Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno High School hit rock bottom before rocking the football world three decades ago.
By the late 1980s, the Catholic high school with the elongated name had only a few more names on its student roster. Enrollment had dropped below 200.
The numbers looked even worse on the football field. The Cardinals won just one game during the 1987 and 1988 seasons combined.
The so-called “Little Big Game” with arch-rival Carpinteria had become as lopsided as The Battle of Little Big Horn. In a span of just four seasons, the Warriors had out-scored Bishop Diego 150-0.
Some tried to sell the school on dropping down to eight-man football. Others thought they should just sell the campus and close the school altogether.
But by good luck or misfortune, depending on how you looked at it, a veteran coach from East Texas State landed on Bishop’s doorstep in 1989. Norris Fletcher’s wife, Barbara, needed the care of a heart specialist at Santa Barbara’s Sansum Clinic… and he needed work.
“I came here on vacation, but my wife got sick and we stayed,” Fletcher told me 20 years later. “It forced me to find a job.
“The job I really thought I’d have was at Moorpark College. I coached there one season and then came here. One thing led to another.”
By 1992, it had led Bishop to its first appearance ever in the championship game of the CIF-Southern Section football playoffs.
It took just four turns of the season for the Cardinals to arise from the ashes like the immortal phoenix. A Greek tragedy had become a rebirth of mythological proportions.
Last week, 30 years later, the legend of the late Norris Fletcher and his 1992 team were both immortalized with induction into Bishop Diego’s Athletics Hall of Fame.
Changing the Culture
Nobody appreciated the improbability of it all more than Benito Rivera, the 1992 team’s record-setting receiver and a 2009 inductee into that same Hall of Fame.
“I am the youngest of seven … Six graduated from Bishop,” he said. “I started coming to Bishop games in the late ‘70s, and all through the ‘80s … They all tried, and there was a lot of effort, but I saw a lot of losing.
“And when I came to Bishop in the fall of 1989, I wasn’t going to play football. Larry Urzua and I were the only two guys who had played YFL, but we were only going to play basketball.”
But then the Cardinals’ new varsity coach got hold of them.
“Coach Fletcher said, ‘You two are going to play football,’” Rivera recalled.
Nothing came easy. Fletcher could find only one coach for the 25 freshmen and sophomores that he convinced to play junior varsity football.
“It was nothing more than a day care,” Rivera recalled. “We went 0 and 10. We lost to Santa Ynez 77-7, and when we walked into the locker room the whole team was celebrating. They were all banging their lockers.
“I go, ‘What’s going on?’ It turned out that we were the only team that had scored against Santa Ynez. This was the foundation of the 1992 team.”
Fletcher wondered if he even had enough players to finish his first varsity season of 1989. Only 17 were in uniform for the opener. But he still got the Cardinals to triple their win total from the previous two years with a 3-7 record.
“They were going to go eight-man if we didn’t win, but we put it together,” said Fletcher, who passed away at age 84 in 2017. “When we won three games that first year, people started coming around wanting to help coach.”
The Killer Cardinals
Roger Kuntz coordinated a defense that earned the moniker “The Killer Cardinals.” Bishop allowed just 149 yards of total offense during its entire 1992 Tri-Valley League season.
Schmidt and Urzua served as bookends on the defensive line, while nose guard Alan Walker anchored the middle.
“This is a team that I am most proud of in all of my 33 years of coaching,” Kuntz said. “I had a great deal of success as a player and a coach in several different sports, but the memories I have of this team and its relationships and the families is the strongest of any.”
A photograph of Kuntz getting carried off the field by the Cardinals after a last-second victory hangs on his office wall.
“Manny Marquez kicked the game-winning field goal — it hit the crossbar and went over,” he said, recalling the moment. “The players got under me. It was probably one of the best feelings on a football field that I’ve ever had.”
Former Bishop Diego quarterback Ralph Molina coordinated the offense.
“Coach Molina would call us just a bunch of certified, bona-fide knuckleheads,” Rivera said with a laugh. “That’s what we were, and what we still are.”
Several other Bishop alumni served on the staff, including Steve Robles, Tim Tremblay, Vic Batastini and Eddie Deras. Former Dos Pueblos High star Don Hopwood also helped coach.
Fletcher proved particularly adept at recognizing talent. He converted junior tight end Richie Donati, a star baseball player with a strong arm, into his quarterback before the 1990 season.
Donati passed for 1,684 yards and 20 touchdowns that year, leading the Cardinals to a 4-6 record and a 2-2 league mark. He would later become a starting quarterback at Fresno State. His prime receiver, Rickie Demarest, continued on to set a career reception record that still stands at Santa Barbara City College.
Getting A Fresh Start
“Coach Fletcher had gained some traction,” Rivera said. “We got moved up to varsity as sophomores, and we heard that the freshman class had some talent.”
That class included Thor Schmidt, Michael Hayes, and Greg Van Wyk — all eventual stars on the 1992 team.
“Coach Fletcher first thought that I was going to be a quarterback because I was a pitcher in junior high school,” Schmidt said. “And then he took one look at this tall kid — a handsome kid with beautiful blond hair named Greg Van Wyk — and said, ‘Nope, that’s my quarterback.’”
The 1991 season, however, was played under the cloud of tragedy. Schmidt’s older brother Dane and classmate Roberto Najera, Jr. were killed in a car accident while on a recruiting trip that summer.
Fletcher held the team together like a family.
“Coach Fletcher was very much a father figure to all of us,” Thor Schmidt said. “He told you what you needed to hear and not what you wanted to hear. He told you to be tough because life is tough, and that what you’re doing now will help you in the future.
“He told you about adversity, and that it’s not about getting knocked down, but about what you’re going to do when you get back up.”
A weight room was built and named in memory of Dane Schmidt and Roberto Najera before the following season. It’s had a profound effect in developing Bishop Diego’s athletes ever since.
The 1992 team, meanwhile, found several ways to empower itself.
“We had a team meeting and went, ‘Let’s try something different … Let’s all shave our heads … Let’s all be Cardinals together,’” Rivera said. “Only one person didn’t want to do it … Our quarterback, Greg Van Wyk.
“He said he couldn’t because he was going to be the lead for the drama club in the play ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ So we went, ‘What the heck, Greg, don’t shave your head.’ And we were ready to go.”
Showing Some Fight
They did have to overcome some early setbacks. The Cardinals lost their first two games and were 2-3 by mid-October. It took an “old-fashioned” brawl in a subsequent game to turn around Bishop’s season.
“All of our team went to their side … The whole team was together,” Rivera said. “We got into trouble —the coaches yelled at us — but it just galvanized our team. It did.
“We were together. We were a unit. At that point, it was about having each other’s back.”
Fletcher may have admonished his brawlers, but he knew in his heart that they had assumed his persona.
“I was always a tough guy, and they knew it,” he admitted. “But I love them all. I truly do.”
Fletcher would regale the team after every practice with stories about “the underdog.”
“Most were about the times he got picked on by somebody bigger,” Schmidt said. “He was a small dude but he was tough. He was a big-time fighter and a really great boxer.
“If you picked a fight with coach Fletcher, you had better pack a punch.”
Bishop’s coach put his body where his mouth was. He once even stepped in to replace a timid player during a contact drill.
“He wasn’t wearing pads or a helmet or anything, but he crashed into another player anyway,” Schmidt said. “His head made contact with the other kid’s helmet and blood was coming down his face. He ignored it and just kept talking about how you need to be tough and aggressive to win.
“We were really shocked to see a 60-year-old man with no pads or helmet take a full-on hit like that.”
The Hammer of Thor
It was a transformational moment for Schmidt, who had never played football before his freshman year at Bishop. He would eventually become an All-Big Ten linebacker at Northwestern, and lead the Wildcats to both the Rose Bowl and Citrus Bowl.
He and Donati also joined Rivera in Bishop’s Hall of Fame in 2009.
“Coaches were trying to take advantage of my size and strength by getting me to be more aggressive on the football field,” he said. “For me, initially, it was weird.
“It took me a while to learn that it was not only OK, but that I’d eventually like it.”
Rivera realized how much Fletcher had changed Bishop’s culture when the Cardinals tied powerhouse Carpinteria in the “Little Big Game.” The Warriors were coming off four CIF-SS championships in five seasons and had won their previous 10 games against Bishop.
“Ralph Sanchez caught a touchdown and we got a 6-6 tie, which was a big deal,” he said. “It got us over the hump. We made a playoff run, and the rest is history.”
Bishop’s winning streak began when Jon Barrios ran for a pair of touchdowns to pull out a 21-9 win over Moorpark. His twin brother David set up the first one with a fumble recovery.
“If you have a couple of Barrioses on your team, you’ll get some championships,” Rivera said. “They’re the kind of guys who’ll jump on a grenade for anybody and for any reason at any time.”
Hayes was the hero the following week against Fillmore. Fletcher moved him all over the field, and he responded with 75 yards rushing and 101 more in receiving, which included a game-clinching, 65-yard touchdown catch.
Getting A Kick Out of Marquez
Marquez kept the football rolling the next week with a last-minute, 38-yard field goal that beat St. Bonaventure, 17-14.
The victory clinched the Cardinals’ first playoff berth in a decade. But they wanted more.
With a TVL co-championship on the line, Van Wyk wasted no time in the regular-season finale against Oak Park. He marched them to a touchdown on just the fourth play of a game they would eventually win, 31-14.
Bishop was TVL co-champion with mighty Carpinteria.
“Over time, coach Fletcher had convinced the kids they could win,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think people understand how difficult it is. The odds are against you in every way. He changed the culture.”
Schmidt set the tone in the playoffs. He hit North Torrance’s quarterback so hard in the quarterfinals that he broke his collarbone and two ribs.
Linebacker David Alvarado delivered a different kind of blow in a semifinal shootout with West Torrance. The Warriors were moving into position for a go-ahead score in the fourth quarter when Alvarado intercepted a pass and returned it 30 yards.
Abel Salcedo, who had missed a month of the season with an injury, scored on a 15-yard run on the next play.
The Cardinals soared the rest of the way to a 41-26 victory — and to their first appearance ever in a CIF championship football game.
Undefeated Montclair Prep and its Stanford-bound star, Eliel Swinton, beat them in the final, 35-7 — but Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno High School had still made a name for itself.
The Cardinals remained an elite program even after Fletcher retired in 1996. Tom Crawford, who took over a few years later, guided them to both a CIF-Southern Section and CIF-State 3AA championship in 2017.
They also advanced to the CIF finals in 2007 and as far as the semifinals in 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Crawford’s 162 career wins in 23 seasons has brought him to within nine of the county record set by Santa Barbara High’s Clarence Schuette.
This year’s Cardinals are 3-1 and ranked 37th in the Southern Section and 58th in the state — a far cry from the program that once thought about leaving 11-man football altogether.
“It’s a weird story to tell because it wasn’t the most refined team,” Rivera said of the 1992 Cardinals. “We were a bunch of knuckleheads. OK? That’s what we were. But we were also a bunch of guys who cared about each other.
“We were a bunch of brothers that I love, and who came together at the right time under great coaches who loved us, too.”
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.
