Longtime Harbor Rivals Tee It Up for 50th Time

It has been six years since an NFL team called Los Angeles home. USC’s once-proud football program is reeling after its worst season in years and UCLA is hardly setting the college football world afire.

But when it comes to Los Angeles high school football, everything is right again.

For the first time since 1990, Carson and Wilmington Banning are playing for the City Section football title.

“This is the way it should be,” says Gene Vollnogle, who coached at both schools and won 10 championships during his 38-year career.

That’s the overwhelming feeling in the harbor area, home to the schools that are only three miles apart. Tonight’s game at the Coliseum will be the 50th meeting overall and the 10th championship contest between the longtime rivals.

Carson leads the series, 28-21, but Banning has a 5-4 edge in finals. Each school has won 10 major-division City championships, second only to Manual Arts’ 15.

“This is one of the great rivalries in the history of high school football,” said former Banning coach Chris Ferragamo, who led the Pilots to eight titles, including a record six in a row from 1976-81. “When you think about all the great games and great players, it’s incredible. I don’t think it gets any better than this.”

Dozens of future college players, more than 35 of whom played pro football, got their starts at Carson or Banning.

Carson alumni include Wesley Walker, Anthony Caldwell, Mike Wilson, Samoa Samoa and J.R. Redmond.

Vince Ferragamo, Steve Rivera, Freeman McNeil, Michael Alo, Stanley Wilson, Jamelle Holieway and Bob Whitfield played at Banning.

“I played in some big games before some big crowds in college and the pros, but the details of the Banning-Carson games I played in are still fresh in my mind,” said Vince Ferragamo, Chris’ younger brother and a 1972 Banning graduate who played quarterback at Cal and Nebraska before starting a nine-year NFL career. “If you grow up in that area, there is no escaping it.”

Or, as former Banning and USC tight end Titus Tuiasosopo once said, “It goes deeper than football. It’s what you discuss at the dinner table.”

The players in tonight’s game were born in the early to mid-1980s, when the Carson-Banning championship-game rivalry was at its peak. Most attended elementary school or junior high with the players who will be across the line of scrimmage tonight. Hundreds of cousins and even a few brothers have played against each other in the series over the years.

“My whole family went to Carson and my dad, my uncle and my two brothers all played there,” Carson quarterback Justin Cooper said. “I grew up hearing all about Carson and Banning. To play in a championship game against [Banning] is a dream come true.”

The City championship games between the schools have their own unique place in the history of the rivalry.

Consider:

* Between 1978 and 1990, Carson and Banning played nine times for the title.

* In six of the first seven championship games between the schools, the team that had lost the regular-season showdown came back and won the title game.

“If you lost during the regular season, it kind of gave you confidence that the season was going to end on a good note,” Chris Ferragamo said.

Vollnogle and co-coach Paul Huebner started the area’s winning tradition by guiding Banning to its first title in 1958 and another in 1960. In 1963, Vollnogle took over the program at newly opened Carson. Huebner joined him after the 1968 season.

Vollnogle said the 1984 championship game against Banning ranks among his most memorable.

After losing to Banning during the regular season, Vollnogle thought the only way to beat the Pilots was to scrap his run-oriented attack in favor of a passing game. Vollnogle, however, wanted to surprise Banning.

So during practices before playoff games leading up to the final, Carson installed new plays and passed the ball almost exclusively. Once the games started, the Colts reverted to their familiar running game.

“It was tough because we had to tell our players to keep what we were doing in practice kind of secret, which is tough to do in that community where everyone knows everyone else,” Vollnogle said. “Then, in one of the playoff games, we were getting into trouble, but I didn’t want to show the passing game because I knew Banning was scouting. Luckily, we got a turnover or something and won without having to use it.”

When the championship game finally arrived, Vollnogle went to the air. Quarterback Carl Thompson passed for 339 yards and two touchdowns and the Colts won, 33-20.

“That,” Vollnogle said chuckling, “was a lot of fun.”

Chris Ferragamo played for Vollnogle at Banning and was the Pilots’ head coach from 1969-86.

A legendary motivator, Ferragamo lived by the personal motto: “Enthusiasm is a force that creates momentum.” His teams reflected his personality.

Ferragamo, who was 157-40-8 at Banning, said the 1983 title game against Carson stands out in his mind.

Banning running back Anthony Simien scored his fourth touchdown in the final minutes, pulling the Pilots to within 29-28. For the two-point conversion, Ferragamo instructed quarterback Holieway to fake a handoff and run a bootleg play.

“Jamelle made the fake, but Carson’s left end didn’t go for it,” Ferragamo said. “The kid grabs Jamelle’s left leg and I’m thinking, ‘Oh no!’ But then Jamelle gives him kind of a limp leg and runs into the end zone. He slipped like butter right out of the guy’s hands.”

The Carson-Banning championship showdowns were a thing of the past in the 1990s as both programs struggled to maintain the standard established by Vollnogle, who retired after the 1990 season, and Ferragamo, who’d left to become coach at Harbor College after the 1986 season.

Carson won a title in 1993 under David Williams and Banning reached the final in 1990 and ’91 under Joe Dominguez, but both schools went through several coaching changes during the decade.

Banning hit rock bottom in 1996 when it finished 0-10.

Chris Gutierrez became coach in 1997 and took the Pilots to the final in 1998, losing to Woodland Hills Taft. Gutierrez left after the 1998 season and was replaced by assistant Ed Lalau, who had played offensive guard for Ferragamo on Banning’s last championship team.

Lalau guided the Pilots to the section’s Invitational division title last year after a change in the selection procedure for the playoffs kept Banning out of the Championship division. This season, despite a murderous nonleague schedule, Lalau has the Pilots back playing for the City championship tonight.

“Everyone has their own style, so I’m different than Ferragamo,” Lalau said. “But what I take from him was the positive thinking--the motivation and enthusiasm.

“If you keep telling a kid he is good and that he can do the job, eventually he believes it. That is the kind of atmosphere we’re trying to rebuild here.”

Carson is also back on solid ground under second-year Coach John Aguirre.

Aguirre was hired before the 1999 season after coaching at Garfield from 1992-96 and working as the defensive coordinator at La Puente Bishop Amat in 1997 and ’98.

Aguirre promptly led Carson to the City title, its first since 1993.

“I grew up with the Garfield-Roosevelt rivalry and played Banning a few times when I coached at Garfield, so I can relate to what’s happening here,” Aguirre said.

Carson defeated Banning, 48-18, in a Marine League game on Nov. 8, but none of the coaches or players expect another rout. In fact, if history holds true . . .

“I think it’s going to be a lot different,” Banning running back Sal Guerrero said. “It’s going to come down to who wants it the most.

“The only thing you can predict about a championship game between Carson and Banning is that people are going to be talking about it for a long time.”

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The Big Game

Banning and Carson have faced each other nine times in the City final, with Banning winning five and Carson the last three:

YEAR RESULT

1978 Banning 7, Carson 6

1979 Banning 14, Carson 13

1981 Banning 21, Carson 14

1983 Banning 30, Carson 29

1984 Carson 33, Banning 20

1985 Banning 31, Carson 6

1986 Carson 21, Banning 11

1988 Carson 55, Banning 7

1990 Carson 37, Banning 16

CITY SECTION CHAMPIONSHIP

CARSON

(10-3)

vs.

BANNING

(7-6)

8 tonight

at Coliseum

* SOUTHERN SECTION SCHEDULE, D14