North, West Alumni Put Pads on Again

Kevin Millward lumbered onto the field called “The Valley” at North High School in Torrance one late afternoon this week, struggling to get a dark blue football jersey over shoulder pads and around his massive torso.

In his playing days here 20 years ago Millward was a solid 205-pound offensive lineman. But years have added 70 pounds to his 6-foot-2 frame. Still, he walked onto the practice session for Saturday night’s alumni football game with rival West High with much of the zest he had two decades ago.

The third biannual alumni football game, which starts at 7 at North, will spur a lot of old memories, and seeing Millward back in the Valley is just one of them.

“This is better than any reunion,” said 1976 North graduate Charlie Godbee.

The game will use two pools of players. Those who graduated in 1978 or later play the second half of the game, while graduates before 1978 work the first half. The split format allows guys like Millward, who hung up his cleats in the late 1970s after a stab at semipro football, and Godbee, a shop foreman, to block and tackle against men of similar ages.

Not that they need an incentive to return. Most would do anything for their alma mater.

“My wife thinks it’s great. It gets me out of the house,” Millward said. He’s expected to be joined by notable North players such as quarterback Don Hansen and lineman Rich Francis, members of the Saxons’ 1967 league championship team and current varsity coaches at the school. The oldest player in the game is expected to be Gary Arneson, a 1964 graduate of West. Two years ago West rolled out more than a dozen players from the 1960s.

“We have a good following at North and West with our alumni,” said West Coach Mark Knox, a 1966 West graduate. “It’s amazing how we have kept in contact over the years and how our alumni respond to gatherings and reunions.”

Both schools, say officials, have had successful football programs, a boost to any alumni game. Funds raised from the sale of tickets at $5 a seat go to the respective programs. North varsity Coach Don Bohannon said he expects to net about $4,000.

“Football has always been big here,” said North alumni Coach Kelsey Baughfman, a 1965 North graduate. “Even in the down years we had a lot of support.”

“A lot of players in this alumni game read the paper each Saturday morning (in football season) to see how North did,” Baughfman said.

The North-West rivalry didn’t develop until the mid-1970s, according to Baughfman and Knox. “When I was in school, our big rival was South High,” Baughfman said.

But times changed. Knox and co-varsity Coach John Black characterize the football rivalry between the schools now as “very heated.”

Players from the 1960s look at the alumni game from a different prospective.

“Younger guys have this heated rivalry (with West),” Francis said. To them, the competition is important. We older guys go out just to see if we can move.”

Bohannon said it is also common for younger players to take Saturday’s game more seriously because they are in better shape.

“The younger players just want to knock the hell out of anybody just ‘cause they love to hit.”

Said Knox: “I think for the younger guys it’s more like the idea of getting back into the game after not having played in a while.”

Older players agreed.

“I can tell the difference in my lack of quickness just from a couple of years ago,” said Tom Perkins, an insurance broker. He was a linebacker at North in 1973 but bore little resemblance to the beefed-up players of the 1980s. He still weighs about 175 pounds.

Millward thought of himself as large in high school.

“To weigh 205 was a good size for a high school player back then,” he said.

Bohannon, Baughfman and Knox proudly point out that no one has been hurt in the meetings.

Besides, said Godbee, a three-year varsity player: “Come Monday we all have to go to work. We all know we’ll be hurtin’ and smellin’ like Ben Gay, but we all have to go to work.”

North quarterback Dana Lewis, a 1980 graduate, agreed. “Back in high school we wanted to knock their heads off,” he said. “Now our No. 1 priority is living. We have jobs and families that are our responsibilities.”

Francis isn’t taking things lightly, however. He’s refusing to practice until he secures a personal insurance policy just for the game.

The aging process sometimes dictates results.

“When the first half begins, everyone wants to play the entire half,” Bohannon said. “Then they go in for a series and it’s a different story.”

During practice in the Valley, Rodney Trammell, a 1984 graduate, wanted to scrimmage, but Bohannon said no. He said it wasn’t fair to pit older and younger players.

The Valley, a flat, grassy area that extends into left field of the baseball diamond, holds a curious mystique for North grads. It’s not really a valley; the only low spot in the area is in an adjacent parking lot where a runoff channel dips into a sewer at 182nd Street. The Valley got its name because it abuts a two-story building on one side and a 15-foot-high chain-link fence on the other.

“Any North High kid knows where the Valley is,” Bohannon said.

The 45 players who showed up this week (about half the number expected to suit up Saturday), felt at home there. Some wore football pads and jeans or swim trunks. Most donned sweat pants, pads and high school helmets. Former USC offensive tackle Mark Sager wore his Trojan helmet. The mood was informal.

When two linemen crouched in front of each other for a contact drill, one shouted, “Hey, we’re brothers; do we have to go against each other?”

Several players responded at once: “Hey, man, we’re all brothers here.”

Later Sager dropped to his belly in a lineman’s drill. Said former UCLA defensive back Joe Gasser: “I’ve seen many Trojans in that position before.”

The pair jawed at each other as the evening progressed. Gasser, a pricing analyst, and Sager, a gun salesmen, said their dealings were all in jest.

“Everyone says the rivalry at USC and UCLA is real bitter,” said Sager, “but all through college you always remember that the real rivalries happened in high school.”

Finally the sun peeked through clouds and the rain stopped. Baughfman called practice early, yet many of the players stayed on the field and talked. Godbee hung around to punt.

As twilight set in they walked off the field reluctantly. Godbee got a projector and watched game films from his playing days. Baughfman and Bohannon discussed details of the game inside a locker room. And on the street behind the North football stadium, a handful of players were still talking about the good old days as darkness set in.