Ted’s first acquaintance with TV in the old

black and white film days when he starred in numerous rodeos as a

champ bronc buster. “Yeah, I have to admit I was a cowboy,” he said.

He was elated when Madden was hired as the ABC Monday Night

Football analyst, teaming up with Al Michaels. He said, “ABC needed

to find a really professional touch for those games and energize the

program. And he has sure done that. John calls it like it is.”

He and Madden played some rock-ribbed football at Cal Poly in the

forward walls, but not the same years in the mid-1950s. He had to bow

away from football due to a severe shoulder injury and focused his

energy on boxing.

Trompeter’s favorite coach down through the years was Al Irwin of

Newport Beach. “Despite our team’s lack of great size in ‘49, we

never felt any lack of confidence due to the inspiring talks Irwin

would deliver to us in practice.”

Trompeter, who is a Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Famer, said his

early day grid coach, Les Miller, who later became the first

principal at Costa Mesa High in 1958, left him, with a firm lesson

that he later conveyed to his two children, Jeanette and Scott.

“I missed a practice one day and that prompted him to cut me off

the squad,” Trompeter said. “He stressed discipline in football.

Fortunately, one faculty member said it was understandable and talked

Miller into allowing me back. But it was a good lesson I never

forgot.”