Recalling era of a wildfire

Highs and lows are items most football coaches try to teach their

players to avoid, because highs are generally followed by lows.

For Mike Giddings, Newport Harbor High’s walk-on football coach

for four years (1982-85), he found one of his very best highs in the

form of a 24-21 Sea View League victory over the Sailors’ No. 1

league nemesis in that time frame, Saddleback High’s Roadrunners.

Saddleback won, 21-10, in ’82. Harbor rolled, 21-0, in ’83 and the

two tied, 26-26, in ’84.

So it was the rubber match in ’85 and the Sailors were underdogs

to a standout Saddleback team that would go on to win the CIF

Southern Section Central Conference championship.

“It was my best coaching game ever,” said Giddings, who had more

than a quarter century’s experience as a coach at Monrovia High,

Newport Harbor, Glendale College, USC and Utah in the four-year

ranks, the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos in the NFL and

Honolulu in the World Football League.

Harbor’s Shane Foley was a one-man wrecking crew at quarterback

and in the secondary in an iron-man performance, and, in the end, the

Tars pulled off the upset over Saddleback.

Foley had passed for 214 yards, completing 16 of 29 for two touchdowns with no interceptions, and Jerry Witte, Saddleback’s

coach, gave him his due.

“He played just like the papers say he plays,” was Witte’s quote

in the Daily Pilot. “He put it together and played a class game. It

was a great game and (Newport) put on the show. We were just out

there.”

Sterling Coberly connected on a 42-yard field goal with 2:31 left

to provide the difference.

Celebration ran into the wee hours, but not very long afterward,

Giddings would find himself at the low point, submitting his

resignation to Principal Tom Jacobson.

“I knew this season would be my last,” Giddings said. “I had John

Shirk from Monrovia lined up as an assistant. He was a career

teacher-coach at Monrovia and highly regarded. When they wouldn’t

bring him aboard I knew it was time. Things had run their course.”

Despite a 10-3 record, it was a season of ups and downs.

“We changed our offense again,” Giddings said. “The only way we

were going to win was to throw. Mark Kelso was our best offensive

lineman and we made him at guard and we had Scott Craig and Chris

Sylvus (290 pounds) at guard and tackle. We had a good defensive

player in (end) Ross Welch. As a team we didn’t have a lot of talent,

but we were interesting. We changed the offense to a two-minute

offense.”

Mark Craig caught seven passes for 88 yards and Foley was 15 for

28 in the 22-17 victory over Santa Ana in the season opener, but the

high-low factor showed up very early in the season.

Irvine shocked the Sailors, 36-26, in Game 2, intercepting the

Tars three times.

“It was the only bad game Shane ever played for me,” Giddings

said.

Bryan (Guptil) Wildman scored two TDs, but Irvine’s 340 yards

rushing proved too much.

Giddings broke even (1-1-1) with Huntington Beach in a 19-14

victory over the Oilers. Mark Craig caught eight balls for 112 yards

and Foley was 13 for 28. Jason Nedelman was a defensive standout.

Foley tossed five TD passes in the first half as Newport rolled to

a 35-7 lead over Estancia. Foley netted 212 yards on a 9-for-18

performance in a 42-27 final.

Saddleback was next and the Sailors moved to No. 2 in the CIF

Central Conference rankings with their upset.

Costa Mesa would be no match. Mesa tight end John Carlson was a

one-man gang (for the second straight year) with eight receptions for

90 yards, but the Tars rolled anyway, 42-7. Foley was 12 for 17 and

had four TD passes.

That set up the “downer” of the year, a messy penalty-plagued game

at Laguna Beach, where first-year coach Cedric Hardman had his

Artists primed for an upset.

There were 40 penalties in the game: 24 for 200 yards against

Laguna Beach; 16 for 165 yards against Harbor.

Foley completed 22 of 34 for 347 yards and three TDs, 302 yards

coming in the first half en route to a 68-27 rout of Laguna.

Craig had seven receptions for 103 yards, McClelland had seven for

99 yards and Andy Shepherd had five for 121 yards.

Positive statistical numbers, however, were not the story.

It was the dirtiest game any Newport football team has ever been

involved in and Laguna Beach was the constant antagonist with every

NFL dirty trick in the book. Emotions were really high to the last

play, and in the aftermath.

Giddings was furious with the Pilot’s game coverage and refused to

speak to Pilot reporters (especially me) for the rest of the season,

and a long time afterward.

For the Pilot, it was truly a disappointing situation as the

season played out.

The Sailors bested University in the next game, 33-24, after

trailing, 18-12, at halftime. Wildman scored three TDs and Foley was

17 of 20 for 225 yards.

Foley was 15 of 17 for 234 yards in a 28-0 win over Woodbridge,

setting up the league finale against Corona del Mar.

CdM Coach Dave Holland still calls it his best-ever victory as a

coach, a come-from-behind, 15-14 thriller at Orange Coast College

that dropped the Sailors into a tie for the league title.

Corona entered with a 3-6 record and Newport dominated into the

fourth quarter, despite wasting scoring opportunities, but was still

in command with a 14-0 lead.

A 26-yard drive for a TD pared CdM’s deficit to 14-13 with a

little over a minute left, and Mitch Melbon’s pass to wingback Sean

Turner for the two-point conversion sent the CdM side into a state of

bedlam.

“It was almost surreal,” Giddings said. “It was a chaotic finish

and everything broke down on the sidelines.”

The Sailors retaliated with lightning-quick strikes deep into CdM

territory, but then wasted an opportunity to calmly set up for a

field goal and, eventually, with a poor angle, missed from 22 yards

out as time ran out.

Still, the Sailors were 8-2 and co-champs with the playoffs

awaiting.

Foley was back to his old tricks in the first round of the

playoffs, completing 12 of 16 for 224 yards in a 42-21 win.

Athletic Director Bill Pizzica checked out La Mirada’s field and

provided Giddings with critical information in terms of the only

decent area of the field to play on in the muddy semifinal.

“It was the worst field I’d ever seen,” Giddings said. The Tars

had one legitimate scoring chance and cashed in with a 10-yard TD

pass from Foley to Mark Craig. “It was a motion pass and nobody

covered,” Giddings said. The Tars won, 6-0.

An elaborate celebration on the bus ride home with that cherished

second-round victory was the high point, only to be faced with the

tumbling ball bouncing toward the low point.

It set up the semifinal duel with La Quinta and the Sailors were

eliminated by a one-man show known as Bart Recktenwald. The future

OCC star returned an interception 92 yards for a touchdown and ran 78

yards for the second of his three TDs in a 42-19 decision. “He single-handedly made the difference,” Giddings said.

Foley, one of the purest passers in Newport Harbor history, would

go on to USC and is a resident of Tustin. He was a second-team

All-Orange County selection.

Also in the area (Lake Forest) is 1982-’83 standout Steve Brazas.

There’s a tendency sometimes, especially when looking back some 20

years and more, to find things blending, facts fading and stories

colliding.

Not so for the vibrant 71-year-old Giddings. Others still very

clear from the ’85 Tars are lineman Gus Hearst, tight ends Steve

Kalatchan and Steve Reed, cornerback Steve Shepherd, defensive back

Peter Howser and outside linebacker Mason Thompson. And he has a

story on almost all of them.

There are, of course, many others in that four-year span deserving

recognition, such as defensive tackle Jason Savisaar, linebacker

Frank Sennes, and a captain named John Stockham ... each a star in

his own way. And a line coach named Jay Johnson in ’85.

And there are the peripheral personalities so important to success

... such as assistant principals Joe Dominic and Mike Murphy, game

announcers Frank Venclik and Jeff Bitteti, physicians Glen Almquist

and Dudley Pfaff. Even restauranteurs Hans Prager and Bill Hamilton,

and OCC super-trainer, Leon Skeie, have not been forgotten by

Giddings.

Overall, his coaching career of 27 years included four league

championships and a combined record of 45-13-3 over five high school

varsity assignments.

“When I look back on my life, my days at Monrovia and at Newport

Harbor,” Giddings said, “I find myself asking the question ‘Why

wasn’t I a high school coach all that time?’ ”

The excitement of autumns come and go with the winds across

Davidson Field. But it is unlikely the wildfire of the Giddings era

will ever be matched.

* ROGER CARLSON is the former Daily Pilot sports editor. This is

his final “Big Easy” column. He can be reached by e-mail at

[email protected].