by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Yesterday and today mark the end of the high school football season in California, with state championship games held locally, as they rotate between the northern and southern sections. Yesterday’s contests included La Serna High of Whittier holding off Sacramento’s Grant Union High, 21-19, on a goal-line stand with a two-point conversion, and Fairfax of Los Angeles rolling out to a 21-0 first-half lead against tiny Ferndale, the Humboldt County school with all of 130 students (compared to nearly 2,000 from its opponent), but the latter then stormed back with 29 unanswered point to take the crown.
Jurupa Hills of Fontana was stymied 28-7 by Soquel of Santa Cruz County, while Ramona from Riverside cruised to a 35-7 victory of Pleasant Valley of Chico, while the main event from Friday was the contest between perennial northern power De La Salle of Concord taking on Orange County powerhouse, Mission Viejo, with the latter taking the title, 27-14.
With today’s contests, Bell Gardens went down to defeat against Porterville’s Strathmore by a score of 42-7, while Birmingham of Van Nuys led Acalanes of Lafayette but came up short 35-23. As this post was completed, Banning of Wilmington scored first against Woodland Christian of that city near Sacramento. Later, the upstart Lakewood school, Mayfair, takes on Marin Catholic of Kenfield, and the marquee matchup features the heavily-favored Mater Dei of Santa Ana, ranked third in the nation, against San Mateo’s Serra.
Reaching back 120 years into our collection, this post features a cabinet card photograph of the 1903 state champion Los Angeles High School squad, which bested Berkeley High in a Christmas Day matchup at Prager (sometimes spelled Praeger) Park in the Angel City. The image shows the fifteen athletes (today, it is pretty common to have between 40 and 70 players on squads), dressed in thick turtle-neck pullovers, padded pants, socks and field shoes and a coach (perhaps a student?) posed with a ball on which the year is inscribed. At the bottom is “State Champions” in stylized lettering and the mark of photographer Charles James Coules.
Coules (1858-1936) was born in London and nothing could be located about him until he showed up in the gold mining town of Deadwood in southwest Dakota Territory, which was admitted to the Union as the two states of North and South Dakota. Coules was a photographer there for just a few years or so, but met Margaret Witzel, the daughter of a blacksmith and a housewife, there.
By 1890, Coules migrated to Los Angeles, which was coming out of the major Boom of the Eighties, and he acquired the Sunbeam Gallery, which had a long pedigree, but (typically for the industry) with oft-changing ownership, in the Angel City. Subsequently, he ran the Bon-Ton and Palace studios, with the latter in operation when he took the Los Angeles High team image. He was married to Margaret Witzel in Los Angeles in 1890 and they had four children before she died in 1898, at about which time, her 19-year old brother Albert, began to work for Coules.
Coules eloped with 15-year old Marguerite Presser to Phoenix, where they were wed in September 1899 to the great consternation of her family and the couple had a son, James, born a couple of years later. Despite the next big boom coming to Los Angeles and environs at the turn of the 20th century, Coules made some poor investments in oil and mining stock and his photo business began to struggle, as well. In 1905, he sued Howland and Company over a deal in which he would sell his enterprise for $6,000 and then pay the firm for $4,000 in supplies owed to it.
The following year, young Marguerite Coules secured a divorce, charging the photography with cruelty and intemperance, as she asserted that Charles became a heavier drinker after they wed and that he “came home in a state of intoxication nearly every evening and flew into a rage and called her all the bad names he could think of.” Shortly afterward, he showed up at the house she retained and, in a drunken condition, demanded to see their children and threatening to break windows, when she resisted, leading to his arrest.
While Coules was able to resume business and even had an arrangement with the Los Angeles Express to take photos for the paper, usually of women for the society pages, he bowed out of the photography game by the end of that first decade of the century. In 1910, his brother-in-law Albert Witzel took possession of the studio across from the new Pantages Theatre on Broadway between 5th and 6th and built up a very successful business, including portraits of film stars and local notables, until his death in 1929. While he was only in his early fifties when he stopped his photography work, Coules appears to have had no steady work until he died at age 78.
As for the championship game, it was played at a property on the north side of Washington Boulevard between Main Street and Grand Avenue and across from Washington Gardens and which was long owned by Charles Prager (1838-1911), who, with his brother Samuel, came to Los Angeles in 1854 by way of Grass Valley in northern California from Prussia and was among the cadre of Jewish merchants who settled in the Angel City in that era. Prager Park had a baseball stadium that was opened in April 1903 for the Northwest Baseball League and which situated at the northeast corner of Washington and Grand.
The Los Angeles Express of 19 December reported that,
Christmas Day the Los Angeles high school eleven will meet the team from Berkeley high school at Prager Park, to decide the interscholastic championship of California. The game should be one of the best interscholastic events played this season. Coach Byrnes of the local high school has been putting the boys through considerable hard drilling . . . On the other hand, the Berkeley boys, flushed with the victory of every game they have played this season, come here intent on adding another scalp to those already at their belts.
While it was averred that the Los Angeles squad had some excellent players, it was considered that Berkeley had the edge, but “one of those walkaway games will not be the order of the day,” proclaimed the paper. Quarterback Leslie Henry for the locals was denoted as a “sure passer,” while “in tight pinches he has his head with him,” this latter deemed a valuable advantage for his team. Tackle and fullback Walter Rheinschild, who went on to be a star player at the University of Michigan and a coach at Washington State, St. Vincent’s College (now Loyola Marymount), Throop Institute (Cal Tech) and Occidental College, was highlighted, as well, and it was stated that if he played consistently and contained his eagerness that often led to offsides penalties, Berkeley “may find its best plays nipped in the bud.” It should be noted, though, that football 120 years ago was almost completely based on a running game, with passes thrown fewer times than in the modern version.
The Express of the 24th reported that the northerners—whose average weight was said to be 163 pounds, some eight pounds more than their opponents, but considerably lighter than modern high school gridiron gladiators (Mater Dei’s team has two players under 163 pounds, a half-dozen over 200 and eight more between 180 and 200 and no one in the 1903 game was over 175)—arrived in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve night to get in some practice at the venue on Christmas morning before the afternoon contest. Berkeley was expected to push the ball up the middle, while the lighter LA squad was to feature end runs, as well as trick plays and quick formations to throw off their opponent.
Los Angeles High’s squad were putting in daily practice sessions at Fiesta Park, which existed between Grand and Hope from 12th to 13th from 1894 to 1916 and was where the University of Southern California frequently played in the earlier period and for all of that last year. It is pretty strange to read that the teen athletes “instead of smoking and eating what they pleased, have been restricted to a regular diet.” The paper concluded by recording that “special pains have been taken to get the field into first-class condition, so that a fast game can be played” and added that police were to be deployed “to keep back the anxious crowd” at the 3 p.m. contest which featured 25-minute halves.
Before a crowd estimated at some 2,500 persons, the contest was won by the hometown team, “when the Berkeley gridiron players were taken into camp to the tune of 11 to 6” and it was reported by the Express that “the game was one of the fastest ever played here and both teams showed excellent training and team work.” Rheinschild was credited for being the most valuable Los Angeles High player, as “at no time when he was called upon did he fail to carry the pigskin the required number of yards” and there were many instances when he gained five or six yards.” Defensively, it was noted that “the obtained the ball for the local boys by bodily lifting three Berkeleyites from the ground and depositing them in a heap for a loss of two yards.”
The paper did not one major problem, which was “considerable squabbling over the decisions” of the officials, though it was allowed that “several times the players were in the right and the umpires decidedly wrong” and it was complained that referees “are too often men who are not up on the game.” Generally, the game was played cleanly, though “there was a little slugging” even if “this unmanly business was not so prevalent as in many games played earlier in the season.”
Despite pre-game prognostications, it was asserted that “before the game was five minutes old the local boys showed their superiority over their opponents” and it was nine minutes in when Los Angeles scored a touchdown. Notably, these then counted for five, not six points (originally, it was 4), so that an extra point was realized and gave the home team that 6-0 advantage. Later in the first half, however, Berkeley evened things up with a touchdown and conversion. The second half was a stalemate until a trick end run yielded a 40-yard gain and Los Angeles scored its second touchdown, though the conversion failed and the scoring ended.
In its coverage, the Los Angeles Times added that, despite all of the expended energy, there were no injuries, though it echoed its contemporary in identifying the drawback of “an enormous amount” of squawking over the calls of the officials. It, too, lamented that the referees were severely deficient in the knowledge of the “gentle art” and players from both sides routinely sought to educate them in real time “which caused no end of confusion and much delay.” As to the scrappiness of the battle, the paper reported there was “considerable slugging” and nearly “several free fights” with “the police nipping an incipient scrap in the bud” at one juncture.
This took place as Berkeley got its only points on the board and one of its players got into a tussle with Rheinschild and the result was “other players rushed in and began hammering away at each other, and fists were flying about in a promiscuous manner.” Adding that the attendance was about 1,800, a third or so less than reported by the Express, the Times said that many spectators were enthused about the game as the best of the campaign. The latter agreed that Rheinschild “was the bright star of the day” as he was “in the thick of every scrimmage” and “a tower of strength in defensive playing.”
In fact, the paper observed,
When the whistle blew announcing the close of the fray, “Rheiny” was picked up by a dozen High School students and borne on their shoulders down the field to where hundreds of sweet co-eds were waving flags and tooting horns and cheering lustily in honor of the hero of the day.
A quartet of other Los Angeles gladiators were also lionized for their work as “each had a large share in winning the glorious victory for their school,” while a trio of Berkeley footballers were credited for their excellent play. The Times noted that there was a second 40-yard burst by the home team that helped set up the first score, while Berkeley notched its TD after a fumbled punt allowed it to tame the “elusive spheroid” on LA’s 10-yard line and the visitors were fortunate when a goal line fumble was recovered and carried into the end zone.
The Times of the 27th reported that the victors were feted with a banquet at the famous café owned by Al Levy, with players like Rheinschild and others providing speeches, while, following the football feast, “the twenty-six guests paraded the downtown streets, carrying the championship banner and lustily giving the high school yell.”
Two days later, the paper was was contacted by a Los Angeles resident and student of the Belmont School south of San Francisco, who pointed out that his school’s gridiron squad defeated Berkeley, 23-0, in a game of 15-minute halves. It was allowed that “Los Angeles played a good, strong game Christmas, and they cannot be blamed for claiming the championship,” even as Berkeley could not have been deemed the titans of northern California football.