Remember When: August 25, 2009

Football at Anderson High School started in 1938, when it was 29 years old.

Although the school participated in track, tennis, basketball and baseball, football started late because the school did not have a football field, team equipment, uniforms or money to purchase them.

In 1936, then-Principal Byron McCormick worked with Chico State College and obtained enough used football uniforms to outfit two teams. However, the Aurora yearbook did not include a team picture until 1938.

Initially, games were played at nearby schools. Even so, the Anderson Cubs brought home their first Sacramento Valley Football Championship in 1940.

With that success, the community and school officials were pressured to provide a home field for practice and home games.

School officials bought 10 acres adjoining campus and turf was finally planted in the spring of 1941, just as the nation was thinking seriously about the growing spread of war in Europe as well as in Asia.

Prizes were given to students who brought in the most turf. One girl brought in 300 pounds to win. The first football played at home was in the fall of 1941.

Many young men volunteered for military service during World War II so there were fewer championship seasons then.

Following the end of hostilities in 1946, however, the nation quickly returned to normal activities.

For the first time since 1940, the 1946 Anderson Cubs won the Sacramento Valley Football Championship. Winning the championship was made possible, in large part, by faithful rooters of Anderson High.

Rooters were taken to away games in buses and crowded the home grandstands.

In those days, Anderson played six-man football. The team roster listed 16 players: Gene Kegg, Richard Heath, Mickey Sixkiller, Shelton Meyer, Bill Woodman, Robert Dick, Vollie Bisnet, Ted Mollring, Tom Mollring, Albert Burnham, Don Dawson, Gordon Williams, Roy Bisnet, Charles Moss and Larry Ferral.

Coach "Flea" Bailey led the team. In the nine games played during the 1946 season, the Cubs rolled up an impressive total of 283 points against their opponents' combined scores of 33 points.

High schools competed against included Trinity, Durham, Hamilton City and Los Molinos to win their division.

The Anderson Cubs then played Pierce High School of Arbuckle for the northern California championship.

The game was played at Anderson High and the entire student body plus many townspeople turned out to cheer the team to victory. The final score of that hard fought game was 32-14.

Again in 1947 the team won the Northern California High School Athletic League championship under the direction of Coach "Flea"Bailey, assisted by the great support from local families and the Go Blue Rooters Club.

They played Maxwell High on the football field in William and won the game with a score of 40-12.

The team still consisted of 16 members, even though Mickey Sixkiller, Bill Woodman, Roy Bisnett, Ted Mollring and Don Dawson graduated in 1946. New to the Cubs' varsity squad in 1947 were George Moore, Dick McNulty, Doug Fleming, Leslie Wimmer, Rodney Killinsworth, Bob Cotter and Wilbur Krumwide.

This game in 1947 was the last year for the six-man football teams in Anderson. Eleven-man team play started at Anderson High in 1948 and that has been the standard ever since.

Mana Davis also contributed to this report.