Tuesday Time Machine: 14 Years -- A lifetime of memories
This coming Friday, I get to add another notch to my belt as my Orange Coast College Sports Information Director career officially turns 14 years old. In some ways, if feels like it's all gone by in a flash, while at the same time, it feels like I've been a part of the OCC family my entire life.
One of my first WOW moments involving me and OCC came when I was a sportswriter for the Daily Pilot newspaper and I was covering a Northern Conference matchup between the Pirates and Long Beach City College. Through three quarters, the Pirates and Vikings were tied at 7 and I was trying to figure out where I was going to find enough story-worthy content in this competitive, but rather boring football game.
Soon after came a conclusion that still remains on the minds of those who were there. Fans, your final score: Pirates 48, Vikings 42 in SIX overtimes!
Both teams combined for nearly 1,000 yards of offense in a game that needed nearly FOUR hours to complete. Did I mention it was 7-7 going into the fourth quarter??
The final quarter saw both teams finally find some offensive success. Long Beach carried a 21-14 lead into the final minute of regulation before quarterback Jared Flint hooked up with receiver David Castleton with 58 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime.
Long Beach had a chance for an early OT win after OCC turned the ball over on its first possession, but the Vikings missed a 33-yard field-goal attempt and the game continued.
By the third OT -- where a 2-point conversion was mandatory -- OCC scored first, but missed the conversion and after Long Beach scored to tie the game, the Vikings were once again just one successful play away from a win. But the Pirate defense stiffened on the 2-point attempt and the game pressed on ... and on ... and on ...
In the fifth OT, Coast forced a Long Beach turnover, giving the Pirates the ball and a chance to win with ANY scoring situation, but OCC turned the ball over and the fun continued.
FINALLY ... in the sixth OT, another OCC stop on defense was followed by a Jimmie Banks touchdown run to end the longest game in Orange Coast College football history. Flint, who threw for 348 yards and three TDs in that game and also became OCC's all-time leader in passing yards, breaking Alvin White's 1971-72 total of 3,425 yards. Flint finished with 4,003 and held the record until Kody Whitaker surpased his total with 4,132 in 2015-16. I was able to interview White after the game at around 11 p.m. and he was half asleep on his couch watching (what else?) a football game when I called him. "That's what records are there for," White said that night. Plus with two games left, Jared should really set the mark pretty high, for some other young, hotshot to come along and break it."
It was first six-OT game at any level of college football up til that point since the OT rules were changed in 1996. Since then there have been five games to reach seven overtimes, including the 2019 slugfest between Texas A&M and LSU (won by the Aggies, 74-72).
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In addition to the history-making games, I've been lucky enough to watch some of the all-time greats from our school's history compete during my tenure.
- Volleyball standouts Kiwi Winkler and Kevin Welch. Winkler, a member of the OCC Athletics Hall of Fame, holds the school's single-season record for kills (487) as well as the school's career kills mark (895). She was a two-time team MVP, a two-time conference MVP, a two-time All-Southern California selection, a two-time State Finals MVP and two-time All-American, helping the Pirates to back-to-back state titles in 2005 and 2006. Welch also holds both single season kills (441) and career kills (766) for the Pirates, while taking his team to the State Finals as a sophomore in 2008. Irvine Valley coach Tom Pestolesi said it best when he was asked about the sport moving forward the following year without Welch on the Pirates ... "Good Riddance."
- Miri Inoue, Women's Tennis. Last year's OCC Female Athlete of the Year more than earned that title after wrapping up one of the greatest two-year runs in California community college women's tennis history. After coming to OCC from Sydney, Australia, Inoue was named the 2018 OCC's Female Athlete of the Year as a freshman after going 43-5 in singles and doubles. This year, she bettered those records by going 29-2 in singles and 29-1 in doubles for a combined record of 58-3. Her two-year grand total in singles and doubles: 101 wins, 8 losses. Inoue is the first Pirate since Michelle Esquivel in 2005 to win the singles state title, the doubles state title and the dual team state title in the same season.
(There are plenty more to choose from, but I'll save those for future Time Machine tales.)
But perhaps my favorite type of players I've been lucky enough to cover over the years are the players who were just happy to be a part of the Pirates. Not necessarily the best players, but those who made the most of each day they put on a Pirate uniform. Again, there are too many to chronicle here, but here are a few that stand out the most.
- Gabe Cota played for the Pirate baseball team in 2007-08 and was a kid that just loved the game and wanted to be a part of the team, even though he knew there wouldn't be much playing time in store for him on such a talented team. I remember early in the year, Gabe got a chance to play at Cuesta College and in one of his early at-bats, he ripped a home run over the left-field wall. My brother, John, was coaching third and he said, after Cota's home run, "when he came to third, I didn't know whether to give him a high-five or a bear hug, I was so happy for him."
- Jessica Amaral was a standout on the OCC women's soccer program for two years before she decided to come out and play for the Pirate softball team in the spring of her sophomore year. All she did was bat .368 and her incredible speed helped her earn a spot on the UCLA softball team, where she was a pinch-runner for the Bruins squad 77 times over two years and scored 30 runs in that span.
- Ivan Garcia-Burgos is the exact definition of what a TEAM player is all about. A member of the men's volleyball team in 2016 and 2017, Garcia-Burgos was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia – a very aggressive form of blood cancer -- in 2014, but he still wanted to see if he could compete at the collegiate level. His story is incredible and it can be found here. His hard work over those two years with the Pirates inspired everyone around him, from his teammates to the OCC coaching staff and he was a leader on OCC's state champion 2017 squad, without hardly playing throughout the year.
Given what's happened this spring at Orange Coast College, but on and off the athletic fields, this hiatus has really given me an opportunity to thank my lucky stars that I've called this place my home for the past 14 years. I'm hoping I have at least 14 more years to go with this wonderful Pirate family of mine. Let's all hope to get back to "normal" soon and we can create more memories and more history ... not only for those competing but for those who proudly work here.
