Frank Serrao – Obrey Brown

January 22, 2025January 31, 2025

TENNIS STAR DARRELL HUDLOW HAD THE HOTTEST REDLANDS DRIVE-IN AROUND

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. Among this city’s top tennis connections, this might be one of its best ever. – Obrey Brown

I WISHED THERE WERE more guys like Darrell Hudlow.

Redlands, that city where football turned out highly successful, soccer and softball became high-level sports, throw in some impressive swimming, above-average baseball, plus amazing track & field and golf connection off the charts, figure this: There was an original Mr. Tennis in this city.

It might’ve been Hudlow.

In a low-populated city that’s produced multitudes of high school and collegiate tennis champions, including some Wimbledon and U.S. Open connections, Hudlow comes quickly to mind.

Darrell Hudlow, one of the first top-flight players at the University of Redlands back in the 1930s, had quite a list of opponents that could have included Bobby Riggs and definitely included Jack Kramer and Gardner Malloy (photo submitted by Rachel Roche, assistant athletic director and head sports information at the University of Redlands).

I wasn’t even aware he played tennis, not at first. There was a place to go dancing, said once-young lovers. Hudlow had a drive-in, located on “the highway to Redlands.”

Hudlow was proprietor of a big place near downtown. Upon moving to Redlands in 1979, I couldn’t miss the greenish sign out there on a Redlands Blvd. building — where the Bank of America now sits, I think.

Hudlow was a University of Redlands Hall of Famer. It was stressed to me likely by my City Editor, Dick West, of the Redlands Daily Facts – that Hudlow had been a tennis player. A damned good one at that.

Immense Bulldog tennis coach Jim Verdieck may well be that school’s top name associated with championship brilliance around Redlands. Hudlow showed up on that scene long before Verdieck built his dynasty.

Verdieck’s teams won an unheard-of 921 tennis duals over a 38-year span. In 35 of those years, Redlands copped a conference championship. There were plenty of top players, namely Verdieck’s sons, Doug and Randy, among other brilliant players wearing those maroon and grey uniforms.

Long before the Borhnstedt and Verdieck brothers started playing at that local high school — they played at both Wimbledon and U.S. Opens — Hudlow had long set an early tone for high level tennis in Redlands.

Hudlow’s, incidentally, is a now-disappeared liquor store over on that Redlands Boulevard site. He just laughed. “I went into the liquor business,” he cracked. “I quit tennis because I didn’t have time to play any more.”

That liquor business, at least in Redlands, was taboo amidst his college campus during those days touching 1940s and 1950s. “The university fought me,” said Hudlow, who carried a grudge against his alma mater for years. “It was a staid old school. You couldn’t even dance up there.

“Anyway, they took this liquor thing to the city council.”

Hudlow won when that university turned over a new leaf, he told me. When that school inducted him into its relatively new Hall of Fame in 1984, they extended a familiar hand. “The university,” he said, sarcastically a few days before the event, “is having a cocktail hour before the (Hall of Fame) dinner.”

Maybe, I told him, he ought to provide liquor. “If I did that back when I was going to the university,” he said, chuckling, “I’d have gotten kicked out of school.”

UofR tennis had long been a dominant program. Hudlow was conference singles champion from 1937-39.

It was curious timing. Verdieck, who hailed from nearby Colton, was playing football for a dynamic group called the Vow Boys up in Palo Alto. Stanford University had vowed that it would never lose to USC. Following a football loss to USC in 1932, Stanford players vowed they would never again lost to the Trojans.

Hudlow, for his part, was playing championship-level tennis while Verdieck was making football his college-playing mission. Hudlow won amateur singles titles in Arizona, Michigan and Arkansas. Verdieck was Rose Bowl dominant.

Some of Hudlow’s opponents were Frank Kovacs, a Wimbledon champion who later lost to legendary Bobby Riggs in the 1941 U.S. Tennis Championship finals.

Bobby_Riggs_at_1939_Wimbledon_Championships — Bobby Riggs, a 1930s and 1940s tennis star, likely played Redlands’ Darrell Hudlow along the way. “I can’t remember if I played Bobby Riggs,” he said (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

Hudlow also played Gardner Mulloy, the four-time U.S. Tennis Champion, paired with William Talbert in doubles. Then there was Welby Van Horn, who lost to Riggs in that 1939 U.S. Tennis Championship finals. Hudlow beat Van Horn at a tournament in Ojai, Calif.

Another big name Hudlow opponent was Frankie Parker, a onetime U.S. tennis champion.

Said Hudlow: “I played Jack Kramer in an exhibition in the (Redlands) university gym,” he said, “to raise money so I could go back east. I think we played to a tie that night.”

Jack_Kramer_portrait — Jack Kramer might have been the biggest name in tennis for a few decades. Kramer and Redlands’ Darrell Hudlow once played an indoor tennis exhibition (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

Kramer, who would become a huge tennis executive in years ahead, was a U.S. Open and Wimbledon champion.

“I can’t remember if I ever played Bobby Riggs,” said Hudlow. “I knew him. You know, on rainy days at country clubs, all people do is sit in the clubhouse playing poker. I held Bobby’s one-dollar bills for him.”

In that second class of UofR Hall of Famer selections, the original Hall headliners had to be Verdieck himself, along with football coach Frank Serrao. Lee Fulmer (baseball, basketball), John Fawcett (cross country, football and track), Charles Gillett (football), Lee Johnson (track), faculty member S. Guy Jones, track’s Samuel Kirk, Donald Kitch (football, basketball), Sanford McGilbra (football, basketball, baseball), Robert Pazder (football, basketball, baseball), football and tennis star Randy Verdieck were right there.

While Hudlow was inducted, so, too, was his coach, Lynn Jones, running those Bulldogs from 1928 through 1944. There was a lengthy list of names, likely trying to catch up with a near century’s worth of athletes and other sports-related contributors that needed enshrinement.

Hudlow, who died on June 19, 1998, said he didn’t play tennis for nearly 40 years before he sold his liquor store. When he decided to return, he played recreationally.

Darrell Hudlow, in his later years, put aside playing tennis because he had plenty of other activities to take care of, including business-related items. His tennis-playing lifestyle took him to places and opponents that eventually made him a Bulldog Hall of Famer.

“I could tell you lots of stories,” he said, chuckling. “I think I’ll hold off for awhile.”

Thing is, the two of us never came back into connection.

January 12, 2025January 31, 2025

TARK TOWELS SAW ITS BEGINNINGS AT REDLANDS HIGH SCHOOL

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. During a 1959-61 basketball scheme at Redlands, there was no I-10. – Obrey Brown

There is no evidence that A Redlands Connection came up with a meeting of Jerry Tarkanian-coached teams at Long Beach State or Nevada-Las Vegas when taking on the University of Utah, which was where “Black” Jack Gardner reigned as coach for so many seasons.

Tark and Black Jack never came across the other in NCAA play. Gardner’s career was winding down when Tark’s career was heating up. It would have made a great game, too – the Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV against the Runnin’ Utes of Utah – coached by two guys with A Redlands Connection.

Tarkanian distinguishes Redlands for another reason. In his book, “Runnin’ Rebel,” Tark The Shark wrote about his reasons for showing up at the Inland Empire.

“I was in Redlands for two seasons, and two important things happened. The first was that I decided to get a Master’s degree. I figured it would help if I ever wanted to coach at the college level. And if not, you got a jump in pay as a high school teacher if you have a Master’s. With our second daughter, Jodie, on the way, I needed the money.”

For that Masters degree, Tark took classes at the University of Redlands.

The second “big thing” that Tarkanian connected was at Redlands High, playing in a 1960 league championship game against Ramona High School over in Riverside.

JERRY TARKANIAN UNLV

Jerry Tarkanian, shown here in a familiar pose, chomping on a towel. The practice began, he says, back in the days when he coached Redlands High School. It was simple: He got tired of walking back and forth to the water fountain at Riverside Ramona High School. (Photo by Tim Defrisco/ALLSPORT

Wrote Tark: “It was really hot in the gym, and my mouth kept getting dry. I could hardly yell to my team. I kept going to get drinks from the water fountain. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally, I got tired of doing that, so I took a towel, soaked it under the water fountain, and carried it back to the bench. Then when I got thirsty, I sucked on the towel.

“We won the game and the league championship. Because I was a superstitious person, I kept sucking on towels the rest of my career. It became my trademark, me sucking on a white towel during the most stressful times of a game.

“Everywhere I go, people ask me about the towel. People used to mail me them. Fans brought towels to the game and sucked on them, too. It was the big thing. Eventually when I was at UNLV, we got smart and started selling souvenir “Tark the Shark” towels. We sold more than 100,000 of them. It was incredible.

“And if that high school gym in California had been air-conditioned back in 1960s, I probably never would have started sucking on towels.”

In those days, it could’ve started out as a Tark Terrier Towel.

*****

A footnote on Tark’s coaching effort at Redlands High. Danny Wolthers was a strong shooting player for the Terriers, possibly the Terriers’ best all-around player during those years. Yes, he was strongly recruited by Stanford and Cal-Berkeley, Arizona and Arizona State, plus John Wooden-coached UCLA.

Wolthers took Berkeley.

Six decades after back-to-back Redlands seasons that netted a mediocre 32 wins (and just one playoff triumph), Wolthers could shed plenty of ammunition on his statement. Like this one:

“A number of our players were tennis players, golfers or baseball guys. Jim Weatherwax was a football guy who played for the Green Bay Packers.”

Training athletes from other sports to be basketball players was a real challenge. Wolthers was himself a fully-dedicated hoopster.

Wolthers recalled Wooden’s visit to Redlands to snag him for UCLA.

“I remember him sitting up on top of a desk in the crowded PE office, his back against the glass, holding court with Tark and other PE coaches.”

Footnote: I had a handful of personal chats with Tark, including one on an airplane flight from Sacramento to Ontario in California. His memories included a neighbor, Frank Serrao, who was coaching football at Redlands High School at the same time he was coaching basketball.

Rack it up again – A Redlands Connection!

December 28, 2024January 31, 2025

WEATHERWAX WAS SURROUNDED BY NFL HALL OF FAME TALENT

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. But … I-10 wasn’t even in existence when a future Green Bay defender was playing football in Redlands! – Obrey Brown

There are names that would roll off the lips of any Green Bay Packers’ fan. They could have been Bart Starr or Forrest Gregg, Herb Adderley or Dave Robinson, Henry Jordan or Ray Nitschke, Willie Wood or Willie Davis – or even Vince Lombardi.

Jim Weatherwax, an 11th-round pick in that 1965 NFL draft which produced the likes of linebacker Dick Butkus and running back Gale Sayers, was teammates with all of those Packers. Waxie was way behind those Chicago Bears picked third and fourth overall. He was 150th.

That Redlands High graduate, who played for Terriers’ venerable coach Frank Serrao in 1959 – one of Redlands’ best teams – took the field in 34 NFL games with the Pack from 1966-69.

Add another Hall of Famer from that era.

On Saturday, Feb. 2, 2018, Packers’ blocking great Jerry Kramer – author of Instant Replay – was granted that long-awaited spot in Canton after years of pondering by pro football historians on whether or not the one time right guard deserved the honor.

Instant Replay was, in fact, a book centered around that famous block thrown by Kramer, Green Bay’s right guard. It helped clear a small path for Starr’s QB sneak in the Packers’ 21-17 Ice Bowl win over Dallas.

That triumph led Green Bay into the second Super Bowl against Oakland.

Imagine, playing for a Hall of Famer – Lombardi – backing up Hall of Famers like Jordan and Davis on Green Bay’s defensive line, while practicing against Hall of Fame offensive blockers like Gregg and Kramer.

Henry Jordan (Photo courtesy of NFL Hall of Fame.)

That’s 10 Hall of Famer players on one team, not counting Weatherwax’s historical coach.

In the Redlands newspaper office years later, Weatherwax reflected those glorious times. “I was lucky. I can’t even begin to describe it. Those were great times. Every man that played on that team was great.”

Jeff Lane, the sports editor of that paper, kept listening, taking notes, getting ready to write a story on this legendary local player.

“To play for the greatest coach of all time,” he said, pausing, searching for words that, perhaps, had never been used before, “was like nothing you could ever imagine. Like I said, I was lucky.”

Two of Weatherwax’s 34 career NFL games were the first two championship games – 35-10 over Kansas City in 1967, plus a 33-14 win over the Oakland Raiders in 1968.

Weatherwax started three games in 1967, even coming up with his only career fumble recovery that season. It the playoffs, Weatherwax got his share of snaps in wins over the Rams, Cowboys and, ultimately, the Raiders.

He was 23-years-old during his 1966 rookie season, well-schooled by the time that 1968 championship game against Oakland took place in Miami. The Packers’ era was slowly crumbling. Starr & Co. were aging rapidly. Whispers were rampant that Lombardi, too, was contemplating retirement.

All of which fed into the energy for Super Bowl II.

It was Kramer, said Weatherwax, who told the team in pre-game moments, “Let’s win it for the old man.”

Jim Weatherwax - Cal State L.A. — Redlands’ Jim Weatherwax, pictured during his Cal State Los Angeles days, was an eventual teammate to 10 Hall of Fame players for the Green Bay Packers, coached by Hall of Famer Vince Lombardi. Footnote: Weatherwax wore jersey No. 73 for the Packers. (Photo courtesy of Cal State Los Angeles.)

Such a statement might have been Hall of Fame-worthy.

Weatherwax, whose knee injury knocked him out from football by 1969, seemed to bask in the glow of such prominent times. “The knee injuries that drove me out of the game, well, kind of make it worth it. I wouldn’t trade those moments – not the games, not the guys and not the coach.”

December 26, 2024January 31, 2025

UNUSUAL REDLANDS MATCHUP … IN BALTIMORE?

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. Two football guys from Redlands took off on that I-10 for NFL spots. – Obrey Brown

It was September 9, 1979.

City of Baltimore, in Maryland. Site was, at least back then for this particular NFL team, Memorial Stadium.

Second week of that NFL season.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in town to play the Colts, which came a few years before they moved to Indianapolis.

Ted Marchibroda’s Colts were taking on John McKay’s Bucs.

Among all the other pre-game notes was this zany little matchup: Of all things, two kids from Redlands High School – Terriers they called those guys during their prep careers – were playing against each other.

Brian De Roo, a second-year wide receiver who had been traded from the New York Giants, was standing on one sideline.

On the other sideline was none other than Greg Horton, whose NFL career had gone from Chicago to Los Angeles and, eventually, to the Bucs. Those two ex-Terriers didn’t play together.

By 1979, De Roo and Horton met on an NFL field … in Baltimore.

Brian DeRoo (Photo by Canadian Football League) — Brian De Roo

Final score that day: Tampa Bay 29, Baltimore 26. It took overtime to pull it off.

There might’ve been a curious thing that took place.

Baltimore, trailing 26-17, sent its second-year receiver, De Roo, down the right sideline. Colts’ QB Greg Landry delivered the pass.

Caught.

Down the sideline.

Chased by defenders.

Touchdown.

One night later, that Landry-to-DeRoo touchdown made the Monday Night Football halftime highlights. Legendary ABC-TV sportscaster Howard Cosell delivered the words from that highlight.

He did.

Howard_cosell_1975 Howard Cosell put Brian De Roo’s name on national TV on September 10, 1979 – the day after that game. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)[/caption]

When the game concluded, the Bucs had themselves a 29-26 overtime win that might have lifted this team’s confidence. Now into their fourth season after entering via a 1976 NFL expansion – along with the Seattle Seahawks – McKay’s steady pace was starting to make its mark.

Tampa Bay was a possible playoff team.

First, though, they had to start winning games. Baltimore, a perennial contender, was standing in their way in Week 2.

The two Redlanders had gotten into the NFL by far different paths.

Horton, a 1969 Redlands High grad, chose Colorado as his collegiate destination. It was in that raucous, hard-hitting Big Eight Conference – dominated for years by Nebraska and Oklahoma – that helped develop his game.

Enough so that in 1974, Chicago Bears’ legend, George “Papa Bear” Halas, chose Horton in the third round of the NFL draft.

Unlike Horton, who had long been a Redlands High prize, De Roo didn’t make the Terrier varsity until halfway through his senior season, 1973. Since Redlands rarely put the ball in the air, it should’ve been a complete surprise that he’d wind up leading Redlands in receptions that season.

At college selection time, De Roo wasn’t even planning on football. He’d chosen Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as a student only. That was before University of Redlands football coach Frank Serrao convinced him to play for the Bulldogs.

That he would eventually elevate himself into the NFL draft, 1978, was extraordinary. A year after that, Horton against De Roo was taking place in Baltimore.

In that game, DeRoo snagged three passes for 81 yards in that game – perhaps his best professional game ever displayed. He snapped just seven during his three-year NFL connection.

Horton, meanwhile, was part of the Bucs’ strength – an offensive line that propelled the likes of Ricky Bell to a thousand-yard rushing season. In that game, however, Baltimore held him to 34 yards, plus another 56 yards on three receptions.

Bell racked up 1,263 yards that season, helping Tampa Bay into the NFL playoffs for its first time ever.

Horton also blocked for Doug Williams, the ex-Grambling QB taken in the first round of the 1977 draft. Eventually, Williams would follow Bucs’ offensive coordinator Joe Gibbs to the Washington Redskins a few seasons later.

On that date, Sept. 9, Redlands stood tall in the NFL when De Roo and Horton connected.

It was, said DeRoo, “the only time Greg and I ever played against each other in an NFL game. The only thing was that he only lasted one play. He shoved one of the referees and got thrown out of the game.”

DeRoo, for his part, caught only one pass the rest of the season.

Footnote: Baltimore continued to a Redlands connection, especially when Brian Billick, a 1972 Redlands High grad, turned up to coach the Baltimore Ravens to that 2001 Super Bowl championship. On that team was yet another Redlands connection – speedy wide receiver Patrick Johnson, a 1994 graduate.

April 26, 2018July 5, 2020

PART 1: IN ONE DAY, REDLANDS HAD TWO TAKEN INTO NFL

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

The NFL draft may be an inexact science.

Some evidence of that may have drifted through Redlands in 1978. On draft day that year, a couple of NFL teams snatched up a pair of ex-Redlanders, something that would probably never take place in today’s scientifically-enhanced draft.

Only a few years earlier, 1973, Redlands High School was a hard-core, smash-mouth, physically-pounding running team that usually finished on top of a Citrus Belt League that perennially included Ontario Chaffey High, plus Rialto Eisenhower, Fontana, maybe even Riverside Poly and Colton, or San Bernardino and Corona.

That season, 1973, fullback-type Bruce Gibson was the weapon used by the Terriers to tear opposing defenses apart.

Halfway through that season, wide receiver Brian De Roo finally made Varsity. Even at that late stage of making the team, the eternally-happy De Roo led the Terriers in pass receptions.

Redlands had been knocked out of the playoffs, but Gibson had a collegiate future awaiting him at the University of Pacific, an NCAA Division 1 team in the Central California city of Stockton.

De Roo had selected his collegiate stop at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo – perhaps about as far of a drive from Redlands as Gibson’s was to Stockton.

Landscaping would be De Roo’s choice for field of study.

“I didn’t plan on playing football,” said De Roo.

Whether you’re an insider or an outsider, it seemed as if Gibson had a more-than-likely future as a professional. Over three seasons playing in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, Gibson racked up 2,856 yards (25 TDs), which included bouncing back from a severe leg injury that curtailed his 1976 junior season.

DeRoo had been contacted by Frank Serrao, head coach at the University of Redlands. Despite his lack of Varsity experience at Redlands High, De Roo was invited by Serrao into the Bulldogs’ highly successful football program.

An NAIA-based school without athletic scholarships, the local university wasn’t exactly a highly-regarded football institution by NFL standards.

In fact, only one player in the 111-year history of the school has ever been drafted into the NFL. That player would be De Roo.

“The ’78 draft was certainly not the spectacle it is today,” said De Roo.

It wasn’t televised. In those days, it took 12 rounds, not the seven rounds of today’s modern NFL.

De Roo had a small clue that he might go. Not just a former NAIA All-American, he made his mark as an NAIA All-American decathlete. Right around that time – the mid-1970s – the Dallas Cowboys’ scouting had been increased to judge overall athletic ability, not just football skills.

A prime example: Bob Hayes, a gold medal Olympic sprinter in 1964, was a lightning rod receiver for the Cowboys over many seasons.

Meanwhile, a De Roo teammate, Lee Joyce, knew famed agent Barry Axelrod who, at the time, was partners with the well-known Leigh Steinberg.

Said De Roo: “Barry did a bit of research for me prior to the draft and let me know that I had a chance to go between rounds six and nine.”

The draft, spread over two days, left De Roo and his family to schedule a party for the second day. On the first day, De Roo hung around Redlands’ dormitory, “just in case.”

That first day: Houston took Heisman Trophy winner Earl Campbell at No. 1. A couple of other future Hall of Famers: Green Bay took receiver James Lofton at No. 6 and Cleveland took tight end Ozzie Newsome at No. 23.

Meanwhile, at the Univ. Redlands dormitories in those days, only a switchboard was available on the first floor. Beepers in each room indicated students were getting a call – one beep for one roommate and two for the other.

“Then we had to run to the end of the hall to the pay phone – technology at its finest,” said De Roo, who got tired of waiting for that first day call.

“I decided to go to the track and work on some javelin,” said De Roo, a decathlete for his school during the springtime track & field season.

An hour into his javelin workout, local area sportscaster Rich Rebenstorf came running down the hill. Yelling at De Roo. The Giants had called. Wanted De Roo to return their call.

Part 2 tomorrow – De Roo gets word from “unlikely” source.

January 10, 2018December 7, 2021

PART 1 – GREG HORTON WAS A SUPERIOR REDLANDS FORCE

He was sitting across the table from me at lunch.

A fast-food burger joint. On Colton Ave.

In the old days, when he played for Redlands High in the 1960s, this place probably never existed.

This NFL workhorse, who blocked for some ultra-strong Redlands High Terrier teams, got recruited to play at Colorado, was drafted by the Chicago Bears, then launched a successful pro career that ended in the United States Football League after about a decade.

Greg Horton, who died in 2015 at age 65, had plenty of cherished memories on the football field. He played in some big games. Went up against high school greats. Against some collegiate All-Americans, NFL All-Pro and Hall of Fame talent. Football insight was keen, endless.

As a Terrier at Redlands High, Horton was, perhaps, one of the biggest of their long list of football studs. The coaches there were legends – Frank Serrao, Horton’s coach, Paul Womack, both having been preceded by Ralph “Buck” Weaver, perhaps considered the father of Terrier football.

At lunch that day, I knew what Horton wanted. He had invested in a business, located a couple hundred feet from where we were eating. Naturally, he wanted it to succeed. Horton needed publicity. It was some kind of workout program, if I remember correctly.

Not my job, actually. There are business owners around Redlands who would give 12 of their toes for such publicity. Horton, by virtue of his NFL notoriety, his “homegrown” status, not to mention those many times he’d sat down for one-on-one interviews, was calling in a few favors.

I was walking a fine line on this one. It would’ve been impossible to give him exactly what he wanted. I was in sports, not news, or business.

GREG HORTON — An early shot. Redlands’ Greg Horton. Photo by Tampa Bay Buccaneers

He’d have preferred, I’m certain, for me to completely focus on his new enterprise – the specials, its purpose, investors, the nuts and bolts, everyone involved – as the focal point of the piece. Like I said, I wasn’t a business reporter.

Plus, I could just see plenty of other business owners that advertised in that paper. They’d be outraged by such favorable press on Horton’s new venture, insisting upon being interviewed about their own businesses. I had to be careful.

In this city, Horton had more than paid his dues. You’d think the hometown paper owed him one. Our publisher sounded against the idea. So did the advertising director. I didn’t even convene with the editor. Okay, at least I asked.

Professional standards abounded.

Horton might have stood at the head of the line of Redlands High football players – NFL, high-level collegiate play, NFL championship-level, connections, battered and bruised on field, taking on some of the sport’s greatest champions.

HORTON PAID HIS DUES

This guy was from Redlands.

He’d coached plenty of locals, headed up the high school’s booster club, the Benchwarmers, provided an endless amount of support for almost anything the kids needed.

As an assistant line coach at the University of Redlands one year – mid-1980s – I can remember him going after a University of San Diego defender after a game. That USD kid had cheap-shotted one of the Bulldog players.

It was the kind of play Horton knew better than anyone. He knew all the lineman’s tricks – illegal high-low blocking techniques, going for an unguarded knee, hitting from behind, you name it – so when he saw that taking place in a NCAA Division 3 (non-scholarship) game, Horton took offense.

He went after the USD player, briefly, then turned to the injured Bulldog.

“Are you all right?”

Horton wasn’t exactly my biggest fan. He never turned me away for an interview, though. I just didn’t strike well with him, I think. In fact, he was highly critical when he showed up – among other parents, school officials, Terrier football players and coaches – at what appeared to be a public slap-down of current Redlands High coach Dave Perkins during the 1990 season.

While some parents were after Perkins’ job, Horton’s public tirade was directed at me. It was something like, “The guy in the newspaper” (me) “needs to remember this is about the kids.”

Horton seemed to scream those words, an emotional outburst.

Truth is, a parents’ group wanted Perkins gone. Fired. My presence at that meeting, however, curtailed any outward signs of outrage. I’m not certain if Horton was anti-Perkins and felt my presence nullified the meeting’s outcome. Who knows? It was an outward show of support.

In fact, I’m certain I was specifically invited there that night to keep things under wraps. No one has a desire to be quoted in the press when they’re doing something underhanded. Right?

Perkins, who had back-to-back 3-7 seasons in 1990 and 1991, held onto his job that night. My guess is that Horton was there to back Perkins. I was there simply to report.

Horton, for his part, probably never saw any of that while he wore a Terrier uniform in the 1960s. Womack, coach. No parents’ groups. Just a bunch of high school players lighting up Friday nights during the fall.

09_Billick_PreviewPreseason_news — Brian Billick, a Redlands product whose eventual coaching career landed him at the height of NFL play, settled in as a pro football broadcaster when his days as Baltimore Ravens’ coach concluded in 2007. Photo by the Baltimore Ravens.

This may be controversial, but Horton may well be Redlands’ greatest Connection to the NFL world, at least as a player. Then again, it might be Brian Billick – who came along just a couple years after Horton – the man who coached the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl. Or it might be Jim Weatherwax, who was not only drafted by Vince Lombardi in Green Bay, but played on those first two Super Bowl championships.

While Billick was developing his mind toward coaching at the highest of levels, Horton goes down as a weight room product who lifted himself to the heights of high school play, tops among collegiate programs and into the world of NFL play.

Part 2 next week.