I'm Jerry Smith, I graduated in 1951 from Escondido Union High School. Sports was a very big part of my high school experience. I played football, basketball, and baseball. Participation in sports was very much encouraged at Escondido High School when I was in school. And it's a little different than today because, like in basketball they had A, B, C, and D and the determination of what class you played in was by your size and age. The D's were the smaller boys but they had a league just like the A team and we had championships and regular sports activities with tournaments. Football had varsity and junior varsity, baseball had varsity and junior varsity. Track had A, B, and C where again it was determined on the persons size for what level they participated. As a result, in a school of 400 we would probably have 200 people playing in competitive athletics with other schools. I played 4 years of high school basketball and lettered all four years.. I played 2 years of baseball and 1 year of football. The goal was too get as much participation in sports in those years we could. Escondido had a lot of school spirit in those days. We had the Oceanside High School football game that was the event of the whole town. We had a rally the night before the game and particularly the boys would get out of school early a week before the Oceanside football game and gather everything from trees to outhouses and built this huge bonfire down by the baseball field which was just a little west of Grape Day Park now. The students would spend all night Wednsday night after the wood was piled ready for the fire to guard it so that the people from Oceanside wouldn't burn our wood pile before the rally. Then on Thursday night the rally would start at the high school. Everybody in school would join hands into a big serpentine and they would run down Grand Avenue in a big snakelike serpentine down to Broadway and Grand and form a big circle. There would be a truck with football players, a pet...