These Cats were perfect

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Nov. 5, 1999 | 10:41 a.m.

Three more wins, and this year's 1999 Las Vegas High football team will find itself in some very exclusive company.

First and foremost, the Wildcats will become the first state champion from Las Vegas' oldest high school in 40 years. Though the school was a force in the area's early years, capturing 13 state titles, the 1959 Wildcat squad was the last to finish the season with trophy in hand.

Even more impressively, if this year's LVHS team can win its final three games, the Wildcats will become the school's first undefeated state championship squad since 1953 -- a year that produced one of the state's most storied clubs.

Under the tutelage of legendary coach Angelo Collis, the '53 Las Vegas High squad put together a perfect 10-0 season. The Wildcats' dominance was awe-inspiring, as the team outscored its opponents by a combined 308-26 margin and never allowed more than seven points in a game.

Rolling through a schedule that included regional powers from California, Arizona and Utah, the Wildcats earned a reputation as one of the Southwest's top programs -- no easy task for a club from a town of fewer than 30,000 people.

The success of the 1953 club actually had its roots in the 1950 season, when Howard Bonnett succeeded longtime Wildcats coach Harvey Stanford at the helm.

Although Bonnett coached the club for just two years before leaving town, his assistant, Collis, remained on as the club's head coach. After attending a coach's clinic, Collis returned with a new offense: the simplified Split-T formation.

More important than his knowledge of X's and O's, however, was his ability to inspire youngsters. Though his players were often outmatched physically, Collis (and assistant coach Jack Lee) demanded, and usually got, their players' best effort each and every time out.

"He didn't have a bunch of giants on the line, but they put their heart into it for coach Collis," said Leland Dane, a manager for the '53 squad who has spent his career in operations for an oil company. "They called him the 'Little Giant' and he just had a way with people."

Through Collis' tenure had humble beginnings, with the Cats losing to Reno in the 1952 state title game, his second season would prove to be among the most celebrated in Nevada history.

"We had no idea when we started the year we were going to have the season we had," recalled Chuck Thompson, right tackle and co-captain for the '53 squad and an attorney here in town. "Most of us had never played football before high school. When I went to Vegas High as a freshman, it was the first time I had seen shoulder pads."

The Wildcats started to get an inkling their 1953 season might have the makings of something special in the team's very first game, a home contest against Utah power St. George. Playing before a packed Butcher Memorial Field crowd, the hosts posted a lopsided 71-0 victory -- a sign of things to come.

Still, Ken Gragson, left end for the '53 LVHS squad, remembers it wasn't until the team's second game -- a clash with Henderson's Basic High -- that the Wildcats truly began to jell.

"We'd beaten the team from Utah 71-0, but Basic High was supposed to have a pretty fair ballgame," said Gragson, who now works in real estate and developing. "We took a commanding lead on them. Coach Collis got everybody on the same wavelength."

Vegas rolled to another lopsided win, this time by a 52-7 margin, and the black and red machine began to pick up steam.

Bring 'em on

Because Las Vegas, Basic and small Boulder City High were the only high schools in Southern Nevada in 1953, the Wildcats had to look outside the state's boundaries for the bulk of their competition.

That meant bumping heads with some of the West Coast's football powers, including several teams from football-rich Southern California.

"We played pretty big schools with student bodies twice or three times as big as ours," said Will Dodge, the right guard for the '53 LVHS squad and more recently a roofing contractor. "We were 160 or 170 pounds playing against guys 250-260 pounds."

After moving to 3-0 with a easy 27-0 shutout of Arizona's Prescott High, the Wildcats entered the meat of their schedule -- a four-game span that would pit them against California giants Compton, Colton and Anaheim High and then Arizona power St. Mary's.

Compton, in particular, presented a threat, as the Southern California school arrived in town with seven consecutive victories against the Wildcats. But the locals' backfield of tailbacks Dick Pribble and Curtis Overton and fullback Robin Hill combined for more than 250 rushing yards, helping Vegas to a hard-fought 13-6 win.

The following week, a John Demman-to-Cliff Foremaster touchdown pass would be the only scoring in a 6-0 victory over Compton, but that nail-biter would be nothing compared with the following Friday's clash with Anaheim.

With the score tied 7-7 and five seconds remaining, Demman -- the club's junior quarterback -- took the ball around the right side of the line and into the end zone, giving the Wildcats a thrilling 14-7 win and preserving the perfect season.

"We weren't aware we weren't supposed be beat teams like that," Thompson said. "We were just a bunch of guys from Las Vegas."

After moving to 7-0 with a 18-6 win over Phoenix's St. Mary's, the Wildcats returned to Nevada for a 48-0 shellacking of northern opponent White Pine.

"I'll never forget, it was their homecoming and we put in the third string and they still couldn't stop us," Dane said.

In the regular-season finale, a confident LVHS group posted an unexpectedly easy 25-0 win against California's Pasadena High, pushing the locals' unblemished mark to 9-0.

Armistice Day

The only major athletic events in Las Vegas in the early 1950s were Wildcat football games, which had taken on the feel of collegiate or professional sports.

The athletes were semi-celebrities in a town in which nearly everyone knew one another, and the stands were generally filled to capacity on Friday nights.

"It was about the only social event going," Gragson said. "The games were on the radio for people who couldn't come to them. The whole community was behind it."

That was never more true than in 1953. Although the stands were expanded prior to the start of the season, the team's performance on the field only served to heighten high school football frenzy in town.

So for the team's year-ending state title contest against Reno, bleachers were placed in both end zones to prevent turning away fans.

The additional space was barely enough. A state-record crown of 7,200 showed up on Armistice Day (now Veterans Day) to see the Wildcats' attempt to stay unbeaten and avenge the previous year's 19-0 loss to the Huskies.

True to form, Las Vegas had little trouble accomplishing those goals, as the locals ran away with a 34-0 shutout of their northern counterparts.

Everyone got into the scoring act, with Pribble, Curtis, Hill and fullback Wilbur Harris all rushing for touchdowns and Demman connecting with Gragson for six more points through the air.

"We had no idea when the year started what it was going to be like," Thompson said. "It was one of those things where it all comes together."

New brand of Cat

With a win tonight over Durango, another next week in the zone title game and a third on Nov. 19 in this year's 4A state championship contest, the 1999 Las Vegas High team can join its '53 counterparts with the ultimate achievement of perfection.

In 1993, Las Vegas' original high school moved from its old location on 7th Street to its new home on East Sahara Avenue. Collis died in May, 1997 and many of the players from his 1953 squad have also passed away. Yet some of the surviving members of that unbeaten team have managed to keep an eye on this year's group of Wildcats.

"I haven't been to any games, but I've been following them," Dodge said. "They'll probably make it all the way."

As for current Las Vegas coach Kris Cinkovich, he said he uses the school's storied football history from time to time to help motivate his team.

"They need to be appreciative of some of the tradition we have here," Cinkovich said. "It's school pride and with our school, there's a lot of tradition that goes with it."

A tradition Cinkovich is hoping his club can add one more perfect chapter to.

"(The 1953 team) took on all comers and beat them all," Cinkovich said. "You can't do any more than that."

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