i'm Jerry Smith, I graduated in 1951 from Escondido 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. 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 was by your size and age. The D's were the smaller boys but they had a league they played in just like the A team. We had championships, and regular sports activities with tournaments. Football had Varsity and Jr. Varsity, baseball had Varsity and Jr. Varsity, and 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 have probably 200 people playing competitive athletics against other schools. I played 4 years of basketball and lettered all four years. I played 2 years of baseball and 1 year of football. The goal was to get as much participation in sports in those years as we could. Escondido had a lot of school spirit in those days. We had the Oceanside High School football game which was the event of the whole town. We had a rally the night before the game. Particularly the boys would get out of school a week before the Oceanside football game and gather wood, everything from trees to outhouses and build this huge bonfire down by the baseball field, which is just a little bit west of Grape Day Park now. The students would spend all night Wednesday night, after the wood was piled and ready for the fire, to guard it so that people from Oceanside wouldn't come over and 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 Ave. in a big snake like serpentine, down to Broadway and Grand Ave. and form a big circle. There would be a truck with football playe...