Golden Nights : Fridays During Football Season Have Special Quality in High Desert, Except for Outsiders

There are times when Littlerock High football Coach Jim Bauer is left breathless by the clarity and the explosion of brilliant colors in the high desert sky above his Palmdale home.

“Sometimes it’s so gorgeous here I’m just paralyzed,” he said.

But those days seem few and far between when football season arrives. Bauer’s oasis burns like a kiln, but often on a football Friday night comes a mid-winter freeze which can be complicated by wind, rain and even sleet.

Weather conditions can change with a snap of the fingers.

Opposing teams, who don’t want to come here in the first place, dress properly about as often as they win--which is not often.

But the high desert, with all its mysteries, has again rewarded those who live within its confines and endure its extremes.

All five Golden League teams take winning records into tonight’s 1996 league kickoff. They are a combined 19-7, with an 11-3 record in home games.

Bauer and his colleagues--Brent Newcomb (Antelope Valley), John Albee (Quartz Hill), Lin Parker (Highland) and Jeff Williams (Palmdale)--have won more than 370 games at their schools.

“If you’re not coached up and prepared--I mean really ready to play us--it’s going to get ugly really quick,” Bauer said.

Bauer’s comment drew nods from sunburned faces all around the table, where he was joined last week by his Golden League coaching colleagues at a Lancaster sports bar called Coaches.

They sat down, poured beer, slapped each other the back. The round-table discussion was interrupted often by playful barbs.

Bauer will never forget a freezing playoff loss at Quartz Hill when he was an assistant at Santa Clara.

“That was the coldest SOB of a night I’d ever been in in my life,” he said. “All we wanted to do was get on the bus and go home.”

Welcome to the western tip of the Mojave Desert, a place Gen. George Patton’s soldiers dubbed “the land that God forgot” when they trained here in 1942, and a forbidden land for visiting football teams since Antelope Valley High opened in 1914.

In a word, Friday nights can be hell in the high desert.

“That was an overtime victory, and you had 12 men on the field,” said Newcomb, who was in the stands that night.

Responded Bauer: “We had 12 men on the field, but [Quartz Hill was] was throwing passes out of an unbalanced line to an ineligible receiver all night.”

Said Albee: “Wasn’t there about 9,000 people there that night?’

Bauer: “I don’t think there was anybody there. It was cold.”

Albee: “Our guys wore only T-shirts, just to psyche you guys out.”

Bauer: “Well, it worked.”

Football games are as important as any local election in the Antelope Valley, where crowds nearing 10,000 are seen on occasion.

“This area is a throwback,” said Williams, a native of Littlerock who played at Palmdale. “On Friday nights, you have everybody in town at the game.”

Outsiders get rude, if not strange greetings.

Former Canyon Coach Harry Welch, whose Cowboys once ruled the Golden League, recalls how a Palmdale cheerleader mooned his team as the bus pulled into the parking lot before a big game.

“I had an interesting time getting my players to focus on the task at hand after that,” Welch said.

The Golden League has also been blessed with talent, with more than 20 former players from the Valley competing at four-year colleges.

The unpredictable but often foul weather has always been the biggest advantage, or disadvantage, depending on your vantage point.

Said Albee, “You don’t have a lot of time to slouch here in the Valley. Sometimes it’s only 10 degrees during the winter time and it’s 120 during the summer. If you can practice in that kind of weather, you’re going to be a good player.”

Bauer: “If you can make it through hell week here, you can just about do anything in life.”

Parker: “I had a kid who [later] sold some narcotics to an under-cover agent. He spent three years hard labor in Leavenworth [prison]. He spent every single day making big rocks into little rocks . . . no offense to Littlerock. . . .

“He said, ‘Coach, the hell week you put us through was [tougher] than what they could do to me in prison.’ ”

A slight uneasiness prevailed after Parker’s comment.

Many former players from the area have met with misfortune, some falling casualty to the huge layoffs in local aerospace jobs which crippled the local economy.

Newcomb has lost two ex-players this season, one committing suicide while the other was beaten to death in a bar in Tulsa, Okla.

“This was a great place to raise your family [20 years ago],” Newcomb said. “There was a lot of room out here. But with all the population moving in and the stinkin’ driving down to L.A., and L.A. moving up, it’s changed the community.

“[Twenty years from now] it’s going to be a big, big city.”

Albee was not glum about the future, however, as he cited a resiliency in the people that he likens to his days growing up in Bakersfield.

“Twenty years down the road, it’s probably going to be one of the better areas, because the parents care and they want their kids to get a good education,” he said. “Yes, this is a tough area to live in, because of the climate. This is always going to be an area where you’re going to get tough kids, partly because of the climate.

“Here, every kid who is worth his [weight] plays football. At every school. We don’t throw the ball very well here, but we play tough football.”

The topic turned to the area’s most memorable game. And there have been many. But Newcomb and Albee, who have combined for 300 victories, will never forget the 1978 game between Quartz Hill and Antelope Valley.

The weather was typically foul, and it took a personal foul for the Antelopes to claim a 10-7 victory.

Albee: “We had a kid who said in the huddle, ‘[Doggone it], we’ve got to shape up!’ They gave us a personal foul and moved the ball up 15 yards for them into field-goal range.”

Newcomb: “It was raining sleet and snow. It was 7-7 and J.J. Aiken kicked a field goal. I’ll never forget the headline the the paper the next day: ‘Oh My Aiken Toe.’ ”

Parker: “The day after that game, Brent called the local country radio station and said, ‘I want to dedicate this song to Head Coach John Albee at Quartz Hill. It’s called. . . . “

Newcomb: “ ‘Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life.’ ”

Parker: “And they played it.”

Albee: “All four officials in that game graduated from AV High School.”

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The Golden Boys

John Albee, 56. Born and raised in Bakersfield. He’s a member of the Bakersfield Football Hall of Fame. Has coached high school football for 33 years, 29 as head coach at Quartz Hill.

Jim Bauer, 46. Born in Scottsbluff, Neb., and raised in Anaheim. He was the second-best football player in his family next to Hank Bauer, who played for the San Diego Chargers. Has 21 years of coaching experience. Helped open Littlerock in 1989.

Brent Newcomb, 54. A native of Safford, Ariz., he was studying for his Master’s degree at Northern Arizona when a sporting goods salesman gave him a tip about an assistant’s job. In 29 years at Antelope Valley, 19 as head coach, the Antelopes have won five section titles.

Lin Parker, 52. Born and raised in Lancaster, he was a team captain at Cal State Northridge. He has a career record of 181-74-3 as head coach at four high schools and Caltech (nine seasons). He helped open Highland in 1989.

Jeff Williams, 37. Born in Littlerock and raised there and in Orange, Williams was a nemesis of Parker, Newcomb and Albee as a player at Palmdale in the mid-1970s. Played safety alongside Rod Woodson at Purdue. Has coached 11 years at Palmdale, six as the boss.