Mike Hunter, Millennium Hall of Fame

It was at the end of the golden age of junior college football,

when fans worshiped players and the Junior Rose Bowl appeared on national

television.

It was a time when Orange Coast College was “the toast of the town,”

legendary former coach Dick Tucker once said, and a time when speedy Mike

Hunter ran wild for the Pirates, setting a school record for career

all-purpose yards while leading them to the 1963 national championship.

Hunter, a prep All-American halfback and Orange County Player of the Year

for Anaheim High and Coach Clare Van Hoorebeke in 1961, starred on Tucker’s first two OCC teams, which combined for a 19-1 record, then

played under Coach John McKay at USC.

“Van Hoorebeke, Tucker and McKay ... what guy could be more blessed than

that?” said Hunter, a JC All-American in 1963, when the Pirates defeated

Northeastern Oklahoma A&M;, 21-0, before 44,044 fans at the Rose Bowl in

Pasadena and an estimated four million television viewers.

Hunter, OCC’s student body president, scored Orange Coast’s second

touchdown of the national title game with a thrilling 53-yard punt

return, his school-record fourth punt return for a touchdown that season,

then added OCC’s final score on a 29-yard touchdown pass from Larry

Jones.

“We were idolized,” Hunter said. “The stands were packed every week, and

people would be hanging from the ivy (at OCC’s LeBard Stadium). That was

nothing but Coach Tucker. He’s the one who did it. There wasn’t a kid on

that team who wouldn’t have died for that guy. He touched all of us

personally.

“McKay was wonderful and Van Hoorebeke was wonderful, but Tucker was the

greatest.”

Hunter, also a standout in baseball who played shortstop and center field

for the late Wendell Pickens at OCC, is currently fifth on OCC’s career

all-purpose yards list with 2,169 and still owns three of the longest

punt returns in school history at 89, 67 and 66 yards -- all coming in

1963.

By the spring of ‘64, Hunter was at USC, where he was a safety and

running back at 5-foot-9, 154 pounds, but cracked his sternum in the

season opener against Colorado and was forced to redshirt.

“I always wanted to play at USC,” said Hunter, who played the next

autumn, but endured a couple of incidents that forever changed his

career.

Early in the ’65 season, with Hunter at running back, USC quarterback

Troy Winslow pitched left, but Hunter ran right.

“That was an embarrassing play,” said Hunter, who never carried the

football again at USC. “I was just excited. But McKay didn’t like it. He

told me after the game, ‘Look, don’t worry about it. You’re going to

start at safety next week.”’

Another time in ‘65, before 94,085 fans at the LA Coliseum, Hunter was

burned deep by UCLA quarterback Gary Beban with 2:39 left in the rivalry

as the seventh-ranked Bruins beat No. 6 USC, 20-16.

“I still have the Sports Illustrated picture and (game story) hanging on

my wall,” Hunter said. “When life gets good and you think you’re really

great, I just look at that picture.”

Though Hunter wasn’t the only defensive back to get beat by the 1967

Heisman Trophy winner, it was a bitter pill to swallow. “It was just so

huge at the time,” said Hunter, who cried all the way home to his USC

fraternity house. “I personally took the blame for the loss.”

The following year, Hunter lost his position to Mike Battle, a future

All-American. But Battle was ineligible for the Rose Bowl and Hunter got

the starting nod, going up against Purdue and quarterback Bob Griese on

Jan. 2, 1967.

“It was a different world at USC than playing for Coach Tucker, probably

because it was a more comfortable zone for me at my size,” said Hunter,

who played several sports growing up and was the Orange County junior

golf champion in 1959, the year his family moved from Downey to Newport

Beach.

Hunter was part of the first class to attend Servite High, where he

played football, basketball and baseball, then he transferred to Anaheim.

At the time, athletes had to sit out an entire year if they transferred,

according to CIF Southern Section rules, so Hunter missed playing for Van

Hoorebeke his junior year.

“It was just a shame,” he said, “but I’m telling you, when I came out my

senior year, I was ready to play.”

At age 12, Hunter watched Downey’s Randy Meadows and Anaheim’s Mickey

Flynn battle to a memorable 13-13 tie in the 1956 CIF championship game

at the Coliseum in the fog.

He was once dubbed “Hunter the Bunter” by the late sportswriter Lenny

Handel, but felt it was “really embarrassing at that time.”

Hunter, who played on a state championship American Legion baseball team

in 1961, feels differently about his latest newspaper designation --

enshrinement into the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, celebrating the

millennium.

“It’s exciting for a guy at 55 to get a phone call from a sportswriter

telling him he’s in the Hall of Fame,” Hunter said. “I grew up with the

Daily Pilot, so it’s pretty neat.”

Hunter, whose two children attended Newport Harbor, lives in Irvine with

his wife, Laura.