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Bill Kelso
I would like to thank Steve Kelly and our other classmates who recently wrote some very nice comments in the message forum. But I also thought our class might want to know about the many fine athletes who are presently in the McClatchy Sports Hall or Fame or potential future inductees.
In the 1960s McClatchy was fortunate to attract an incredibly number of very talented athletes who quickly turned our high school into a major player in the Sacramento area.
One of the most successful athletes was Jim Mills, who was unique in that he was first string on the football team for three years in high school. Jim, who was named an All City Football player by the Sacramento Bee and Union, became the dominant lineman in the city. In light of his very successful high school record, Jim was highly recruited by many college teams and ended up playing four years of college ball at Stanford University.
A second notable athlete was Mike Nishio, who was an incredibly quick, exciting and elusive running back at McClatchy our senior year. Besides being an impressive athlete, Mike contributed a lot to McClatchy sports by becoming a very successful coach at McClatchy.
In the early 1960s only men played varsity sports in high school. But with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1972, which is today known as Title 9, high schools began to establish teams for women. Mike played a key role in this development as he started to coach the women’s basketball team.
One legacy of Mike’s activities is that in 2015, the McClatchy women’s varsity basketball team won the state championship. Today, McClatchy, which is something of a magnet school, tends to attract many of the best women athletes in the city.
A third athlete who is also an all star sports star is Paul Fuller. Paul, who was an incredibly agile and elegant basketball player, was always fun to watch as he exhibited so much grace and finesse every time he just shot the ball or initiated a fast break.
Besides the above players presently in the Sports Hall of fame there are many other fine McClatchy athletes waiting in the wings who will undoubtedly be inducted soon. While it is too hard to name all of them, three stand out.
First, as any classmate knows who attended a football game in the 1960s, our school had numerous fine running backs. Beside Nish, John Anderson was a speedy and elusive running back. With Nish and John Anderson running the ball, McClatchy has an impressing running game that was hard to stop.
But of all the athletes who played football at McClatchy, Tom Tash was probably one of the most powerful running backs to ever play the game. In our senior year Tom was the leading rusher in the city and an All City football player. I am sure that many classmates have memories of Tom driving toward the goal line as two or three opposing linemen unsuccessfully tried to stop him. I remember one game in which four guys jumped on Tom and tried to prevent him from scoring a touchdown. At that game, Sue Pfiefer was sitting in front of me and she yelled out that the opposing team was ganging up on Tom and trying to punish him. I remember I tapped Sue on the shoulder and said “Sue, I think everything is OK. Contrary to what it seems, I believe Tom is the one inflicting pain on the opposing linemen rather than vice versa.” Because Tash was just so strong and powerful very few opposing football linemen could bring him down.
Finally, another great athlete who will undoubtedly be inducted in the Hall of Fame is Mike Syas, who was a year ahead of us. Mike was captain of the basketball team our junior year and was selected as an All City Basketball player by the city’s two newspapers. But like Nish, Mike is also well known because he became a very successful basketball coach. Eventually Mike became the head basketball coach at Sacramento City College, where one year his team won the state championship.
In many ways the 1960s was a golden age for McClatchy sports. Because there were so many talented athletes at our school, McClatchy fielded teams in football, basketball and track that were either first or second in our league or first or second in the city. McClatchy was probably one of the two major high schools that dominated sports in the city during this period. If you played any sport in high school, your cohorts were also some of the best players in the city.
Besides being talented football, basketball or track athletes, the high school athletes at McClatchy were a bunch of great guys who made excellent team members. When I think back to my days as a high school student, the success of our many teams as well as the friendships that grew out of being part of a McClatchy sports team, are memories that I will always cherish.
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. Looks as if you have the same sort of shut-down as we do in France and in other places in Europe. There was a bit of a panic at supermarkets early in the week, but this has calmed down...(and, hey, toilet paper is no longer a rarity). I was shocked to see that the Spring break "festivities" were not cancelled in Ft Lauderdale until a day ago, but allowed to go on...possibly for commercial reasons? Boris Johnson wasn't too bright, either, not closing schools and pubs till yesterday. Let's hope good sense, patience, and science will help put an end to this pandemic. My good thoughts to all of you and your families
