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- Year:
- 1963
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- Sports Played:
- National Championship Team
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- Induction Year:
- 2014
Bio
For the first time, the Athletics Hall of Fame is honoring an entire team and when it comes to the concept of “team,” the 1963 OCC football team embodies the spirit of this honor. Fresh off a 9–1 season the year before, the Pirates entered the 1963 season primed for a championship run. With a suffocating defense and a talented array of offensive stars, Coast outscored its first three opponents 112–0, dispatching Southwestern, Citrus and San Bernardino with relative ease. The Pirates’ toughest matchup of the season came in a Week 4 showdown against Fullerton. Coast fought off a determined Hornet team to win, 13–6, and remained perfect.
From there, the numbers piled up — OCC 48, Grossmont 7; OCC 50, Mt. San Antonio 24; OCC 20, Santa Ana 0; OCC 20, Riverside 6; OCC 46, Chaffey 0. The win over the Panthers earned the Pirates a berth in the Junior Rose Bowl, where they would face Northeastern Oklahoma A&M on Dec. 14, 1963. Northeastern Oklahoma A&M coach Red Robertson, when asked if he would like to play Coast for the national championship, said, “I’d rather play that Chaffey team.”
The coach was right — the Pirates blanked the Norsemen, 21–0, in front of over 44,000 fans inside the Rose Bowl. Head coach Dick Tucker, along with assistants Dale Wonacott, Fred Owens and George Mattias, not only led the Pirates to the championship, but also helped put OCC on the map, giving the small school from Costa Mesa the national attention it deserved.
