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Newport Football loves their country and the American Flag which as been on the team’s helmet since 1970.
Read below the story of *how* the flag became the Newport Football helmet decal.
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American flag replaced Popeye the Sailor Man cartoon cutout in 1970 on Newport Harbor football helmets.
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Before his career as a Hollywood actor and professional football player, former Newport Harbor High quarterback Alvin White played a significant role in the option for the Sailors, as the program switched to the American flag decal on their helmets instead of a cartoon cutout of Popeye the Sailor Man.
After a workout on a beautiful, warm summer day in 1970, White and a group of his buddies on the Harbor football team, which included Grant Gelker and future Hall of Fame Midget Car racer Ron “Sleepy” Tripp, saw an American flag decal in a Balboa Island gift shop and were convinced it would be a good idea to feature on their football helmets.
“It was kind of a patriotic statement,” White said. “It was the early ’70s and Vietnam was still going on. It was a positive. It was something I think we needed at the time, because of all the (war) protests and people burning American flags. So it was kind of our stand to tell people, ‘Hey, it’s not that bad to be an American.’”
White and his teammates needed to get the idea past first-year Newport Coach Ernie Johnson, who only lasted one year as the Sailors’ coach, but Newport Harbor won its first Sunset League championship in 28 years and established a standard for winning in the Long Grey Line. Johnson was a former military man and gave his blessing on the American flag decal, which has been on the Sailors’ helmets ever since.
“Ernie had been at (El Rancho High in Pico Rivera) and coached them (to great success), then he took a bunch of surfer kids and taught us how to play football,” White said. “After (1970), it was like a (winning) tradition started, because for the next few years, (quarterback Steve) Bukich’s teams went to the (CIF-Southern Section) playoffs, and a whole bunch of Newport Harbor teams have been winning since. It was like the beginning of things.”
Ironically, after his one year at Harbor, Johnson went on to coach at Cerritos College, where his quarterback was Jeff Brinkley, the Sailors’ future legendary coach of 32 years.
White played 11 years of professional and semipro football after an outstanding collegiate career at Orange Coast College and Oregon State, and one of his stops included the Southern California Sun in the World Football League.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound White, who also played in the Canadian Football League, United States Football League and in the NFL with the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints, hopped around so much in his playing career that his teammates called him “grasshopper.”
White also played bit parts in football-themed movies “North Dallas Forty,” “Two Minute Warning,” “Semi-Tough,” and “The Best of Times.”
As for the American flag, White and other Tars on the 1970 team admitted it was also time to end the silly-looking cartoon figure of Popeye the Sailor Man on the helmets. Five decades later, most of the 2019 Sailors probably don’t even know who Popeye is, but Old Glory still reigns.
– Richard Dunn