Members of the special 1956 Gilroy High football team get a
chance to relive the past at reunion
There was always something special about the Gilroy High School class of 1956.
For one thing, four of its members are GHS Hall of Fame members. Also, they were members of the first Mustangs’ team in more than 30 years to beat old Hollister High in 1955.
It’s more than that, though. There was a special bond shared by Jim Fahey, Ron Leonti, Bob Harrison and Bob Mazzuca, four standouts on Mustangs’ football teams that went 24-7. That bond still exists today.
And Saturday will be a day to “live in the past,” to remember the good times and to check up on the progress of classmates.
Gilroy High School was much smaller then. Leonti remembers there were 125 graduates in his class and 580 in the school at the time.
“I hate to say it, but it seems like just the other day,” Mazzuca said during a recent conversation from his home in Santa Cruz, where he has resided for more than 30 years. “We had such a great group of guys. We went to Brownell Junior High together. We played legion ball together and practiced together at the old rodeo grounds. We played basketball for Bob Hagen and baseball for Art Baxter.”
Notice that in those days athletes didn’t just play for themselves, which is probably why they still keep in contact after more than 50 years. Mazzuca recently ran into Burt, who lives in Auburn, at Paso Tiempo Golf Course. Burt went from GHS to Los Altos where he became one of the most successful coaches in the state.
Mazzuca played football and baseball at Stockton College as well as University of the Pacific, from where he graduated in 1960. He taught and coached at Bellarmine Prep, San Jose City College and De Anza College. His daughter, Dodie Mazzuca-Gregory, was an LPGA Tour player for several years.
Harrison signed a professional contract with the old Los Angeles Chargers of the American Football League. The Raiders traded for him. Harrison was one of the last cuts and spent his working life in the Defense industry.
Ask him for a memory, and he instictively answers about one of the rare Mustang losses, during his senior year.
“Carmel beat us 13-0, or we would have been undefeated,” said Harrison during a recent conversation from his home at Lake Almanor. “We had a touchdown called back on a holding call against me. I never got called for holding until college.”
Leonti remembers that they watched film and could see that Harrison was clearly not holding, but it was that type of game.
“Our next game, I think, was against Live Oak, and as I recall we beat them 65-0 or something like that,” Harrison said. “We were a very upset team (after playing Carmel).”
They were a close-knit team that played and won championships at Brownell before coming to Gilroy. As Harrison recalls, six of 11 starters from his class started as sophomores. Nine started as juniors.
“We were a very dominant class,” Harrison said.
Leonti went from GHS to Hartnell and then to Fresno State. He played quarterback for one year at Fresno Statebefore throwing out his arm. Fahey was drafted into the Army, went to Officer Candidate School and Airborne training while serving for a year in Korea. He also played quarterback on the division football team, but separated both shoulders.
He coached at California high schools in Campbell, Piedmont Hills and Yerba Bueno, and then at St. Louis in Hawaii. After taking one year off while he substitute taught, Leonti resumed his coaching career at San Benito, Gilroy and Monte Vista Christian. He retired in 2002. Since then, he and his wife, Rose Leonti, have traveled throughout the country often doing Christian ministry work.
Fahey and Leonti became best friends, first meeting through Cub Scouts. Fahey remembers their first meeting, squeezing into the backseat of a car.
“He introduced himself to me and I started slugging him,” Fahey said, chuckling at the memory. “Ron said you know you’re hitting me. He asked why. I told him because I wanted to. But we became fast friends.”
They have a bond that exists today. Their lives have been intertwined in so many different ways with each helping the other out through bouts with death, divorce and in Leonti’s case, alcoholism. Also, it was Leonti who talked Fahey into taking the Cal Poly scholarship. Fahey turned to Christianity in the late 1970s. Leonti followed in the early 1980s.
“We talk once, twice a week on the telephone,” Leonti said.
Fahey, Harrison and Julian Aguilar, another Gilroy High graduate who was a year younger, were all members of the undefeated Gavilan College team in 1958 that was ranked third in the nation.
It was a special group who will get the chance to relive a wonderful time in their lives.
