Carnett: The ’75 Pirates dominated the nation
Forty years ago this fall, Orange Coast College’s football team won the 1975 national junior college championship.
That year, then-Coach Dick Tucker assembled perhaps the finest football team in community college annals. The Pirates went 11-0, easily defeated Rio Hondo College in the Avocado Bowl, 38-14, and won the national title. No OCC team has since come close to duplicating that feat.
The squad will be honored this season at the Oct. 17 OCC-Palomar College game at LeBard Stadium in Costa Mesa. Kickoff is 6 p.m. For reunion information, phone the college’s alumni office at (714) 432-5707.
“Methodical” is the appropriate term for describing the ’75 Pirates. They dispatched opponents by an average score of 40-13.
“We were a complete team,” says Tucker who, at 89, lives in Corona del Mar. “During my years in coaching, I always wanted my teams to be balanced in their attack.”
OCC’s ’75 champs featured a solid offensive line, two brilliant sophomore quarterbacks, a corps of talented receivers, the best running back in the nation and the premier blocking back in the land.
The Pirates’ stout defense was the best of the best.
“We didn’t have a close game all season, but we never intentionally ran up a score,” Tucker confided. “We pulled our starters in the third quarter.”
The Pirates could easily have averaged 55 points a game.
Orange Coast had a pair of legitimate first-string quarterbacks in Dave White and Mike Magner. White, who later played at Oregon State, was the starter and threw 19 touchdowns.
Magner, who’d been OCC’s starter in 1973 but missed the ’74 campaign because of an injury, played at Montana after concluding his Orange Coast career.
“Dave and Mike could have started for any JC in the nation,” Tucker says. “Dave would start our games, and Mike would come in for a series in the second quarter. Dave would play for a couple of series in the third quarter, and Mike would finish up.”
“I had a blast,” says White, who’s been the highly successful head football coach at Edison High in Huntington Beach for three decades. “I have great memories of that team. Most of us were local kids, and we had great chemistry.”
The offense was spearheaded by sophomore running back Tony Accomando.
“Tony rushed for 1,155 yards,” Tucker says. “He could easily have topped 1,500. He averaged six yards per carry and had very few carries in the second half.”
Accomando, who later started for Texas Christian, led the nation with 29 touchdowns.
“Tony was in our training room all season,” recalls retired OCC trainer and professor of physical education Leon Skeie. “He was banged up but he didn’t complain. He never missed a play.”
Two players — Accomando and tackle Jack Clark — were JC All-Americans. Six were All-America honorable mention selections; nine were first-team All-South Coast Conference; and two were the conference’s co-players of the year. OCC had 12 players on the first-team All-Orange County squad, and Accomando was county player of the year.
“Our greatest stroke of luck was that we suffered almost no injuries,” Tucker recalls. “I don’t think we lost a single starter.”
“Our team was confident, but we never took an opponent lightly,” White says. “All great teams suffer letdowns, but we never did. We finished off every opponent.”
OCC’s toughest challenge, White says, was its 36-17 midseason victory over Fullerton College.
“Fullerton had a great program with great athletes and coaches, and they got after us. But we played well. After that win, we knew we had something special going.”
The Pirates lost every pre-game warm-up, however.
“Every time we took the field, the other team would be whooping and hollering and getting all agitated,” offensive tackle Jack Clark, who went on to start at Cal, told me after the season.
The Pirates were mute.
“We quietly went about our stretching,” Clark said. “We didn’t scream or shout or engage in any trash talk. We let our play do the talking for us. By the third quarter, our opponents were quiet.”
OCC’s ’75 Pirates fashioned a season that probably will never be replicated.
JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.