The Newport Harbor High homecoming and pregame tailgate festivities Friday will spotlight the 1994 football team, the only unbeaten, untied squad in school history.
“We’re going to honor that team and Coach Jeff Brinkley with a 30-year anniversary celebration,” said Newport Harbor High Alumni Association President Alan Gaddis, whose organization will host the event near Davidson Field before kickoff of the Sailors’ 7 p.m. nonleague game against St. Augustine.
Brinkley, who was inducted into the CIF-Southern Southern Hall of Fame shortly after his retirement in January 2018, coached the Tars for 32 years and led the school to their first three CIF championships (1994, 1999 and 2005).
The ’94 team was predicted by many to struggle that autumn, but Brinkley’s senior-led workhorses surprised everyone, including their most ardent followers, with an unmatched and unbelievable campaign. It featured miracle finishes, fortuitous bounces and last-second heroics to complete the first perfect season in Newport-Mesa Unified School District history.
The Tars were predicted to finish in last place in the Sea View League, and one sportswriter said in a preseason television interview that they were “going to hit a wall this year.” The season is chronicled in my book “14 Weeks: The Most Improbable High School Football Season in History,” available on Amazon.
“I forget who said it, but they were saying how we were going to be the worst team in our league our senior year,” said Newport Harbor tailback and cornerback Brian Johnson, the CIF Division 5 Offensive Player of the Year.
The players on the ’94 Sailors called themselves a “Team of Destiny,” a squadron with no real superstar. A strong case for high praise could be made for every member of the team with extra training, a joy for the game and an all-in, team-first approach.
“To the man, this team just loved to play,” said Newport two-way lineman Bill Johns, the CIF Division 5 and Sea View League Defensive Player of the Year.
“What made that group so special were (quarterback) John Giordani and (linebacker) Dan McDonough, the offensive and defensive captains. Gio took a group of undersized linemen with no returning starters and somehow convinced them that they could not only play, but beat any opponent in from of them,” he said. “This band of brothers did not give a single quarterback sack until the eighth game of the season and in high school football that just doesn’t happen.
“The offense was good, but I am going to make a bold statement: The ’94 defense was the greatest assembly of linebackers and corners Harbor has ever put on the field,” he added. “Not to the player, but as a group. Every starter, with the exception of Danny Eadie, who hit like a truck, could power clean over 245 pounds and four players could hit over 300. There are colleges that can’t claim that.”
In the CIF title game, the Tars, built with a ground-game reputation but not afraid to air it out deep, defeated Servite, 20-15, as Giordani connected with tight end Mike Freeman on a 38-yard scoring strike with 2:37 left in front of an overflow crowd estimated at 8,200 at Orange Coast College.
Freeman grabbed Giordani’s textbook offering at the 12, bowled over a would-be tackler at the 5 and provided the centerpiece of a season never to be forgotten as his jubilant teammates piled onto him in the end zone.
Giordani’s mother, Peggy, insisted it was the holy water with which she and others prayed that blessed the team to win the school’s first CIF championship.
At team dinners the night before games, she would invite all comers to splash the holy water.
“I figured it couldn’t hurt,” she said, and admitted knowing little to nothing about football. “It was a group thing, but I just happened to be the person with the holy water, and they didn’t seem to mind.”
In addition to Johns, the Tars’ defense featured McDonough, Freeman and Matt Riggle as linebackers, and Dan Berger, Scott Sandstrom, Johnson and Eadie in the secondary. Johns, Sky Conway, James “Big Country” Moureaux, Jack Hogan and Tom Eaton helped patrol a solid defensive line.
Two-way standout Dan Pulido, receiver Jon Benzinger and linemen Moises Piedra, Sherif Pepic and Brandon Hetrick provided noteworthy plays.
The Sailors, who had eight come-from-behind wins, were one of the most overachieving teams ever assembled.
Newport Harbor is the ninth-oldest high school in Orange County and opened its doors in 1930.
Older county schools such as Anaheim, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and Brea-Olinda experienced football success and championships, but the Tars were still seeking their first CIF title in ’94.
Richard Dunn, a longtime sportswriter, writes the Dunn Deal column regularly for The Orange County Register’s weekly, The Coastal Current North.
