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Sports Lore—Our Teams Grow Over Time |
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by Alex Leon, Glendale College Foundation |
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In 1928, a few intrepid young men
set out to play football at Glendale Junior College and in the process,
created a standard of excellence that has spanned eight decades. That team of Buccaneers, as they were called then, was coached by Sam Tenison, who also served as the young school’s first athletic director and rang in football at the college with a less than stout 0-3-2 record that first fall on the gridiron. The fact that they scored just 27 points in five games against the likes of Long Beach, Fullerton, Santa Ana and Pasadena colleges is misleading, because those losses to Long Beach and Pasadena were only by a touchdown, and Glendale tied Fullerton and Santa Ana. The 53-6 loss to perennial power Compton in the season’s final game was the only lopsided score of the bunch. Because the college shared facilities at the old Glendale Union High School in those days, practice and home game facilities were at a minimum, and the struggle for a home field advantage continued for many, many years. As the student body grew from a robust 210 students with 17 faculty in 1928 to the thriving institution it is today, more and more students took advantage of those first-year sports offerings of football, track and field, basketball, tennis and swimming. Eighty years later, the college offers 16 intercollegiate sports for men and women, and its transfer rates for student-athletes grows year after year. That breakthrough first victory for Glendale Junior College Football came in the 1929 season opener when the “Young Bucs’’ defeated nearby Caltech 12-0 for the first of four victories they had that season. Tenison would coach the team for 10 years until 1938 and is regarded as the man who set the school’s athletic vision for future coaches and athletic administrators like Bill Reinhard, Dave Titchenal, Jim Sartoris and John Cicuto, who have carried the Vaqueros into the 21st century. Athletic facilities have improved to the point where every sport with the exception of golf, women’s softball and baseball is played on campus, with baseball being played across the street at Stengel Field. Most recently, the first home cross country meet in almost 40 years was run at neighboring Verdugo Park. Softball games are played at the nearby Glendale Sports complex, and golf practices and one conference home match take place at nearby courses. The latest and greatest upgrade was the opening of Sartoris Field in 2005 to replace the overused main athletic field and provide a place where men and women’s soccer and track and field meets and football games could finally be played on campus. For the football team and its local home-and-road-game odyssey that lasted over 75 years, the lights illuminating the field with the mountains in the background signaled a new era of promise for the Vaqueros and the student-athletes who wear the uniform of the cardinal and gold. Sam Tenison
and the Buccaneers would have been very proud, indeed.
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