Glory Days : Back in 1966, Magnolia’s Football Team, Led by Sid, Leo and Wild Bill, Was Not the Pushover It Has Been in Recent Years

No discussion of the 1966 Magnolia High School football team is complete without mention of a favorite Sid Shue story, a Leo Fracess anecdote or a Wild Bill Dunn tale.

Even more than star quarterback Jim Bratten, who set an Orange County record by scoring 175 points in 1966, those three names dominate conversation whenever players from that team reminisce about the year the Sentinels were undefeated during the regular season (9-0) and finished 10-1, the best record in the school’s 25-year history.

Remember, these were Magnolia’s glory years, when the Sentinels won or shared four league championships from 1961-66 and finished second in ’67 and ’68.

The rest have been the sorry years.

Magnolia hasn’t had a winning season since 1971. In the past 15 years, the Sentinels have a 34-103-3 record. Following Coach Don Lent’s departure after the 1968 season, five other coaches have tried unsuccessfully to return Magnolia to respectability.

Until this year.

John Hangartner, who after 19 years resigned from Kennedy, has the Sentinels off to a 4-1 start.

The offense, led by running backs James Hargis and Tim Schmidt, is averaging 21 points per game, and the defense, behind linebackers Chris Korpela, Mike Harris and Brian Gurr, has recorded three straight shutouts.

The Sentinels are confident they can challenge for a playoff berth in the Orange League, and they’ll discover how much they have improved when they meet Western tonight in the league opener in Anaheim’s Handel Stadium.

Team unity also has returned--perhaps not to the extent of the 1966 Sentinels, who cut wore hair short and held their own team meetings and practices. But there is definitely an improvement over the past few years.

Hangartner has instilled pride into the program, just like there was in 1966.

Which brings us back to Sid Shue, Leo Fracess and Bill Dunn, the trio that seems to have been the pride of the 1966 team.

Shue, who is Magnolia’s sophomore coach today, was your typical drill-sergeant type assistant under Lent. His idea of fun was to sip a cool quart of fruit punch as his players suffered through two-a-day practices in 90-degree heat.

Shue majored in discipline. He was the kind of guy players hated during the season because he worked them so hard, but loved when it was all over.

One day, the Sentinels were going through a blocking drill designed to teach linemen how to pull, but center Jim Snodgrass, who eventually became an all-county selection, was having some difficulty moving from side to side.

Shue, the innovative coach he was, proceeded to tie a rope around Snodgrass’ ankles and another to his face mask and steer him through the drill.

“He really made those linemen, I tell ‘ya,” Lent said of Shue.

Fracess was an all-league defensive lineman who got more attention for his stunts off the field than the ones on it. He was the guy who broke the Ping-Pong table at Bratten’s house during a 10-year reunion party for the team in 1976.

He once rode his motorcycle through a fence to win a $1 bet. Playing off a Sid Shue punishment, in which he once had to crawl on his belly around the track and practice field, Fracess, clad in fins and a mask, crawled on his stomach from the oceanfront walk at 30th Street in Newport Beach to the ocean, immersed himself in the water, and then crawled back so he’d be caked with sand. And then there was Bill Dunn, a reserve and typical goof ball who always seemed to be getting into trouble with the coaches. He eventually rode Brahma bulls on the professional rodeo circuit, hence, the nickname, Wild Bill.

“Leo and Bill. A couple of zanies,” said Hank Cochrane, Fountain Valley assistant who was a wide receiver on Magnolia’s 1966 team.

Cochrane was one of nine players on that team who became a coach. Bratten, who played quarterback at the University of Colorado, became the coach at Estancia and today is at Arvada High in Colorado.

Kris Van Hook, a junior reserve for Magnolia in ‘66, is the coach at Cypress, where he is joined on the staff by high school teammate Andy Zamaripa. Larry Doyle, a defensive back and receiver, is an assistant at Marina.

Larry Tisdale is the coach at Etiwanda High. Tim Oder, who coached football at both Estancia and Huntington Beach, is the track coach at Fallbrook High, Jim Bauer coaches football in Ventura County and Steve Iverson is coaching in Oregon.

“They were an easy team to coach because they did so many things on their own,” Lent said. “We’d leave the kicking team out after practice, and they’d work out alone.”

Added Shue: “They had team meetings on their own the night before games, and they’d go out in the street and run their plays.”

The extra work paid off, as the Sentinels won the Freeway League championship and defeated West Covina in the first round of the CIF Southern Section 3-A playoffs before falling to Bishop Montgomery, 34-7, in the second round.

Bratten scored 24 touchdowns, kicked 22 extra points and 3 field goals to set his single-season scoring record, which was broken by Esperanza’s Jim Farrell (192 points) last year.

The Sentinels used to receive star-shaped stickers to place on their helmets every time they scored or had a hand in a big play. Bratten had so many, his teammates nicknamed him, “The Flag.” He was The Times’ Back of the Year.

The biggest regular-season game was against La Habra, as both the Sentinels and Highlanders had 5-0 Freeway League records. La Habra, which had one of the better defenses in the county, had the initials “DVW” on its helmets, which stood for Defense vs. the World.

“They scored on the third play of the game on an 80-yard pass,” Larry Doyle said. “I was the guy who got beat. But we went on to score 40 straight points and win, 40-6.”

The Sentinels had an easy time against arch-rival Savanna, defeating the Rebels, 51-20, in the regular-season finale. Afterward, the Sentinels dipped their coaches in the shower, but that was only half the prank.

To the coaches’ surprise, the players had accumulated several trash bags full of the hair from their preseason crew cuts and dumped them on the already drenched staff.

“We got a lot of laughs about that one over the years,” Lent said.

No one was laughing at Magnolia’s program back then--not the way people did during the ‘70s and part of the ‘80s.

“A lot of people have asked me where I went to school, and when I told them Magnolia, they’ve said ‘Oh they’re terrible,” Doyle said. “But what people don’t remember is that in our first six years, we were champions four times. Maybe (by winning this year) they can bring back some of the old feelings of success we enjoyed.”

Magnolia/ Year-by-Year

1961 3-4-2

1962 7-2-1

1963 7-4

1964 1-8

1965 6-3

1966 10-1

1967 6-2-1

1968 7-2

1969 4-4-1

1970 1-7-1

1971 5-4

1972 3-6

1973 2-7

1974 4-5

1975 1-8

1976 3-6

1977 1-8

1978 2-6-1

1979 0-10

1980 2-8

1981 1-9

1982 4-6

1983 2-7-1

1984 3-7

The Big Game

Magnolia vs. Western

The records--Magnolia (4-1), Western (3-1-1).

The site--Handel Stadium.

Key to the game--Both teams’ strengths are defense. The Sentinels have three shutouts, and the Pioneers have two. Magnolia’s Mike Tietge has replaced the injured John Hangartner, Jr. at quarterback but has only thrown 12 times in the past two games. Western will have the edge at quarterback with Rich Lodding, who has completed 38 of 87 passes for for 470 yards and 5 touchdowns. The Sentinels will need to establish a running game behind backs Tim Schmidt, Dan Falt and James Hargis, because they will have trouble passing.

Consensus--The Sentinels and Pioneers had two common nonleague opponents in Rancho Alamitos and Los Amigos. Both defeated Rancho Alamitos, but Magnolia lost to Los Amigos, 27-7, and Western tied the Lobos, 12-12. Western has the size advantage and a more versatile offense, and that gives the Pioneers the edge.