Carnett: These guys brought military precision to OCC
Their given names were Randall, Norbert and Walter, but no one ever called them that.
Not if the person valued his life.
They each had a nickname: “Speed,” “Buck” and “Salty.”
They’d been career Marines before arriving at Orange Coast College in the 1950s and ‘60s to work in the athletic department’s equipment and men’s locker rooms and field house. They were tough, hard-bitten veterans who’d served multiple tours together.
The trio consisted of Randall “Speed” Vernon, Norbert “Buck” Buchert and Walter “Salty” Waters. And they gave a half-century of service to OCC. They’d fought in World War II and Korea and brought to the college a deep appreciation of American military history.
Speed arrived in 1958 at the age of 42, following his Marine Corps retirement. Wendell Pickens, founding athletic director, hired him. Speed remained on OCC’s staff for 20 years.
He later hired Buck and Salty as assistants. Buck arrived in the early 1960s and Salty in 1965. Buck retired in 1978, Salty in 1982.
There was a regular pipeline between El Toro Marine Base and OCC in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond. Many retired military men worked for the college.
OCC’s first equipment man, when the college opened in 1948, was a guy named Bunny “Pappy” Harris. A World War II vet, Harris was fresh out of the Navy.
“I made it a practice to hire retired career military for our equipment room,” Pickens explained to me many years ago. “They’re well-organized, and they command respect.”
George Jablonsky, a former career Marine, replaced Harris in 1951. Jablonsky was succeeded by Speed Vernon in 1958.
Speed, a retired master sergeant, had been a Marine Corps supply sergeant. Buck and Salty were both retired, non-commissioned officers. At OCC, they retained their military order of rank. Speed was the guy in charge, and Buck and Salty were his adjutants.
George Mattias, Costa Mesa resident and former OCC football and men’s tennis coach, remembers Speed as “the most organized and efficient guy I’ve ever known.” Speed’s military background, no doubt, had much to do with that. He was the quintessential supply sergeant.
Though a classified employee, Speed was No. 2 in command in OCC’s athletic division, second only to the athletic director. He ran the equipment room, which means he managed the uniforms and equipment for all the college’s men’s athletic teams. He also managed the division’s budget. No staffer in the department –— not even the athletic director — purchased anything without Speed’s approval.
He died in 1990 at the age of 74.
Buck worked with OCC’s football and baseball players and track and field athletes in the LeBard Stadium Field House. He laundered uniforms, managed the equipment and kept the facility clean.
Of the three Marines, Buck was the gruffest.
“If you get on Buck’s bad side,” then-head football Coach Dick Tucker used to warn his players at their opening team meeting each season, “you’re on your own. Don’t come to me. If you’re in trouble with Buck, that’s between you and Buck. What he says goes.”
If you were in trouble with Buck, you were in deep difficulty!
Buck, a huge OCC sports fan, retired in 1978. He succumbed to cancer a few years later.
Salty was an easygoing fellow with a great sense of humor. He was the assistant equipment man and ran the towel room in the men’s locker room. Music was always playing in his work area, or he’d have a sports talk show blaring on the radio. He had a joke or quip for everyone, and the athletes loved him.
“Salty was a hydraulics mechanic in the Marine Corps and could repair anything,” Mattias recalls. “When I was tennis coach, I asked him to rig up a scoreboard for our matches. He built one from scratch. It must have weighed a ton, but it worked.”
Salty succeeded Speed as the head equipment person in 1978, when Speed retired. He worked in that capacity for four years.
Speed, Buck and Salty were dedicated U.S. Marines and loyal OCC Pirates. Oo-rah!
JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.