A man for all seasons

Don Cantrell

Although he has kept it quiet for the past couple of months, Boyd

(Boggie) Horrell, Class of ’50 at Orange Coast College, appeared at the

‘51 championship team’s 50th anniversary last November.

“Yes,” he said recently, “ I sat right next to Coach Ray Rosso and Doc

Mason at the stadium while the team was playing Fullerton.”

Horrell was a stout member of the 1948 and ’49 OCC grid teams, but

knew most of the ’51 players.

Horrell wasn’t trying to draw any attention away from the ’51 players,

but many favored him there representing the first two OCC outfits.

An all-conference center in his time, Horrell always ranked high in

Rosso’s mind. In fact, he still has a strong spot in OCC grid history. He

booted the first extra points for the team in ’48.

For Horrell and the ’51 players, it was different reflecting back at

the old days since there was no home stadium in the early years. The

teams played at either Newport Harbor High or Huntington Beach High.

It was a long drive from his home in Somerton, Ariz., to reach OCC but

it harked to mind one game from yesteryear with OCC.

The Pirates drove down by bus to play distant El Centro and the team

didn’t get home till past 5 a.m. It was a long haul after a tiring game.

His slipping in with little notice was also remindful of the time he

chose to visit his old Harbor High classmate, Don McCallum, at the

secured Balboa Bay Club. He was a polished talker and managed to get past

the guards and found McCallum.

McCallum was astonished, looking up from a breakfast table, and

suddenly laughed, then exclaimed, “How did you get in here?”

Horrell laughed, then nodded, “I just told them (the guards) I owned

the place.”

He is a Pilot Sports Hall of Famer and was also Harbor High’s “Tar of

the Year” in athletics in 1948 and starred on the only champ baseball

team Newport ever had. He played center at OCC both years, but played

blocking back at Newport his last two years.

Jim Pascoe, a rugged guard for Al Irwin at Newport in 1950-52, once

took Irwin’s “rocker step” punt concept to an Air Force football team in

England and found success with it after shifting to fullback.

In time, football faded and he wound up in more intense Air Force

duties in Southeast Asia. In fact, he once earned a Bronze Star for his

role helping an advisory team.

Medical problems eventually found him taking up residence in Las Vegas

near a military hospital. But he subsequently found a local sports

picture he enjoyed and came to follow. The first as the UNLV Runnin’

Rebels basketball team, then Coach John Robinson and the UNLV gridders.

Pascoe said it is hard to believe the staggering growth that has come

to Las Vegas in recent years. “And they’re still building,” he said.

Years back it led to one of his cheering birthday celebrations as UNLV

won the national basketball title that evening.

There was often humor and interesting things that came forth from the

late OCC Coach Steve Musseau in the late ‘50s.

One writer was once verbally pushing him with strong praise for

Arkansas, knowing that Musseau was born and raised in Louisiana and

attended Louisiana State University.

The writer asked Musseau to simply reflect and think about Arkansas.

Musseau seemed speechless for a moment, but then asked: “Wasn’t that a

part of the Louisiana Purchase?”

Junior college football was a very popular thing 50 years ago and the

stiff recruiting often got out of hand.

In fact, before Musseau was drawn to Orange Coast as the head football

coach, he was wined and dined by another school in a larger city.

Musseau had no thoughts of naming names igniting a major controversy,

but he did disclose to a writer that one major sporting goods store owner

led him to a safe, opened it and indicated $5,000 was already there to

help in his recruiting. He shook his head and left the store.