Hail thee, alma mater!

With the Old Timer's Reunion coming up soon and this, being the 69th anniversary of my graduation from good old Tehachapi High, I will be meeting people who will say, "Pat! You haven't changed a bit!" I always reply, " You mean I looked this bad in high school?" Come on, now! Nice try. What they mean is, that they are glad to be able to even read the name tag on my chest and discover who I really am.

Sometimes, when volunteering in the local Museum, I meet young students from Tehachapi High School. When I find out they are attending my old alma mater I tell them I was in the class of 1946.

They look at me wondering if I am just kidding about having graduated in the 20th Century. Then when I mention that the student body consisted of no more than 150, they still have that look as if waiting for the "punch line."

Well, we were there and due to the small student count, we knew everyone and our school spirit and camaraderie was in the high ninety percentile. However, small schools do run into problems when it comes to sports. It is here that my friends, Dick Johnson, Hugh Vasquez and Tony Anthony, clued me in on a few disadvantages in the field of small school sports.

What spurred me on to write this piece was local man, Michael Rodriguez. One morning, at coffee and doughnuts after Sunday Mass, I was speaking to him and he mentioned that he had gone to Quartz Hill High which also had a fairly small count of students. They were in the Golden League and never played Tehachapi. He told me he played defensive tackle and tight end. He also said that during a game against Burroughs High in Ridgecrest he received a bad concussion and was taken out of the game. He didn't even remember the rest of the game. His wife, Linda, when observing something he has done that she deems not up to par, will tell him, "It's the concussion." A family joke.

This brought my mind to the Warrior games at my dear high school and our small in number, but mighty Warriors. At one of our football games, Barbara Enlund, a cheer leader, says, "I hope no one gets hurt today because we only have eleven players. She and Betty Dowdy, her partner in cheer leading were at every game; home and away.

With that statement in mind I recall Dick Johnson, a running back, was carrying the ball when he was hit by two guys. He found himself lying on the grass with the proper amount of pain involved in the tackle, thinking, "Oh, if I could just keep lying here." But, being one of the eleven and with true Warrior spirit, he got up and the game continued.

Tony Anthony, another classmate, and former Fire Chief of our fair city, relates a time he was hit on the head; a good blow. The coach had him sit on the bench and the local doctor examined him and then said he seemed fine. Back into the game.

Johnson says that during World War II they played eight man football with Lone Pine and Trona and six man with Randsburg. He recalls playing on a sand field in Trona. They couldn't make any headway with their football shoes so they took them off and played in their stocking feet! They won the game though.

Hugh Vasquez still laughs at their tackling practice. The football tackling dummy was of normal size but some of the Warriors were a bit slight in stature. He recalls a day when they were lined up for their turn. One of the team, a small player, charged the dummy but it got the best of him and being no match for that tackling dummy, he flew backwards knocking those in line down in a domino effect.

Hugh has another tale worth telling. In a basketball game against Shafter the game had gone into overtime and one of the opposing team committed a foul against him. The score was tied. Vasquez was allowed a free throw. He recalls the roar of the crowd but when they handed him the ball, the whole audience held their breath and you could have heard a pin drop. "Why me? Why me?" Hugh thought. The basket looked far away and the ball got larger and larger. There was nothing to do but throw it. A prayer later as he threw it, the ball swished through the hoop without even touching the rim. The next thing he knew he was riding on two player's shoulders. Tehachapi's game and Vasquez the hero! Warrior champions: Yesterday, today and tomorrow!