» Loyal Time Out and Noozhawk reader “Mark D” reminded me that Santa Barbara High’s fans and football players all headed to Deano’s Pizza on the Mesa after games. He says Sam Cunningham and Booker Brown showed up there many times after games. “You could barely move inside, it was so crowded,” he says. …
» In my adult-league softball playing days, we would head to Deano’s, too. We would buy a few pitchers of beer, and then the management would send over a free pitcher, which prompted the chant, “Deano’s! Deano’s! Deano’s!” We also dropped a lot of quarters into the jukebox. I’ll never forget singing along to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” …
» “Mark D” is looking for any photos of the now-demolished Laguna Park. Let me know if you have any, and I will put you in touch with him. …
» Speaking of Laguna Park, there was nothing better as a kid than watching the Santa Barbara Dodgers play in the California League. My dad’s boss purchased season tickets for employees’ children (I’m pretty sure the cost was $10 for the season!) and I attended often, including nearly every Sunday doubleheader. My folks would drop me and a friend off at the front gate around noon and pick us up at 6 p.m. Were you there the Sunday the Dodgers brawled with Bakersfield? …
» In all the games my dad attended at Laguna Park, he nabbed only one foul ball. I wasn’t sitting with him that night. My summer-league team was at the game, sitting on the opposite side of the stadium. …
» I played in Dos Pueblos High’s Marching 100 band for just my sophomore year because I started working on football nights for the Santa Barbara News-Press. I wanted to stay in concert and parade band, but director Irwin Maguire told me I had to choose between the trumpet and journalism. Since I was a third-section, third-chair trumpeter playing nothing but G notes, I left music behind. I always thought he was being unfair with me. After all, football players didn’t march at halftime, either. But his argument was that football was a school-related activity and working at the newspaper wasn’t. That was nearly 40 years ago and it still tweaks me a bit. Mr. Maguire, I am happy to say, celebrated his 92nd birthday on June 20. …
» One of the vivid highlights of my high school days was the basketball team’s run to the 1971 CIF Southern Section AAA championship. I had ended my own playing career after my freshman year under coach David Kay and became a manager on Don Volpi’s varsity squad. Ah, the steak dinners before all of the playoff games … the narrow escape in the first round against Newbury Park after beating them by 47 points in a nonleague game … the comfortable, chartered Greyhound buses … the title game at the L.A. Sports Arena … being “kidnapped” along with the rest of the team by the cheerleaders at 4 a.m. after the title game for a celebratory breakfast upon returning from Los Angeles with the championship hardware in hand …
» One of the stars of that title run was Bruce Coldren, who later went on to play at the University of Oregon. He retired last year after 30 years at Lowell (Ore.) High School, where he was a coach and the athletic director. UCLA fans will remember him well. He nearly single-handedly brought the No. 1-ranked Bruins down with a prolific shooting day at Mac Court. …
» I played on several athletic teams with Coldren, including a seventh- and eighth-grade basketball team at the Goleta Boys’ Club. The team, named the Bruins, won the league title and averaged more than 100 points a game in 40-minute, running-time contests. The starting five: Coldren, Steve Weist (who scored 50 points on more than one occasion at San Marcos High before heading off to Weber State), Scott Puailoa (the longtime golf pro at the Valley Club in Montecito), Jim Johnson (perhaps the best all-around athlete Dos Pueblos High ever produced) and me. A great question for a “which one of these doesn’t fit” quiz. …
» I was, however, the only common denominator on the winning team the following year, with a completely different cast of characters. So there …
» As a kid, I would bike over to the UCSB baseball diamond to watch games. When I got there early enough, coach Dave Gorrie would let me be a bat boy for the game. …
» Growing up as a Dodgers’ fan in Southern California in the 1960s and ‘70s, I just thought my team got to go to the playoffs and World Series nearly every year. I appreciate it all so much more now when I realize 1988 was the last time they were able to hang a championship banner.
— Noozhawk columnist Paul Yarbrough can be reached at pyarbrough@noozhawk.com.