Panthers Were Champs in ’29 : Orange High: It has been 60 years since the school’s last section football championship, and much has been forgotten by team members.

The year 1929 comes back in disjointed, slow-moving thoughts by those who, 60 years ago this week, played on Orange High School’s last section championship football team. They remember little from that clear, sunny Friday afternoon; and what little is remembered comes in different versions.

But Orange’s 13-0 victory over Bonita for the Minor Schools championship on Dec. 6, 1929, hasn’t gone unnoticed in 1989. That’s probably because the Panthers have a chance to win their second football championship tonight when they face Pacific Coast League rival Trabuco Hills in the CIF Southern Section Division VIII championship.

The “Champs” of the Minor League of Southern California was the goal reached by the Orange Varsity football team this year. The team played 11 games, winning nine of that number.

The football season started Sept. 1, when the squad left for camp Ro Ki Li (near Big Bear) for a week of intensive training. Here the boys talked, ate and dreamed football from the time they left until they returned home on the 8th. . . .

-- Excerpt from the 1930 Orange High yearbook.

The 30-plus members of the 1929 team, 17 of whom are pictured in a dusty, yellow-paged 1930 yearbook, are a part of an era that has not been repeated at Orange. The Panthers won three straight league championships, beginning in 1929.

But many things about 1929 have been forgotten.

“The biggest thing I remember about the game was my broken neck,” said Harold Thomas, one of five known surviving members of the team. The others are John Tomblin, 77, who lives in Sacramento; Curt McCoy, 77, Orange; Lawrence Leichtfuss, 75, Villa Park , and Travis Flippen, 76, Santa Barbara.

Thomas, 76, is a retired Pasadena police captain who lives in San Clemente and travels extensively.

Asked about Orange’s 1929 championship game, Thomas said he remembers lying on the bench after he was injured on a play in the third quarter, then being taken to the locker room to shower, but that he didn’t have the strength to stand.

He says he remembers the ride home in the back of his father’s car, and the trough-like bed in which he was placed. He also remembers the pain.

“I was home a couple of days, in misery. That’s when the doctor had them build a trough out of 1-by-12 redwood boards so I could lay flat,” Thomas said. “I spent several months in that (trough) before they thought it was safe to move me, but by then it was too late to set my neck. The doctors said if I wasn’t paralyzed yet, I’d be OK.”

McCoy, who helps run a sheet metal company his father founded in 1928, and Tomblin, who retired after a 42-year career as a state forestry fire control manager, remember Thomas’ injury differently. They recall Thomas being taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Said Tomblin: “The highlight of the game was (when) Harold Thomas, who we called Wells (because he had bragged about his Welsh heritage), was taken away in an ambulance.”

Said McCoy, when told of Thomas’ different account: “Memories, they’re different. If he says he remembers it that way, I’m not going to argue.”

Added Thomas: “That affected my whole life. . . . It put me out of business for enough months, I missed graduating with my class. . . . And I’ll always have that pain in the neck.”

Orange’s participation in the championship game came about through a strange chain of events. According to an account in the 1930 yearbook, Orange had tied Tustin, Huntington Beach and Brea in the league standings, each with one loss.

Thanksgiving day was set to play off the tie, however, a few days before this great day it was discovered that Brea had been playing an ineligible man, and were forced to forfeit all their games. This left Huntington Beach and Orange tied but the Oilers had abandoned and the league remained a tie. But Orange was allowed to play Bonita for the championship of the minor leagues of Southern California.

“It was (played) in the afternoon because there were no lights, and everybody in Orange came,” said Tomblin, a senior punter/kicker and outside end who was one of the tallest players (6-foot-1, 150 pounds). “They set up portable bleachers, and it was a big day in the city of Orange. Most of the businesses closed for the game, and all over town, orange and black banners were raised . Naturally, it was pretty exciting; even the mayor came.”

According to the yearbook, Orange scored once in the second quarter, “on straight (running) football,” and then again early in the last quarter on another run.

The Orange-Bonita game took place on the Orange field. Without a doubt it was the hardest game the Panthers played all season but they won 13-0. Orange started a drive in the first quarter that was stopped on the goal line. This drive was repeated by Bonita, when soon the quarter ended. In the second quarter, Orange, on straight football scored their first touchdown. The remainder of the half was spent in punting. In the third quarter both teams were fairly even with the ball spending much time in the air. In the first of the last period Orange ran over their last touchdown. The rest of the game saw Bonita passing but they were unsuccessful in scoring. The winning of this game made Orange the champs of Southern California.

It capped a season in which the Panthers outscored their opponents, 186-38, and lost only twice. In the second game of the season, they were defeated by Santa Ana, 6-0, and on Armistice Day, they lost to Huntington Beach, 6-0.

Mike Santa Cruz, the 1929 team’s captain, who went on to play guard at Loyola Marymount in 1933 and 1934, left a senior will that read:

“Very well pleased with my success in O.U.H.S., I ‘Mike’ Santa Cruz do depart with my popularity to ‘Heine’ Peters. He may need it on the football field this fall.”