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Virgen: ’79 Sailors believed

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Don’t ever say the words, “can’t,” or “never,” around the players from the 1979 Newport Harbor High football team.

Well, you can use those words, but prepared to receive the perfect counterpoint. Be prepared for stories of a dramatic, 17-13 win, that featured Newport Harbor boys who became heroes for their Homecoming game against Edison.

The stories are fascinating. The reasons for the win are compelling. Even the description of the night can draw even the casual football fan’s attention.

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“It was one of the classic, fall nights,” said Neil Ross, who was a standout defensive lineman for the Sailors. “It was late in the fall where you get the heavy, marine layer. I remember we were completely fired up. It was a great opportunity to beat our perennial nemesis. I remember during warmups, I could just tell there was something off with them.”

So just how does this happen: a team entering the game 1-3-1, beats what the Los Angeles Times called the greatest team of Orange County within 1968-1988.

All week long, the Sailors heard how they basically had no chance to beat the Chargers. Coach Bill Workman had a really great Edison team back then, led by running back Kerwin Bell, who had been averaging 10 yards per carry.

He was also a threat in the kick return game. But Newport Harbor kicker Scott Giem didn’t let Bell return any kicks because all his were touchbacks.

As it was there wasn’t much kicking going on. The game was scoreless through three quarters.

“We were all just thinking, ‘Who cares,’” Alan Gaddis said of the Sailors’ mentality that was part nothing-to-lose, then became part we-got-this.

Gaddis was Newport Harbor’s quarterback and a defensive back. He was also the student body president.

Gaddis still has a link to the Sailors’ football team. His son, Riley, is a big-time linebacker for this year’s Newport Harbor team. Riley also contributes greatly as a receiver.

He’ll need to make big plays Friday in Huntington Beach, where Newport Harbor will meet Edison and try to do the impossible. The Sailors have not beaten the Chargers since Newport Harbor shocked Edison in 1979.

Overall, Edison leads the series against Newport Harbor, 11-4. The Chargers have won nine straight against the Sailors.

“I believe they can win,” Gaddis says.

Kirk Norton, who was on that 1979 Sailors team, also believes.

“They just have to go out there and not get hurt because they are very thin, not much depth,” Norton said a couple weeks ago when he met his former teammates Gaddis, Ross, Peter Helfrich and Jim Kalataschan to talk about that big win in 1979.

“Edison doesn’t really have anything special this season,” said Norton, who coached many of the Newport Harbor varsity players when they were freshmen for the Sailors.

Norton did his best to use a lot of the lessons he learned from his freshman football coach back in his day, that would be John McGee.

McGee had a military background and he used strict training methods. He was no-nonsense, yet the players could tell he cared for them, the former Sailors said. They counted themselves fortunate to have learned from such a man.

He would tell them to go home and wash their own clothes, fold their own laundry so as not to be so dependent on their parents and to create a strong work ethic.

He also demanded his players to attend rigorous early-morning workouts at the stadium. If you did not arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled time, you were late.

All that discipline and that mentality to push yourself to the limit made the players better prepared for varsity, where they ended up playing for Hank Cochrane.

“He changed my life,” Norton said. “He had a super military style.”

The former players smiled when they talked about McGee. They laughed, too. High school was fun at Newport Harbor. This victory over Edison added to those good times.

Newport Beach is a tourist stop for many. But it’s more of a small world for the community that remains from those days. They still live in the area and when they see the football players from those days the memories from that huge win return.

The recent gathering at Newport Harbor just gave the guys another reason to talk about it. At times it felt as if I wasn’t in the room and they were just talking to each other about how special the win truly was.

All of the points came in the fourth quarter. Edison struck first when quarterback Frank Seurer scored on a one-yard touchdown run.

But the Chargers didn’t seem ready for what came next, as the Sailors made a quarterback change and put Al Gaddis as a receiver in a newly installed trips right formation.

Junior Gary Parrish led the Sailors as their new QB and directed a 62-yard drive in seven plays that ended with his four-yard TD run.

He also threw the go-ahead TD pass, a 26-yard strike down the seam to tight end Mike Remsen. Cochrane said they had seen that play could work when they scouted the Chargers in their loss to El Dorado earlier in the season.

Newport Harbor ended its scoring with a 29-yard field goal by Giem. That came after Peter Gust’s big hit on Seurer that caused a fumble that Ross recovered.

At this point, Edison players appeared frustrated, Cochrane and his former players said. But the Chargers still did their best to rally. Bell, who was held to 93 yards on 22 carries, scored on a 34-yard pass from Seurer with 1:46 left.

The Chargers recovered the onside kick.

“Of course they can score, look at who they had,” Al Gaddis said. “It felt like something great has to happen otherwise they’re going to score. Nine out of 10 times the better team does find the way to win and we would never be here talking about this story.”

But Al Gaddis came up with the big interception when he said he was covering Mark Boyer.

Game over.

“God, it was a tremendous victory,” former Daily Pilot Sports Editor Roger Carlson wrote in an email. “I remember Bill Workman, the Edison coach, flipping his clipboard about 25 feet into the air at the game’s end in disgust and frustration.”

The Newport Harbor players admitted they taunted the Chargers a bit during the closing moments. They were a tough bunch these Sailors, even though they ended the year 2-5-3. Their final game of the season featured an all-out brawl against Westminster, Norton said.

Meanwhile, Edison dominated in the Big Five Conference playoffs, outscoring four opponents, 142-29. The title game wasn’t even close, as Edison blew out Redlands, 55-0, the most lopsided score in large-school championship game history, according to the L.A. Times.

Cochrane coached high school football for 30 years and he said he put the victory right up there at the top among his greatest moments. He said he coached Fountain Valley to a CIF section title in 1988 and that too was special.

The 1979 Sailors don’t have a plaque for their win over Edison. But they have press clippings. They have their stories.

They also have their belief that “never” and “can’t” simply should not be ever be used.

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