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What: Anaheim Colonists Football: A Century of Tradition

Price: $15.00 (call 714 593-6036 or e-mail AUColonist@aol.com)

Dennis Bateman figured he was out of luck when he called the office of the new coach of the New York Giants, requesting input for a book on Anaheim High School football. The coach, he was told, was in Palm Springs, at an NFL owners’ meeting.

Bateman should have known better. Jim Fassel, after all, was a Colonist.

Fassel, Anaheim’s quarterback in 1966, returned the call within hours and later wrote the forward to the book.

That’s the kind of loyalty that playing for Anaheim has inspired, and an indication of why “Anaheim Colonists Football: A Century of Tradition” was such a labor of love.

Bateman, a journalism student at Saddleback College and a former Anaheim player (Class of ‘89), has painstakingly researched scrapbooks, yearbooks and newspaper accounts for every season since the school first competed in 1919--the school is 100 years old, not the football program, so Bateman’s title is a bit misleading. But with rare photos, game detail and anecdotes, the book is a souvenir any alumnus would want to own.

The best portion of the book chronicles the career of Clare Van Hoorebeke, a coaching legend in Southern California from 1950-72. In those less-complicated days, high school football was an event that galvanized communities, drawing five-figure crowds to championship games.

Now, those days are only a memory. Fortunately, memories come easily in Bateman’s book.