Great day at Calif HS FB Hall of Fame

Rose Bowl officials go above and beyond in honoring individuals and coaches in this year’s inductions into the California High School Football Hall of Fame, which were held last Saturday before and during UCLA-Wisconsin football game. Bruin fans chanting their unbeaten team should be in this week’s top 10 after the game weren’t the only ones happy. We were honored to be included and spent meaningful time with others who were there.

FOR AN UPDATED SECTION-BY-SECTION LIST OF EVERYONE NOW INCLUDED IN THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME AND THOSE WE THINK SHOULD BE STRONGLY CONSIDERED FOR FUTURE INDUCTIONS, CLICK HERE.

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We were already on our recent family trip in Norway in late September (later to include stops in Denmark, Sweden and London) when the notification came in about being selected as the 2026 winner of the Impact in Sports Journalism award by the California High School Football Hall of Fame. The email from Dedan Bronzino of the Rose Bowl stated that the player, coach and special award winners would be honored at a reception inside the Hall of Fame (opened in 2023) and would be saluted on the field during a quarter break at the UCLA-Wisconsin football game to be held on Saturday, Oct. 16.

That game and event at the Hall of Fame was last weekend and it would be an understatement to say I was humbled to be part of it, especially compared to the other special award winners. I wish there were more players who were there (some I’ve met before and others I haven’t) but the complexities of scheduling an event, sending out dates and details about it, combined with the current method of college football game planning, can make it very hard for anyone to plan around.

In our case, getting the notification just three weeks ahead of time, made it too difficult for anyone in our family other than myself to attend the event. We had only returned from our trip about 10 days prior to Oct. 16 and couldn’t make further arrangements to have the house watched and our five cats taken care of for another trip that quickly after such a long one. Plus, I already had mentioned when the current high school football season started that I was interested in going to go to Southern California for the Friday, Oct. 16 matchup at St. John Bosco in Bellflower vs Santa Margarita. I also already knew there were Thursday games that week that I could see. Wife Kathleen Moody would have liked to go, but I could tell she didn’t want to go for another long weekend trip so soon after coming home from Europe. It was decided she could stay home and I would just go to the Rose Bowl event after the two football games I was already planning to see.

If you don’t know, college football games these days are all subject to the whims of television contracts. There are Friday night games now and the kickoff times of Saturday games can greatly vary on the West Coast from 12:30 in the afternoon to 7:30 at night. The Rose Bowl therefore just doesn’t know when to precisely schedule this event. The game time for UCLA-Wisconsin and therefore the timing of when last Saturday’s event could be held wasn’t decided until six days beforehand. That made it hard for our family to decide what to do, and likely that’s the same for others.

Those who were voted in to be new members of the Hall of Fame for this year as players were Derek Carr QB from Bakersfield Christian, Keyshawn Johnson WR from Dorsey of Los Angeles, Travis Kirschke DL from Esperanza of Anaheim, Darrell Russell DL from St. Augustine of San Diego, Pat Tillman LB/DB from Leland of San Jose, James Washington DB from Jordan of Los Angeles and Robert Woods WR from Serra of Gardena. Tillman and Russell, of course, were honored posthumously. Only Washington was able to make it to the game/event and he wore his UCLA colors proudly as well. Derek was in the building, too, but he was working in his new role this season of helping the UCLA coaching staff.

Of those players, I’ve met Keyshawn and Travis before while working for Student Sports Magazine. Both were in magazine cover shoots. When they were in high school, I saw Keyshawn, Travis, Pat and Robert play in games. I saw Darrell at a combine, but never saw Derek or James play in high school or work out at a combine. Travis and Robert also are former Cal-Hi Sports Mr. Football State Player of the Year. Derek is a former State Small Schools Player of the Year.

Those who were voted in to be new members this year as coaches were Dan Albert of Monterey, Bill Foltmer of Middletown and Terry Henigan of Irvine. To be honest, I am not sure if there were family members of Albert or Henigan who were there. I had not met any of the three beforehand, but knew what Bill looked like from some stories we’ve done about him on this website and his school (once impacted by a major fire) written by our mutual friend, Harold Abend. Albert is in his 90s and Henigan passed away in 2024 at age 79.

I wasn’t introduced to anyone representing the other two coaches and therefore just don’t know for sure who was present for them. One part of the experience I wish could be added in the future is for Bronzino or former CIF Southern Section commissioner Rob Wigod (a key member of the committee who began the Hall of Fame and who also spoke at the reception) to introduce the honorees who were there for the day just so they could all be seen and know who is who. In my case, by the time I figured out which one was James Washington (who I interviewed once at Super Bowl media day when he was playing for the Buffalo Bills) it was too late to find him and talk to him.

Foltmer brought a lot of family members and former coaches with him. He’s one of the best examples in state history of a coach from a small town school with small town kids who just did a great job with those kids for decades in his community. When he retired, he was the winningest active head coach in the state with 314 wins, but was passed a few weeks later by Simi Valley’s Jim Benkert (who is still coaching the Pioneers this season).

Bill knew some about my own history of record-keeping for the entire state and it was nice to spend a lot of time with him, not just in the room but in the suite that some of us being honored were provided for by the Rose Bowl to watch the game. Other honorees and guests of the Hall of Fame were in a different suite. It also turns out that Foltmer is a graduate of Chico State, which was immediately pointed out to him that two other Chico State grads (Matt Logan of Corona Centennial and Roger Canepa of Modesto Central Catholic) have more than 300 career wins (just like Foltmer has). Logan and Canepa are still coaching and therefore like Benkert are not yet eligible to be inducted into this Hall of Fame.

All of the other special award winners were represented during the event. I didn’t even know that longtime former Kansas City Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson is a grad of Long Beach Wilson. He was named as this year’s winner of the Golden State Award. I always ask everyone I meet about their high school days and who was there at the same time. Carl responded that former MLB star Bob Bailey was Wilson’s quarterback in those days. He also knew and was proud of a lot of the other top MLB players over the years from Wilson. We also talked a lot about L.A. Marshall grad Andy Reid, the current Chiefs’ head coach who Carl still calls one of his friends.

The Terry Donahue Leadership Award winner was presented to former Skyline of Oakland head coach and Laney College athletic director John Beam. He died from a shooting in late November not even one year ago and was represented by his widow, Cindi, and one of his daughters, Sonja Phillips. I was grateful to spend a lot of time with them going in the shuttle from the hotel to the game and back that the Rose Bowl provided for us. John was the head coach at Skyline for not that many years, but his winning percentage among coaches with 150 or more wins is still among the best in state history and he’s also credited with 11 Oakland Section titles. I also got to know him for the years he served on the CIF section commissioners’ board as a special consultant (he voted for the Oakland Section) for the CIF state football bowl games in the time when the game matchups had to be picked by that committee. He would call me for info about some of those teams. Coach Beam also was always looking out for kids from Oakland in general and worked with us at Student Sports into the middle of the 2010s with combines & events that were held at Laney College. Sonja is following in her dad’s path as an assistant commissioner with the CIF North Coast Section.

At one point in the shuttle, the Beams asked a question about why in California there are CIF sections as gigantic as the Southern Section and as small as Oakland. Instead of answering, I turned to the person on my left and said, “Marie, you want to take this one?” I am referring to former CIF state executive director Marie Ishida, who was honored during the day with the Champion of Success Award.

Ishida is the first woman to serve as the leader of the CIF and in 1994 she became the first woman elected President of the CIF. She also was in charge when the CIF state football championships were re-started in 2006 after not having been played since 1927. What I didn’t know prior to spending time with her over the weekend is that she’s from the small Sacramento Valley town of Strathmore. She’s super-proud of the state football titles that Strathmore has won, especially the team that went 16-0 in 2017, but had retired from the CIF by then. I also found out that she and her family were removed from their town during World War II to a Japanese detainment camp. Marie said she was too young to remember any of that, however.

Other than the time spent with the other honorees, the other highlight of the day and night was seeing the actual Hall of Fame exhibit for the first time. My expectations were that it would be a large room coming off of a hallway. Instead, it’s two large rooms and with a lot of space overhead and it’s easily accessible near a main Rose Bowl thoroughfare on the northwest side of the stadium. It isn’t just a room and is definitely more like a museum exhibit than I thought. The top 25 vote getters from the first class have more information on the wall than others, but all members are shown on another wall. There’s a Pro Football Hall of Fame wall and another wall that I didn’t know about that contained mostly historical highlights and facts that comprised the first chapter of the book I wrote about seven years ago, “High School Football in California.” Some writeups from the book about the greatest teams in state history also were featured on the same wall with a De La Salle helmet and Mater Dei jersey.

Anyone who is attending a game or event at the Rose Bowl with a ticket can check out this Hall of Fame. If you have a connection at all to any player, coach or school for California high school football, going inside is well worth your time.

When the Hall of Fame began, I was brought in and paid a fee to help research a lot of info on that first group of players. I was critical of some of those first top 25 vote getters. I still don’t agree with a lot of them, but the overall direction of the Hall of Fame is on the right path. If anyone at the Rose Bowl or anyone still on the committee who will be voting in players and coaches for the next class in 2028 has any questions about state records or other information we have at Cal-Hi Sports, I don’t have to be paid to answer it, no one has to be a subscriber to the web site for me to answer and I’ll be glad to help. I might even fill out some nomination forms myself. Thanks to Dedan, Brian Brantley (the VP for Advancement) and others at the Rose Bowl for a great event.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He is a member of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Hall of Fame and the California High School Football Hall of Fame. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports