Leland wins first CCS title
The first ever CCS championship playoffs were held in 1972, and Leland clinched the title that year with a 41-16 win over Riordan.
The Chargers won the Santa Teresa Athletic League crown that fall and entered the playoffs with a 10-0 record. Leland went on to beat Soquel 30-6 and Oak Grove 43-14 before ripping Riordan in the title game.
Quarterback Jim Miller was the offensive leader for the Chargers and linebacker Jeff Ramona starred defensively. Head coach Kent Miller–no relation to his quarterback–led Leland to a 13-0 record that year. It marked the first time that a football team in the Santa Clara Valley had ever played that many games in a season, let alone win them all.
Area’s longest winning streaks
It was a remarkable accomplishment for the Willow Glen football teams of 1958 through 1963: The Rams of that period put together an incredible 42-game winning streak.
It’s a local record that still stands more than 50 years later, and likely will never be broken given the structure of play that high school football teams follow today.
Each season ends now with the Central Coast Section playoffs, meaning that all but one team in each of the five divisions is guaranteed to finish the year with a loss. And in the first eight years of the CCS playoffs–1972 through 1979–there was only one division, so all but one team ended the year on a losing note.
Through the years, a number of teams have cruised the season with perfect records. St. Francis and Palma top the list of 16 undefeated teams, each school posting four perfect seasons. Saratoga and Los Gatos each had three undefeated records.
The Wildcats put their three unbeaten campaigns in a row from 2000 through 2002. Over that span, Gatos won 38 straight games, a CCS record considering the fact that the section wasn’t formed until 1965.
And don’t forget Bellarmine. The Bells won 28 straight games from 1963 through 1965, capping the streak when the ’65 squad went undefeated and allowed only six points all season–and that came on an interception return for a touchdown.
Valley coaches with most wins
Bob Ladouceur, whose De La Salle Spartans are featured in the current film “When the Game Stands Tall,” is the state’s all-time winningest coach with 399 victories–nearly half of them coming in the school’s 151-game winning streak.
But who is the dean of high school coaches in the Santa Clara Valley? It’s got to be Benny Pierce, who led the Saratoga Falcons to 270 victories over his brilliant 34-year career as the school’s head football coach.
Second to Pierce on the football victory chart is Butch Cattolico, who retired last year after leading Los Gatos to 264 wins in his equally brilliant 27-year run as the head coach for the Wildcats.
Bellarmine’s Mike Janda tops the win list among active coaches with 247 victories in 30 seasons.
Retired coaches Ron Calcagno (233 wins at St. Francis), the late Al Cementina (222 wins at James Lick and Independence) and Ed Buller (214 wins at Oak Grove) are others who topped the 200-win mark in their impressive careers.
Active coaches climbing the win chart are Mike Machado (167 at Valley Christian and Saratoga), Kevin Collins (124 at Lincoln) and Mark Krail (119 at Pioneer, Santa Clara and Los Gatos).
Putting his name back on the win list of active coaches is Dave Brown of Archbishop Mitty.
Brown ran up 136 victories before leaving the Mitty sidelines seven years ago. He returns as the head coach for the Monarchs this fall and moves right back on the list of winningest active coaches.
