Class Act

High school sports serve as a rite of passage for the athletes who play them, the student, friends and families that gather to watch them and the sportswriters who cut their professional teeth covering them.

High school football games in Los Angeles date to 1896, but it wasn’t until 1934 that the Los Angeles City Section was born.

The Southern Section was established in 1912 and held its first athletic competition in 1913.

This story is not an attempt to document the achievements of every outstanding athlete, coach and team that made a mark, for there are far too many to chronicle here.

Rather, it is a history lesson of sorts told by current and former Times staff writers who have written about Southland prep athletes. Most of the writers graduated from Los Angeles-area high schools. And while many have gone on to cover college and professional sports as beat writers or columnists, all maintain indelible images of the prep athletes they watched, covered and, in some instances, competed with and against on the playing field.

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I came to Los Angeles in December 1969 from the Fresno area and covered preps for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner my first three years at that newspaper. One of the first games I saw was the CIF championship game at the Coliseum between Pasadena Blair, featuring the “Blair Pair,” seniors James McAlister and Kermit Johnson, and La Puente Bishop Amat, featuring juniors Pat Haden and John McKay Jr. Blair won, 28-27.

Even though I came from a very small town in the San Joaquin Valley, Strathmore, pop. 1,000, I had heard about such great Southern California running backs as Mickey Cureton at Compton Centennial and, before him, Randy Meadows of Downey High and Mickey Flynn of Anaheim High, who drew 41,383 to the 1956 CIF championship game, a 13-13 tie, and 85,931 to the Coliseum for the 1957 Shrine Game.

I expected McAlister to be in their league, but I was still blown away.

But of the prep stars I covered, the most memorable was Haden. The first time I approached him to do an interview--it was before the 1971 Shrine Game--he called me “Mr. Stewart” and “Sir.”

I was 24.

I covered Haden at times during his days at USC, more often when he was with the Rams and regularly during his broadcasting career. He remains the classiest athlete/broadcaster I’ve ever covered.