This date in history...

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The date was Oct. 6, and Concord De La Salle was in Southern California to play in a big game.

No, not Saturday, although the Spartans were in town and beat Mission Viejo, 35-7.

I’m talking about Oct. 6, 2001. Remember that night? Don Wallace does.

Two weeks ago, De La Salle and Long Beach Poly were tabbed as the high schools with the most players in the nation on NFL opening-weekend rosters this season with six each, according to figures compiled and released by USA Football.

Of those 12 players, seven played with or against each other when De La Salle and Poly met for the first time on Oct. 6, 2001, according to Wallace, a former Poly fullback and safety now living in New York City who wrote a book about the event titled ‘One Great Game’.

The Spartans, ranked No. 2 in the country but in the midst of a national-record 151-game winning streak, defeated then top-ranked Poly, 29-15, in front of about 17,000 at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach. Click on the tabs at the top of the page here for a look at some photos from that night.

‘I can still remember standing on the grass at Vets Stadium five minutes before the teams took the field and turning around, thinking, ‘It’s really going to happen. No. 1 and No. 2 are going to meet,’ Wallace said.

‘What stays in my mind now is how respectful both teams and their fans and coaches were of each other. The seating wasn’t divided, everyone was jammed in together, and yet, far from being an antagonistic situation, there was this palpable pride at being at the game, at coming from a school to be proud of.’

Based on the status of De La Salle and Poly as two of the top producers of pro-football prospects, that meeting just may have included perhaps as many future NFL players as have ever appeared in any one high school game outside of all-star competition.

Poly players in the game who are currently in the NFL are offensive tackle Winston Justice and Pago Togafau (pictured bottom right, trying to make a tackle) both now with the Philadelpia Eagles; tight end Marcedes Lewis (pictured top right, carrying the ball) who plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars; and defensive tackle Manuel Wright of the New York Giants.

De La Salle players from the game who are now in the NFL are quarterback Matt Gutierrez, who is backing up Tom Brady for New England, running back Maurice Jones-Drew (pictured top right, carrying the ball) and defensive tackle Derek Landri of Jacksonville.

In other twists of fate:

--Togafau and Gutierrez each attended Idaho State out of Poly and De La Salle, respectively.

--Justice and Wright each ended up at USC, while Lewis and Jones-Drew both went on to UCLA.

Each of those last four were probably a little down in the dumps yesterday, as USC fell to Stanford, and Notre Dame defeated UCLA for its first victory of the season.

Landri no doubt was celebrating, though. He went to Notre Dame.

Wallace’s son, Rory, incidentally, is a junior at Stanford, and his wife, Mindy, also is a Cardinal alum.

‘It’s been a good weekend of football,’ Wallace said.

There’s another historic date coming up: that is, Oct. 12, the five-year anniversary of the only other game between De La Salle and Poly. It occurred at the University of California, where the Spartans again beat the Jackrabbits, 28-7.

- Lauren Peterson

-- Images by David Kawashima/For The Times