Marcus Allen, Ronnie Lott and Anthony Munoz (L-R) at a 2000s USC football game. Allen (SD Lincoln) is our 1970s State Player of the Decade, Lott (Rialto Eisenhower) is our 1976 DB of the Year and Munoz (Ontario Chaffey) was a 2-time all-state lineman. Photo: Scott Kurtz
All-State football teams from Cal-Hi Sports have now been extended back to the 1960 season with new teams added from the 1979 season going backward based on research. Many of the players are well-known and there is a plethora of future NFL greats. A deeper look reveals plenty of players who were standouts at other positions than the ones they went on to the in pros and a handful of future MLB standouts. There are plenty of picks from SoCal powers, lots of talented quarterbacks from the golden era of football in San Francisco and plenty of standout small school performers.
Note: We hope you enjoy this free post on CalHiSports.com. To view all our entire all-state football package of teams from 1960 through 2023, including overall, medium schools, small schools and underclass, you’ll need to sign up for a Gold Club membership. We’re adding plenty to the value of a Gold Club membership with more to come in the future. Our preseason 2023-24 boys basketball state rankings package will be published on in early November. To check out the extensive archive with all of our all-state teams, including the retroactive overall all-state basketball teams from 1954-55 through 1978-79, sign up for just pennies per day. CLICK HERE.
To View The Retroactive All-State Teams, CLICK HERE
The first season for the Cal-Hi Sports all-state teams was for the 1979-80 school year. We actually picked the 1979 team in real time and published it in the first year of our Cal-Hi Sports Newsletters, which began in the fall of 1979. They weren’t quite weekly that first year, but the team was published right after the season and included four players from Cal-Hi Sports State Team of the Year Edison of Huntington Beach: TE Mark Boyer, RB Kerwin Bell (our Mr. Football choice), LB Bill Malavasi and QB/P Frank Seuer. Four players off one team is the most for any single team until the current run of Mater Dei and St. John Bosco teams that have dominated the state. At the time, we published how Edison might have been the best and most dominant large school Southern Section champ of the decade, but we had them No. 2 in the state behind Rancho Cordova the entire season until the end, when we flipped the Lancers with two-loss Edison.
That didn’t go over so well with our NorCal readers.
We learned a valuable rankings lesson and that is never drop the No. 1 team in the state after winning its last game. The next season, Edison was riding along at No. 1, but we felt Banning of Wilmington was a stronger team and made the move after the Pilots finished 12-0 led by Mr. Football Michael Alo. We didn’t think Edison was quite as strong as its 1979 team, either, while Banning fielded the best of its six consecutive L.A. City Section title-winning teams.
The best team of the 1960s and one that is considered one of the best overall in state history, 1969 Blair of Pasadena had three all-state picks: RB Kermit Johnson, FB James McAlister (the immortal “Blair Blair”) and DE Eugene Jones. Blair finished 13-0 after defeating the state’s most famous ever pass-catch combo of Pat Haden and John McKay Jr. and their team at Bishop Amat of La Puente, 28-27, in the CIFSS AAAA final in front of 28,169 fans. Back-up Blair QB Charles Philips (a future NFL DB), bailed Blair out in the semifinal win over Lakewood.
Ron Cuccia of L.A. Wilson was one of the state’s most publicized QB ever and recently was inducted into the California HS Football Hall of Fame. Photo: Cuccia family.
Another two loss team, 1975 San Fernando, had three players make the overall 1975 team: FB Charles White, DB Kevin Williams and QB/DB Kenny Moore. White, who passed away in January of 2023, was chosen Mr. Football. The trio was named L.A. City Tri-Players of the Year, while Moore was the player of the year by himself as a junior when the Tigers won the first of back-to-back L.A. City titles. Moore is also a two-time retroactive all-state choice.
In addition to Moore, here are the two-time all-state picks between 1960 and 1979: OL Don Mosebar (Mt. Whitney, Visalia) 77-78, DL George Achica (Hill, San Jose) 77-78, QB Ron Cuccia (Wilson, Los Angeles) 76-77, OL Brian Bailey (Cordova, Rancho Cordova) 75-76, LB Bob Woolway (Loyola, Los Angeles) 75-76, RB/DB David Henderson (Dos Palos) 75-76, OL Anthony Munoz (Chaffey, Ontario) 74-75, RB Myron White (Valley, Santa Ana) 73-74, DL/LB Marvin Morris (Carson) 72-73, DB Steve Lee (Washington, Broderick) 72-73, WR Wesley Walker (Carson) 71-72, WR John McKay Jr. (Bishop Amat, La Puente) 69-70, QB Pat Haden (Bishop Amat, La Puente) 69-70, WR Lynn Swann (Serra, San Mateo) 69-69, RB Calvin Jones (Balboa, San Francisco) 67-68, DB Willie Buchanon (Oceanside) 67-68, RB Mickey Cureton (Centennial, Compton) 65-66, RB Pat Skrable (Bakersfield) 64-65, DB Greg Jones (South San Francisco) 64-65, RB Mike Bergdahl (Loyola, Los Angeles) 63-64 and LB Tim Rossovich (St. Francis, Mountain View) 62-63.
Some of those two-time all-stars are among the best players in state history and are state players of the year by their respective positions, which you can find listed on our Honors Squad anchor page of all-time, all-state listings for football and four other sports.
No sophomore made any retroactive all-state football team. In basketball, we have plenty of sophomores make the retroactive teams and even two freshman, but in football back in the 1970s and 1960s, sophomores didn’t as get many honors as they do today. Players, on average, were also a lot younger back then than football and basketball players are today when they enroll in high school.
Our retractive picks include plenty of star players who were highly-recruited in similar to the fashion of today’s players, but if you study our all-time NFL first round picks from California dating back to the first draft in 1936, you’ll see there our all kinds of great stories on the journey to the NFL. Some players were clearly not high school stars or didn’t even have any legit D1 scholarship offers. For the most part, this is quite different than our state’s basketball players who get drafted into the NBA. A vast majority of those hoopers were high school stars and made the overall all-state teams over the years.
If you notice two-time all-state pick Henderson (from small school power Dos Palos) eventually made it to Major League Baseball. Looking over the two decades of retroactive all-state picks, the number of future MLB players stand out and back then many colleges had to hold their breath to see if their star football recruit was going to sign a major league baseball contract. Arguably the most prominent two-time all-stater in this predicament was Myron White of Santa Ana Valley, who passed away in 2018. UCLA thought it had its next great back, but White was torn between football and a pro contract with the L.A. Dodgers. He chose baseball and had a cup of coffee with the Dodgers in 1978. He eventually returned to football at Hawaii but blew out his knee before he could ever get going.
In addition to Henderson and White, the other retractive all-state picks who were highly-recruited football players who made The Show include: LB Max Venable (Cordova, Rancho Cordova) 1975, DB Garry Templeton (Valley, Santa Ana) 1973, QB/DB/P Lance Parrish (Walnut) 1973, DB Jerry Manuel (Cordova, Rancho Cordova) 1971, QB Jamie Quirk (St. Paul, Santa Fe Springs) 1971, RB/KR/WR John “Dusty” Baker (Del Campo, Fair Oaks) 1966 and DB Willie Crawford (Fremont, Los Angeles) 1963.
Incredibly, Baker also was a retroactive all-state pick in basketball for Del Campo, as was TE Charles Young (Edison, Fresno), a cinch pick for football named the Cal-Hi Sports Offensive End of the Year for 1968 and a first five pick in hoops for 1968-69. Another athlete who was all-state in both football and basketball who eventually made the NBA is DL Lonnie Shelton (Foothill, Bakersfield) 1972, who was a second five basketball pick for 1972-73.
We used the same disciplines and criteria we use for the current all-state teams to select the retractive overall all-state football teams. We had a little more wiggle room to put players at their secondary positions, unlike basketball where their candidacy has to be more clear-cut. Our goal was to get the best players possible on the teams, using local honors and not taking into account how the player fared after high school. We are proud our criteria has not changed over the years, although the numbers of players has reached a maximum of 30 players per team, including up to six multi-purpose players.
For some years, there was a glut of running backs and quarterbacks, so we had to dig a bit deeper to truly find the ones that played both ways or were used on special teams. Thankfully many were and we were able to add them to the team on defense or as kickers or punters. One year where the backs particularly stood out was 1968. In instances as those that’s when we took into account players who were selected for the prestigious North-South Shrine Game, which ran in some format between 1952 and 2002. In the all-star game’s heyday in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, it was a true statewide North-South format and players and coaches took the competition serious. Making the team was a similar honor to a basketball player making the McDonald’s All-American Game and the game drew tons of publicity and large crowds. A big performance in the Shrine Game was a difference maker for many players and where to place them on the team as well.
For that 1968 season, a plethora of backs were terrific led by state back of the year Sam Cunningham of Santa Barbara. Other top backs also included Isaac Curtis (Santa Ana), Manfred Moore (San Fernando), Calvin Jones (Balboa, San Francisco), Brent McClanahan (South, Bakersfield), Eric Cross (Alameda) and Rod McNeill (Baldwin Park). It looked like we were going to have to leave McNeill off, but in the Shrine Game, Cunningham played mostly linebacker and McNeill won a starting cornerback job at 6-3, 210, so we were able to get McNeill on defense because he also played DB for the Braves, place McClanahan and Jones in the defensive backfield and place Cross as the utility player. All those terrific backs made the 1968 team.
We were not quite ready to finalize and publish teams from the 1950s because then and into the early 1960s, various all-stars squads in newspapers honored only 11-players at a time. We don’t want to place players on defense that weren’t deserving or didn’t play defense for their high school team. We will likely add the 1950s at a later time, or publish honor squads in a different format than the ones in use for the 1960s up to the current teams, which we will publish for the 2024 season in early 2025.
To View The Retroactive All-State Teams, CLICK HERE
Ronnie Flores is the managing editor of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at ronlocc1977@yahoo.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @RonMFlores
