Grover Cleveland High School - Les Memoires Yearbook (Reseda, CA)

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Cleveland ' s First Time in City Finals (Above) On Saturday Dec. 18, 1976, 40 young men were forced to accept the fact that a dream would not come true, that a winner is a winner no matter what the outcome is. (Above Left) All City Tailback Tim Brown goes for yardage. (Right) Captains Paul Romero and Tim Brown meet at mid-field for coin toss. (Below Left) Larry Danny and Andy Watz bring down ball carrier. (Right) Tom Bell sweeps left end for good yardage.

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(Above) In the City Championship Game, a Banning High School running back is about to breakaway on one of three long touchdown runs, when Cavalier defense suffers a breakdown. (Below) Offensively Cleveland moved the ball inside Banning ' s twenty-five yard line four times, but couldn ' t score at the Coliseum.

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■ ' ka«f3 . ' ( VA ' ft ' ' . Row I - A.Ramirez, M.Zuniga, M.Castro, D.Erickson, T.Bell, G.Manijing, D.Tong. G.Guttman, E.Arroyo, A.Watz, W.Redburn, B. Spear. Row II - Gus (Mgr.), Coach Todd, Coach Tom Hansen, W.Nye, D.Nielson, D.Hal- lam, D.Bounds, L.Suarez. D.Wright, L.Harris, P.Smith, K.Ward, Coach Jeff Greto. Row III - Coach Arnie Leckman, Coach Mike Siam, V.Rorhback, S.Priestly, S.Mendoza, D.Jorgens, G.Shepard, D.Smith, Coach Larry Len- nert. Coach Ed Cardona, Dennis Magrol (Stats). Row IV - M.Fogle, T. Smith, M.Armstrong, H.Garcia, T.Bowleski, B.Denton, R.Blockman, L. Danny, M.Smith, P.Romero. T.Brown, B.Jenkins. NON-LEAGUE Varsity Football The Cavalier ' s first game of the 1976 football season was a 1 point thriller, that showed no indication what the future would bring. Cleve- land hung on to a narrow 14-13 victory in the closing seconds of the game against the Braves of Birmingham. Cleveland 28, Venice 20 was a mis- leading score. The Cavaliers were in total control of the game; Venice scored on careless Cavalier mistakes. Cleveland showed vast offensive improvement and showed promise for the tough road ahead. In the 3rd game of the season the Cavaliers defeated the Kenedy Cougars 28-7. The game was sloppily played with many turnovers. Cleveland ' s offense took advantage of Kenedy ' s mistakes. While the tough Cavalier defense turned away the Cougars, and lost a chance at a shutout with a deep scoring pass, Cleveland ' s offense showed well bal- anced scoring by passing and running. In the last non-league game of the season Cleveland ' s offense exploded for 530 total yards with 417 yards on the ground. Earlier in the week the coaching staff made a big change. Moving Full- back Tim Brown to tailback and Dave Smith from tailback to wingback. This decision was never second guessed and improved the offense tre- mendously because Cleveland uses the wingback as an all purpose po- sition. The final score of the game was 42-13 and Van Nuys scored on 2 deep passes to escape a shutout. Even though the Cavalier defense played well enough to get a shut out. The offensive line had a great effort by making big holes for the running backs. Thus the Cavaliers finished the pre-season unbeaten and seemed ready for the tough league schedule. LEAGUE In the first league game the Cavaliers tested their unbeaten record against the Conquistadours of El Camino. The Cavaliers turned back El Camino 20-12. In this contest, tailback Tim Brown again ran impressively. Quarter- back Darin Erickson threw a 41 yard passing strike to wingback Dave Smith. The following week the Canoga Park Hunters tried their luck against the momentous Cleveland football team. But the Cavaliers extended their winning streak with a 35-10 victory. The Hunters received an early break, when the Cavaliers lost a fumble close to their own goal line. But by a total defensive team effort Canoga had to settle for a field goal. Canoga ' s other touchdown came on a blocked punt. So the Cavalier defense were denied the much coveted shutout over which they had no control. But when the offense scores 35 points it can afford to make a few mistakes. One highlight of the game was a 91 yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Dave Smith. The Cavaliers defeated Reseda 40-6 in front of a homecoming crowd. The offensive line of Hugo Garcia, Tom Bolewski, Mark Armstrong, Bob Denton, Tom Smith and Don Hallam constantly made huge holes for Jim Brown and company to run through. The defense played sound football, but again fell short of a 80 shutout by a single touchdown. Cleveland brought it ' s 7-0 record to Chatswork High to test the much talked about Chancellors. Thus far in the season critics complained that the Cavaliers hadn ' t played a good football team yet. But Cleveland proud to be superior by beating Chatsworth 33-6. Darin Erickson and Don Jorgens teamed up throughout the night with fine passes and some great catches. Jim Brown again proved excellent with his running and he consistantly leads the city in rushing. The Chancellors barely escaped a shutout against a fired up Cavalier defense. The league final against Taft was to determine the League Champ. The Cavaliers ended league play with a perfect 9-0 season by defeating the Toreadors 36-20. Cleveland ' s first undefeated and untied regular season. Tim Brown rushed for 125 yards to put him over the 100 yard mark for the season, and scored 3 touchdowns. Dave Smith scored the 1st touchdown with a 61 yard reverse on the 4th play of the game. The other touchdown was an 8 yard pass from Erickson to tight end Don Hal- lam. PLAYOFFS Cleveland ranked 3rd in the city, started the playoffs against Granda, and advanced by defeating them 36-20. The Cavaliers scored 4 out of the first five times they had the ball. Cleveland ' s defense held the High- landers to 69 yard total offense in the first half Granada scored their touchdowns with some fine passing. Cleveland ' s next playoff foe was the always tough Carson Colts. The Cavaliers were confident and were looking for revenge of last year ' s game. The Cavalier team peaked at this point of the season and played their best game in defeating Carson 33-12. Cleveland took ad- vantage of a fumble and drove 37 yards for the first touchdown. The Cavalier defense lead by linebackers Paul Romero, Tom Bell, and Reg- gie Blockman and defensive ends Sam Mendoza and Vic Rohrback played tough defense and forced the Colts to a bad snap from center on a punt, which resulted in a Cavalier first and goal on the 2 yard line. Dave Smith scored the turning point touchdown with pure effort by turning an 8 yard pass into a touchdown. Tim Brown and Darin Erickson both added touchdowns after a long drive down the field to cap the scoring. Palisades 11-0 versus Cleveland 11-0 the battle of the unbeatens. Pah eliminated Cleveland in the 1st round of the 1974 season. But not this one, as the Cavaliers rallied to defeat Pali 28-21 in the closing sec- onds. It was the most exciting game ever. Pali came out overconfident be- fore the game started and jumped out to an early lead. Cleveland was down but never did as they went crazy in the final quarter. Running for 10 yards a play. Tim Brown did this 8 times in a row. Finally with a minute left Dave Smith scored the final touchdown on a reverse that hadn ' t worked all night. So Cleveland for the first time was in the Los Angeles City Finals at the Memorial Coliseum. In the City Championship game the score never resembled the game. Those viewing the game saw the Cavaliers move down the field at will but couldn ' t score. Tim Brown gained over 100 yards rushing and over 1500 during the whole season. So it was to be that the Cavaliers weren ' t going to win City. Banning being the only blemish of a beautiful season.