Posted: Sep 15, 2020

Tuesday Time Machine -- Football through the years

I'm gonna need a full tank of gas on this Time Machine journey. The OCC football program has been a staple of the Pirate athletic family since the school's inception back in 1948. And pretty much since Day 1 of the Pirate football program, it's a team that has been battling the best teams in region year in and year out.

Year One, Games 1-2: The 1948 Pirates came right out of the gate and won their first two games in school history -- a 14-6 win over Riverside and a 12-7 win over Palomar.

Year Two: Coast wins five more games than in Year One and finished 8-2 and was ranked 16th in the Nation ... not too shabby for a second-year program!

OCC's first conference championship came in 1951 with a perfect 6-0 mark in the Eastern Conference and a 7-3 overall record after finishing the previous season with a 3-5-1 record.

In 1962, Orange Coast College persuaded a Brea-Olinda head coach by the same of Dick Tucker to become the head coach of the Pirates and that decision started a 24-year run of excellence as a coach and a 33-year run as an administrator of the Athletics Department. Tucker's first year saw the Pirates go 9-1, including a 23-16 win over Glendale College in the Orange Show Bowl -- OCC's first bowl win in school history.

But all of that success in Tucker's first year was a precursor to what transpired in 1963, when the Pirates reached the top of the football mountain. Coast went a perfect 10-0 and earned its first of two National Championships after defeating Northeast Oklahoma A&M 21-0 in the Junior Rose Bowl in front of a crowd of over 44,000 people and a national television audience. In fact, four of the biggest crowds in the history of the OCC football program were on hand during that 1963 season as the Pirates dominated the competition, outscoring them 330-43. OCC Athletics Hall of Famers Billy White and Mike Hunter led the Pirates to their Junior Rose Bowl victory, while on defense, Ken Madison, Ron Paterno and Joe Scott anchored a defensive performance that earned their team their SIXTH shutout of the season. There is an incredible video that documented the 1963 Junior Rose Bowl ... check it out by clicking here.

That win put OCC on the global map ... and not just in football. From a school built in this up-and-coming community of Costa Mesa, the national exposure created from that Junior Rose Bowl game helped carry the college to heights never before imagined.

On the field, the success continued as Coach Tucker produced conference titles in 1971, 1974 and 1975. The '74 and '75 teams brought the Pirates back to the national spotlight with trips to the state championship games in both seasons. Following a tough 34-17 loss to Grossmont in the title game of 1974, the '75 Pirates came back with a vengeance, going undefeated with an 11-0 record and a 38-14 triumph over Rio Hondo before 9,500 people at Cerritos College in the Avocado Bowl to win OCC's second national championship. Tucker said after the game, "I thought going undefeated and winning a national championship (in 1963) was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It's a thrill to do it twice. I don't see how we will ever top this."

While the second half of the history of OCC football has been a trek back to that early glory, there have been several outstanding moments that need to be remembered.

In 1990, head coach Bill Workman helped guide the Pirates to an 8-3 record and a Mission Conference championship.
The 1993 Pirates matched the '90 squad with an 8-3 record and capped off it's magical season with a 26-14 win over Antelope Valley in the Orange County Bowl.
In the 1999 season, the Pirates set a then-NCAA record with a SIX-overtime win over Long Beach City College, 48-42. 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 surpassed 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 until 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).
Under second-year head coach Mike Taylor, the 2000 Pirates stunned the "experts" in the area by winning the Mission Conference title with a 4-1 run through some of the top teams in Southern California. They finished the season 6-5 overall and a berth in the 2000 Strawberry Bowl.
In 2015, head coach Kevin Emerson helped guide the Pirates to a 7-4 record and a 4-1 mark in the Southern Conference's National Division and a trip to the 2015 Beach Bowl.

As for me and my time with the football program, it's been a lot of fun up in the Jim Carnett Press Box watching the Pirates over the past 14 seasons. Coach Bubba Gonzalez has the Pirates moving forward in the right direction and in addition to the wins and the losses, he also has his players doing the right things on and off the field.

Over the past couple of years, I've been fortunate to write about some of these players who have really made the most of their time at OCC. One such player in particular was Kyre Adams, a player who overcame lots of obstacles on the football field as well as in life and he's now making the most of the opportunity Orange Coast College presented him. The standout defensive back is now playing football and going to school at Peru State College in Peru, Nebraska.

Since I'm a fan of this mindless fun facts, here are a few involving OCC Football ...

OCC football players have transferred to play at the four-year level at 221 different colleges and universities across the nation.
13 different Coast football players have been named as the school's Male Athlete of the Year ... most recently, Davasyia Hagger in 2014-15.
It's hard to put a bagel on the Pirates ... from 1984-1996, Coast had a 125-game streak of not being shut out ... and ... from 2005-18, they topped that with a 126-game shutout-less streak
The Pirates have won more games against Santa Ana College (34) than any other team in school history. Forty losses to Fullerton in school history is the other side of that coin.
The 1975 Pirates had TWENTY-FIVE players play at the NCAA Division I level.
15 times in school history, a running back rushed for over 200 yards in a game. Dominic Betts accomplished that feat three times ... in one season. Oh, he also rushed for 198 yards in a game that same year.
To put the 1963's six shutouts in one season in perspective ... OCC has had six shutouts total over the past THIRTY seasons.

In all, nine conference titles, two national championships, 22 professional players, and thousands of individual success stories later, the Orange Coast College football program is rolling along and the success stories will continue on for years to come.