Ruben Quintero

My Mother's Scrapbook Ruben Quintero

This book offers an historically detailed look at El Rancho High School football's "miracle year" of 1966, in which the team remained undefeated with a record of 13-0, shut out six opponents, scored 517 points, and allowed only 68, winning the AAAA CIF-Southern Section Championship by defeating Anaheim High School 35-14 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on December 16, 1966. The team's legendary coach, Ernie Johnson, was recognized as Coach of the Year, and the team was honored as both California State and National Champions. Five of El Rancho's players were selected to the All CIF Football Team, at that time an unprecedented accomplishment. Every locally available newspaper article about the team's progress through its 1966 season was compiled into a scrapbook by the author's mother, resulting in a valuable historical archive reproduced in this book, useful for any community historian or fan of Southern California football. The author, a member of the 1966 team, has also added school photographs of the team from his 1967 school annual. In sum, this is a work of microhistory, for revealing the dynamic interconnection of an ethnically diverse suburban community and its high school football team during the Vietnam War.