NFL legend Junior Seau was the state’s best high school tight end in the 1980s at Oceanside High (left) before becoming one of the all-time best linebackers at USC and in the NFL. He was photographed at right watching his daughter play in a 2012 volleyball tournament one month before his death. Photos: dignitymemorial.com & Scott Kurtz.
CalHiSports.com has been covering the best of California prep sports for over 40 years and in that time we’ve seen some great players on football fields in every corner of the state. Some lived up to all the hype surrounding them as prep players, while others never were able to duplicate their high school production in college or the NFL. Some players are recognizable while others have long ago vanished from the scene of their glory days. We talked to as many credible prep football observers as we could to come up with our final selections of the Golden State’s best of the 1980s. Some of the selections were easy, some were difficult, but in the end, recalling the exploits of these Golden State greats was a fun exercise. Please let us know what you think about the picks and who we left off by shooting us an email or tweeting at us: @CalHiSports.
RELATED (Team for 2010s done after current season):
1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s
Note: This is a post for Gold Club members only. All of the upcoming special all-decade all-state football teams and our all-decade all-state teams in boys basketball, girls basketball, baseball and softball also will be for Gold Club members only. You can now sign up for $3.99 per month or $9.99 for three months or yearly rate of just 6.8 cents per day also can be done. For details, CLICK HERE.
All-Decade: 1980s
(The CalHiSports.com All-Decade Football Teams were originally published in March 2009 in the seventh printed edition of our exclusive Cal-Hi Sports State Record Book and Almanac; To view the vast majority of the rest of our yearly honor squads, CLICK HERE; This team and all other subsequent Cal-Hi Sports All-Decade Teams were chosen with a disregard to how the players performed on the next levels of the game. This was researched and published based on high school accomplishment, although many of the players turned out to be among the all-time best from the Golden State.)
