This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.
The most obvious choices for No. 14:
Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles Dodgers; Anaheim Angels manager
Gil Hodges, Los Angeles Dodgers
Sam Darnold, USC football
Johan Cruyff, Los Angeles Aztecs
Drew Olson, UCLA football
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 14:
Robbie Rogers: Los Angeles Galaxy
Tom Ramsey: UCLA football
Justin Williams: Los Angeles Kings
Edson Buddle: Los Angeles Galaxy
Sam Perkins: Los Angeles Lakers
Tina Thompson: USC women’s basketball
Rick Adelman: Loyola University men’s basketball
Lou “The Mad Russian” Novikoff: Los Angeles Angels PCL baseball
The most interesting story for No. 14:
Ted Tollner, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo football quarterback (1958 to 1961), USC head football coach (1983 to 1986)
Southern California map pinpoints:
San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles (Coliseum), Anaheim
Author’s note: San Luis Obispo is commonly considered part of Southern California due to its proximity to Los Angeles. Geographically, it falls within the state’s Central Coast region. For our purposes, it works as a SoCal story.
Survive and advance was one way to summarize Ted Tollner’s career as a college and NFL football coach for more than 30 years of his life.
Four of them most notably came when he stepped up and into the legendary lineage of USC’s head man. In his time as the successor to John Robinson between 1984 and ’86, a 26-20-1 record and three bowl appearances, most notable winning the 1985 Rose Bowl in his second season after clinching the Pac-10 title with a 7-1 mark, highlighted his resume before he re-emerged for eight seasons at San Diego State.
Two of his 15 years as an NFL assistant were as the quarterbacks coach for Chuck Knox’s Los Angeles Rams. As the team planted itself in Anaheim, and Jim Everett was Tollner’s main pupil, the teams were hardly spectacular, spurting to 6-10 and 5-11 finishes in 1992 and ’93.
Yet anytime Tollner needed a tolerant reminder that just being on the sidelines and watching a scoreboard clock ticking down was a blessing, even if his left ankle was starting to get a little cranky, he could flash back the time in his life when he was the All-Conference quarterback at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, wearing No. 14.
On a Saturday afternoon, Oct. 29, 1960, Tollner had perhaps his most notable game when he threw for a career-best and school-record 246 yards. It was a bit of an afterthought in that his team list, 50-6 loss, at No. 4 Bowling Green, dropping the Mustangs to 1-5.
That evening, as Tollner and his teammates were wearily boarding a plane to fly back home, something terrible happened.
Their aircraft wrecked on takeoff out of Toledo, Ohio, flipping over and bursting into flames.
It was the first airline crash involving a U.S. sports team.
Of the 22 who died, 16 were Tollner’s teammates. They were in the front of the plane. Tollner was one of 26 survivors, because he agreed to switch seats at the last minute and was sitting in the back.
“Anytime I’m feeling sorry for myself, whether it’s from getting fired or losing a game, (the tragedy) has been my strength,” Tollner would say again and again. “You’re here for whatever reason and getting an opportunity to do something good. I’ve drawn strength from it — for whatever reason you’re spared, so make it a positive thing.”
The background
From 1952 to 1959, Cal Poly’s football team combined to post a 59-18 record, including 9-0 in ’53. Tom Klosterman, the older brother of Loyola quarterback great Don Klosterman, and future San Diego Chargers GM Bobby Beathard, out of El Segundo High and El Camino College, were the dual quarterbacks for the Mustangs before Ted Tollner arrive.
Prior to 1960, most of the team’s successes were due to an experienced senior class. Tollner was part of a new wave of underclass talent coming in from a 6-3 team in ’59.
In the 45 years of Cal Poly’s football program, one other element was of interest: It had never traveled very far East to play an opponent before deciding it was worth going to Ohio to face Bowling Green, coming off the 1959 small college national championship and led by talented receivers Bernie Casey — a future NFL player with the Los Angeles Rams and later a Hollywood actor.
Poly’s 44-point loss that late October day in 1960 didn’t sit well — its only score was a 60-yard punt return. But the upside is it might provide experience for the team’s return tor conference play, which would resume with a homecoming game against Cal State L.A. in early November.
A twin-engine Curtiss C-46 passenger plane owned by a company called Arctic-Pacific was set to leave at 8 p.m., but was already two hours behind schedule for what would be an 11 ½-hour flight with stops in Kansas City and Albuquerque before going to Santa Maria. The plane just flew the Youngstown football team back from Connecticut after its game and was refueling.
Tollner took a seat in the front part of the plane. Curtis Hill, Tollner’s favorite receiver who was a three-year starter and led the team in 1960 with 447 yards receiving and three touchdowns, remembered how ill he had been on the flight East to Toledo and didn’t want it to happen again — he asked Tollner if he could switch seats because, it he sat closer to the front, he would cut down on feeling the plane wobbling. Tollner obliged.
Bowling Green’s Casey recalled later meeting up with Hill after the game at the campus’ student union building, as some Cal Poly players went to Halloween parties at campus sororities.
“We were talking about California (because) it had such a mystique for me, being raised in Ohio,” Casey said. “We were talking about the East-West Shrine game. I told him that maybe I’d see him out there.”
Cal Poly head coach Roy Hughes got confirmation from the pilot it was OK to take off despite reservations about the visibility. Someone on the plane was heard to yell, “Let’s give it the old college try.”
At 10:01 p.m. the plane headed down the runway. During the initial climb, it lost control as the dense fog from Lake Erie that rolled in earlier made it harder to see. The plane rose to about 100 feet above the runway, was airborne for about 30 seconds, then it started shaking and vibrating uncontrollably.
“I was sitting right on the left wing and you could just tell,” Tollner said. “The engine sputtered and then it just stopped. … I knew we were going to go down. You just kind of tucked up into a ball and covered your head. The next thing you know, there was a crash.”
The plane, once used by the military as a transporter in World War II, had stalled and eventually landed in an orchard about a mile from the runway. It split in two parts. All of those in the front part of the plane — including Hill, who traded seats with Tollner — perished. Tollner was alive and strapped in his seat, but his left foot, under the seat in front of him, was turned backward, caught in a foot rest.
The plane burst into flames a few moments later.
“It was chaos,” Tollner said.
Once he regained consciousness, Tollner was told that he went into shock. His first instinct was to get up and help his teammates but “I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t walk,” he said. “A teammate, Carl Bowser, unstrapped me, and he and Dick McBride dragged me away from the burning plane. That’s how I got away.”
“I dragged Ted out of the sucker, ” Bowser said. “He was laying there.”
Of the 26 who survived with Tollner, 18 were his teammates. There was also the team physician, all four coaches and a flight attendant. One of the surviving coaches, Walt Williamson, went on to become the athletic director at Cal State Los Angeles.
Ray Porras, a 27-year-old running back who grew up in East L.A. and had a wife with four children, was one of the 22 who died. Also perishing were Wayne Sorenson and Guy Hennigan, transfers from L.A. Harbor College. That’s also the school where student manager Wendell Miner came to Cal Poly from and would not make it out alive.
The fog hindered ambulances trying to reach the crash site and airport 20 miles east of Toledo. News reports were sketchy. All were feared dead. That is what the first bulletin said the news came, breaking into the “Ed Sullivan Show,” which Tollner’s wife, Barbara, was watching on television at home in San Luis Obispo. She was with their young daughter, Linda.
Hours later, word came of survivors, and a nurse from Toledo’s Mercy Hospital phoned Tollner’s wife to confirm that he was among them.
After the crash, a United Press International photographer caught up to Barbara and Linda Tollner at their home and distributed an image to news service clients.
At 3:30 a.m. Pacific Time, Cal Poly school journalism teacher Robert Kennedy and dean of students Everett Chandler and Clyde Fisher began telephoning the parents and wives to inform them of those were were gone.
“It was one of the most nightmarish, heartrending tasks I’ve ever attempted,” Kennedy later recalled. “The worst part of it was calling the parents, most of whom didn’t know there was a wreck.”
The aftermath
John Madden, the future Hall of Fame NFL coach and broadcaster, had played at Cal Poly in 1957 and ’58 with Beathard. Madden went to the campus that Sunday morning to console friends and family returning from the crash.
Over time, stories spread that Madden was on the plane, or he missed the flight, and that all triggered his aversion to flying.
“Neither one is true,” Madden would say. “I didn’t like getting on planes before that. I got claustrophobic, and it got worse over the years.”
The homecoming rally turned into a wake in the main campus gym on Halloween. The final three games of the 1960 season were canceled.
Cal Poly did not play another game outside of California for nine years following the crash. It did not play another game east of the Rocky Mountains until 1978, an NCAA Division II playoff loss in North Carolina.
Shaken by the crash, Bowling Green decided to avoid air travel and instead took a train to its next road game — a 2 ½-day ride to play Texas Western in El Paso.
“Oct. 29, 1960, took a toll on a lot of us,” Tollner told the Toledo Blade in 2002, prior to a Cal Poly game at the University of Toledo. “It’s a day none of us will ever forget.”
There was never talk of cancelling the Cal Poly football program in 1961. Tollner wanted to keep playing despite his badly dislocated ankle that somehow was healthy enough to play on. Doctors initially doubted it could be saved because of a lack of blood supply and avoided fusing it so he could keep mobility.
Head coach Roy Hughes, who compiled a 73-37-1 record in 12 seasons before leaving after the 1961 campaign, was in a Toledo hospital for nine days with scalp wounds and major damage to his thigh and knee after the crash. He tried to rally the surviving players together — led by Tollner, one of 10 survivors who came back to play in 1961.
“The program went downhill after the crash,” Hughes said years later. “Kids didn’t want to come here. Who could blame them? We were the school that had the crash.
“One of the most heartbreaking, yet also the most heartwarming, sides of the story was the ’61 team. It was so hard for some of them to come back. I used to brag about my ’53 Cal Poly team because it was 9-0, but those ’61 guys went 5-3 on courage you wouldn’t believe.
“Ted Tollner, my quarterback, was all wired together. Roy Scialabba was all crippled up and had no business in a football uniform, but you couldn’t keep ’em away. I was so proud of those survivors who came back.”
Clark Tuthill, a defensive back from Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach, had played at Los Angeles Harbor College and transferred to Cal Poly but was a redshirt in 1960 and not on the team flight.
“Guys like Ted Tollner … were badly banged up in that wreck and they were back playing football the next year,” said Tuthill. “That was pretty incredible, really incredible, and the fact that Ted even played was miraculous. That guy, you talk about a guy coming back from being really badly injured, that was amazing.”
The ’61 Mustangs finished 4-4, including 3-2 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association for Hughes’ final year. Among their wins were at San Fernando Valley State (43-8 at Monroe High I North Hills) vs. Long Beach State (21-14 at home) and at Cal State L.A. (40-13). Wayne Maples, a fullback on that ’61 team, had been in the program starting as a freshman in 1959 but took the fall 1960 semester off to work and missed the tragic flight. He would graduate with an aeronautics engineer degree in 1963, get a masters degree in math at USC, relocate in Hawthorne with his wife, Darleen, who he met at the school, and start a family.
Tollner, who passed for 965 yards and six touchdowns in six games in 1960, completed his Mustang career in 1961 with 2,244 passing yards and 20 TDs. He completed 49 percent of his throws — 158 of 323.
Tollner had to learn to live with that survivors’ guilt — as did so many others.
“A lot of us had rough edges after the crash,” Bowser later explained. “We were raising too much hell, living a life of looseness, partying as if we figured what the heck, we might die the next day.”
On Thanksgiving Day, 1961, Tollner was suited up in his Cal Poly uniform and in the Los Angeles Coliseum, but not to play a game.
A Thanksgiving Day game called the Mercy Bowl was established to honor the team and raise money for those in need from the crash. More than 33,000 attended to watch CCAA champion Fresno State face Bowling Green. The No. 3 ranked Bulldogs won easily, 36-6.
Before the contest, Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote about why the Mercy Bowl was important: “It is the obligation of all of us interested in athletics. I can think of no better way to give thanks on that day that we are here and healthy, than to contribute to those who are alone with only memories on that day.”
Every June, those survivors who able to make it meet up at the home of former teammate Rich Max, the center on the ’59 team.
During a story in the San Luis Obispo Tribune on the 40th anniversary of the crash in 2000, team member Bill Dauphin, a sophomore reserve tackle making his first plane trip, recalled that he sat near the center of the aircraft. Eight teammates on either side of him were killed. Dauphin was found some 30 feet north of the tail section, torn out of his seat and suffering from a dislocated hip, a shoulder injury and burns. He was unconscious nine to 11 days, he was told. He said what returned a sense of normalcy to his life was playing football the next year.
“That was such a huge healing thing for me, just to have the team and be out there on the field,” he said. “I think of someone like Ted Tollner, limping back to the huddle because of (crash injuries). That was awful to see, but he was a hero to me and a lot of those guys.”
Tollner, who got his bachelors degree in physical education in 1962 and a masters degree in education in ’65 at Cal Poly, was drawn to coaching after his classwork was finished.
First he coached in high school, then junior college, in his native San Francisco Bay area. He was brought in as the San Diego State offensive coordinator from 1973 to 1980, and became the highly regarded quarterbacks coach at Brigham Young in 1981 under LaVell Edwards, where the team finished 11-2 and was ranked No.13 with freshman quarterback Robbie Bosco.
A year after becoming John Robinson’s offensive coordinator in 1982, Tollner was promoted to head coach when Robinson stepped down to take a USC administrator role. The fact Robinson and Madden were close childhood friends, and Madden was well award of Tollner’s Poly playing days couldn’t have hurt Tollner’s attraction to Robinson while at USC.
While Tollner’s first season with the No. 9 ranked Trojans would end 4-6-1 (4-3 in the Pac-10), starting with a 19-19 tie against No. 18 Florida, the next season was highlighted by an upset over No. 1 Washington on Nov. 10, 1984. Despite losing to UCLA and Notre Dame in back-to-back-weeks, the Trojans finished with a No. 10 ranking in the AP poll after a 20-17 victory against then-No. 6 Ohio State in the 1985 Rose Bowl. The win was orchestrated by quarterback Tim Green, who Tollner nurtured along following the injury to starter Sean Salisbury.
Four seasons of a combined 1-7 record against rivals UCLA and Notre Dame were the penalty flags of his tenure through 1986. Tollner would later log in eight seasons as the San Diego State head coach, posting a 43-48 mark from 1994 to 2001.
“In coaching, you can get awfully hung up on a season not going right, the stress and the criticism, especially if you’re a head coach, ” Tollner said in 2003. “It can become extremely stressful. If you let it get to you, you start feeling sorry for yourself, and you can’t do that. “(The plane crash) helped get me through those times, whether it was at SC or different jobs where more of the vocal criticism goes to you.”
The Coliseum plaque dedicated to the Mercy Bowl in 1961 was something Tollner could visit while he was coaching at USC. He said the memory was never too far away.
“There are so many bowls now, I have trouble keeping track of all of them, and I’m in the business,” Tollner said in 2008. “I’ve been lucky and gotten to coach at a lot of bowl games. Head coach at a Rose Bowl win. But I don’t think any of them were any more meaningful than the Mercy Bowl.”
When Tollner was inducted into the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Athletics Hall of Fame in 1989, it noted his four seasons as a pitcher on the Mustangs’ baseball team, representing the USA team in the 1962 Pan American games.
The entire 1960 football team was inducted in the school’s Hall in 2006, on the event’s 46th anniversary. The next day, at a Cal Poly home game against Southern Utah, the football field was dedicated as Mustang Memorial Field, with former players and members of the crash victims’ families at midfield.
Tollner was there. Even as his ankle was acting up.
“I said, ‘What’s arthritis?’ You really don’t know, “ Tollner told the San Luis Obispo Tribune in 2003. “So I get a little bit. It swells up on me a lot when I’m on it. But it’s all relative. When I see some of the friends I have that are still alive, their burden of what they’ve had to carry injury-wise is far more serious.”
In 2008, when asked again about the crash, Tollner reflected in a story by the Associated Press:
“A lot of things go through your mind when you get an extra bonus of 48 years to live. Why me? Why not them? You don’t know why. You think about those things when you’ve been spared.”
Tollner’s fears of flying have faded but still return on occasion.
In 2010, when he was an assistant with the Oakland Raiders coming back after a charter flight from a win at Denver, air turbulence bothered him.
“Any kind of similar weather to that day,” the then 70-year-old Tollner told the Los Angeles Times on the crash’s 50th anniversary. “Any kind of inclement weather, and something in my body reacts to that. I get real uptight about it.”
Holidays, such as Thanksgiving, also cause him to reflect. Especially with the Mercy Bowl anniversary every year.
“Anybody that’s been in any kind of accident or something where people didn’t survive, you reflect on the really important things in your life, ” said Tollner, who in June 2024 received an honorary doctor of humane letters during the Cal Poly College of Science and Mathematics ceremony. “That’s the biggest thing that’s come out of it for me. Don’t dwell on anything negative that has happened. Do something productive because of the good fortune that you are still here.”
Who else wore No. 14 in SoCal sports history? Make a case for:
Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles Dodgers catcher (1980 to 1992), Dodgers coach (1997 to 1998), Anaheim Angels/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels manager (2000 to 2018):
Best known: The Dodgers’ all-time leader in games caught (1,395), Scioscia locked down the starting role in ’82 as a fearless defender of the plate after sharing the role with Steve Yeager. Scioscia’s 1988 playoff heroics also played into his Dodger lore, including a ninth-inning, game-tying home run off the New York Mets’ Dwight Gooden in Game 4 of the NLCS, a game the Dodgers won in extra innings to stay alive. After several seasons as a coach, Scioscia was hired away to be the Angels’ manager, and he took them to their only World Series title as a wild card team in 2002. Scioscia became the first manager to reach the playoffs in six of his first ten seasons and drew two AL Manager of the Year Awards (’02 and ’09) to go with 1,650 regular-season wins and a 21-27 post-season record. And only 47 ejections.
Not well known: Scioscia came up as a rookie with Fernando Valenzuela and the two combined 239 times as a batter mate — second in the franchise history after the 283 times Don Drysdale teamed with John Roseboro.
Gil Hodges, Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman (1958 to 1961):
Best known: The reason the Dodgers finally retired No. 14 came after his 2022 election into the Baseball Hall of Fame, which was more than 60 years after he last played for the team. Hodges’ first 14 years were in Brooklyn — starting as catcher wearing No. 4 in 1943, followed by two years in the Marines in World War II, then back for Jackie Robinson’s arrival in ’47. Hodges’ switch to No. 14 came when rookie Duke Snider was given No. 4 in 1947, and Hodges moved from catcher to first base, the position where Robinson had debuted. Robinson was now at second, and Roy Campanella arrived in ’48 to do the catching. For his four years playing in Los Angeles, Hodges was a key part of the ’59 World Series team, hitting .340 in June with seven homers and 23 RBI in 30 games. On the Dodgers’ franchise list, Hodges’ 2,006 games played (fourth best), 361 homers (second best) and 1,274 RBIs (second best) remain near the top. At the time he retired, no other right-handed NL batter had more home runs than him in the game’s history with his 370.
Not well remembered: When MLB gave out its first Gold Glove Awards in 1957, a combination of both NL and AL players, Hodges was the first baseman, and he received the honor as the NL player in ’58 and ’59 when the teams were chosen by leagues.
Sam Darnold, USC football quarterback (2015 to 2017):
Best remembered: The 6-foot-3 standout from San Clemente High put up a 20-4 record as a starter, giving the job in Week 4 of his freshman year and leading the team to a 9-1 finish. He set a freshman record with 26 touchdown passes and 230 yards rushing. His combined redshirt freshman and sophomore seasons turned out to produce 7,229 yards passing and 57 touchdowns against 22 interceptions for a 153.7 QB rating. Darnold threw for 453 yards (33 of 53) and five touchdowns in USC’s 52-49 win over Penn State in the 2017 Rose Bowl. As a redshirt sophomore and early Heisman favorite, Darnold had a tough start but brought the Trojans through the Pac-12 Conference championship game with a 31-28 win over Stanford (as the game MVP), and that sent them to the Cotton Bowl. After an up-and-down time in the NFL, Darnold became the first USC quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl when he did it with Seattle in 2026.
Not well remembered: When Darnold arrived at USC so unheralded, recruited as a linebacker and sitting out the 2015 season as a third-string QB, he said he was just handed jersey No. 14 because he wasn’t well-known enough name to demand a number like some USC freshmen do every year. “I just took the number they gave me,” Darnold said. “I never really thought it. It’s not something I really think about. I didn’t care what number I wore.” Darnold went to the New York Jets as the NFL’s No. 3 pick overall in 2017.
Tina Thompson, USC women’s basketball forward (1994 to 1997):
Best known: The Morningside High teammate of Lisa Leslie followed her to USC, eventually to the WNBA Sparks, and into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In high school, she scored over 1,500 points and had 1,000 rebounds. In four years at USC she averaged nearly 20 points and 10 rebounds a game and was all-conference first team three seasons in a row. She became the first pick overall in the WNBA draft of 1997, led Houston to four titles, won two Olympic gold medals and became the league’s all time leading scorer through 2014, also playing three seasons for the Los Angeles Sparks (wearing No. 32) from 2009 to 2011. In 2019, USC retired her No. 14 jersey.
Tom Ramsey, UCLA football quarterback (1979 to 1982); USFL Los Angeles Express quarterback (1983 to 1984):
Best known: The three-year starter at Kennedy High as the headline rival to Granada Hills’ John Elway, Ramsey was All-City as a senior and completed 65 percent of his passes. At UCLA, he started as a freshman, led the nation in passing efficiency as a senior, broke the school total-offense record held by Heisman Trophy winner Gary Beban, and was co-MVP of the 1983 Rose Bowl after a 24-14 win over Michigan. He finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy voting. His career mark of 31-13-2 as well as breaking season and career marks at the school to that point earned him induction into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998. Opting for the new USFL to play for the hometown Express, Ramsey was actually a fifth-round draft pick by the team, well behind Dan Marino. When Marino went to the NFL, Ramsey came aboard with a four-year contract and threw for 1,975 yards and 14 touchdowns as a rookie. He was called the “future of the franchise” by his coach, Hugh Campbell, who didn’t last more than a season. In his second season with the Express, Ramsey was beaten out of the starting job by rookie Frank Suerer, but came off the bench to pull out a victory in the third game. The next day, the Express made quarterback Steve Young an instant millionaire, and Ramsey was traded to the Oakland Invaders. He threw for 2,487 yards in his USFL career, completing 214 of 398 passes with 15 touchdowns and 21 interceptions.
Not well remembered: In the famous 1983 NFL Draft that saw future Hall of Fame quarterbacks such as Elway, Dan Marino and Jim Kelly taken, Ramsey was the 11 QB taken, in the 10th round by New England. Ramsey went to New England in 1986 for three seasons behind Steve Grogan, Tony Eason, Doug Flutie, and to Indianapolis for 1989 behind Jack Trudeau and Chris Chandler, starting five of 28 games.
Drew Olson, UCLA football quarterback (2002 to 2005):
Best known: Eighth in the Heisman voting as a senior, Olsen had 34 of his 67 career TD passes in his final year when he also threw for 3,198 yards with just six interceptions. UCLA’s 10-2 finish led to a Sun Bowl apperance and a win after the Bruins came back with a 22-point rally. When he was finished at UCLA, he was second all-time for passing yards (8,532), completions (664) and touchdowns (67).
Not well remembered: Olson broke Cade McNown’s school record with a six TD game against Oregon State.
Justin Williams, Los Angeles Kings right wing (2008-09 to 2014-15):
Best known: “His dressing-room nickname with teammates was ‘Stick.’ The rest of the world called him ‘Mr. Game 7’,” said the lede of a story by the Athletic on Williams in 2022 when he was in the Carolina Hurricanes’ administration. Williams, who as a player is 7-0 with seven goals and an NHL-record 14 points during the playoff Game 7s he played his career, is the reason many credit for the Kings’ Stanley Cup wins in 2012 and 2014. Acquired from Carolina in March of 2009, Williams was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner after the 2014 title, leading all players with seven points in the Final against the New York Rangers, including a dramatic overtime goal in Game 1. For the ’14 postseason, Williams had nine goals and 16 assists, including the Kings’ first goal early in the Game 6 Final clincher. To get to that position, Williams had two goals and three assists in the Kings’ three Game 7 victories during their run to the Final. Williams also had a pair of two-goal games when the Kings faced elimination in the first round against San Jose, becoming the fourth team in NHL history to rally from a 3-0 series deficit.
Lorenzo Mata-Real, UCLA basketball center (2004-05 to 2007-08): From South Gate High, Mata came in a Bruins recruiting class with Jordan Farmar, Josh Shipp and Aaron Afflao to get to back-to-back Final Four appearances in 2006 and ’07. Mata added his mother’s last name (Real) to his jersey during his senior season.
Edson Buddle, Los Angeles Galaxy forward (2007 to 2010, 2012, 2015): The Galaxy already had Carlos Ruiz, Landon Donovan and Alan Gordon as attacking forwards, plus David Beckham, when the 25-year-old Buddle started the 2008 season, but he became a celebrated scorer himself, landing two hat tricks in Week 8 and Week 12. By 2010, Buddle was an important part of the Western Conference title, winning team MVP, the golden boot and Humanitarian of the Year. Circling back to L.A. after a year in Germany, he only started 10 games for the Galaxy and scored three goals, and was traded to Colorado. He came back a third time in ’05 to play 12 games without a goal or assist.
Have you heard this story:
Johan Cruyff, Los Angeles Aztecs forward/attacking midfielder (1979):
Captain of the Dutch team that went to the 1974 World Cup final seemed to be all but retired from the game at age 31 by 1978, his resume complete by having played as a professional with Ajax (1964 to ’73, winning three European Cup titles) and Barcelona (1973 to ’78, winning La Liga and the Ballon d’Oro three times). The story goes that when Cruyff blew through all his money and became bankrupt as a businessman — much of it with a insolvent pig farm — he sought to cash in on his fame in America and the fledgling North American Soccer League. Pele had just finished a three-season run with the New York Cosmos, but Cruyff couldn’t get a deal done with that team. He checked in with Los Angeles and saw $500,000 waiting for him. “The Cosmos drew a lot of fans with Pele,” he said at the time. “Even after he left, they drew a lot of fans. So I thought my job should be on this (West) coast.” Sure, Cruyff claimed he could have made much more returning to Barcelona — he already turned down a $3 million offer to play there in the 1978-79 season, and Barca was now allegedly offering him more than $2 million to come back. Part of the deal with the Aztecs was being reunited with his coach, Rinus Michels. Cruyff’s one and only year with the Aztecs was playing home games at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. In his first game, supposedly jetlagged by the long trip and nine-hour time difference, Cruyff scored twice in his first seven minutes and also gave an assist before coming off. He would net 14 goals and 16 assists, lead his 18-12 team to the conference semifinals, and emerged as the league’s Most Valuable Player.
As Aztecs owner Alan Rothenberg recalled to the Washington Post: “Johan had the intensity of the best kind of development worker. He was willing to drive hours to talk about soccer for 10 minutes on TV, for nothing.” When Rothenberg sold the team to a Mexican company that didn’t want to pay Cruyff and instead wanted to invest in Mexican stars, Cruyff ventured to Washington D.C.’s NASL team. In the 2025 book, “The Soccer 100: The Story of the Greatest Players in History,” Cruyff is listed at No. 4, behind Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona and Pele. Cryuff died at 68 in 2016.
Robbie Rogers, Los Angeles Galaxy fullback (2013 to 2017):
The first openly gay man to compete in a North American pro sports league signed on with the Galaxy, a team close to the area he knew. Born in Rancho Palos Verdes and a two-time high school All American at Mater Dei in Santa Ana. He had already played four years in the MLS, leading the Columbus Crew to a title in 2008, played on the Home Depot Center field in Carson. As he was playing in England, Rogers announced on social media that not only would he retire at age 25 but … : “I’m a soccer player, I’m Christian, and I’m gay. Those are things that people might say wouldn’t go well together. But my family raised me to be an individual and to stand up for what I believe in.” He said his retirement came to avoid scrutiny in England, but deciding to come back play for the Galaxy, he was part of their 2014 MLS Cup title team. Rogers scored his first goal in 2015 on the Galaxy’s LGBT Pride Night and retired in 2017 because of injuries.
Lou “The Mad Russian, Novikoff, Los Angeles Angels outfielder (1939-40, 1945):
Before he was laid to rest at age 54 in 1970 in the City of Commerce’s Old Russian Molokan Cemetery, the lovable eccentric Novikoff was known for winning the Pacific Coast League’s Triple Crown in 1940 for the Angels — batting .363 with 41 home runs and 171 RBIs. He also had a ridiculous 259 hits for Jigger Statz’s 102-75 club — but Novikoff was second in PCL MVP voting. Born in Arizona as the seventh of 14 children, Novikoff grew up in Boyle Heights, where he and his brothers played semi-pro baseball under the alias “Neva.” Graduating from Roosevelt High in L.A., Novikoff’s diamond introduction was as a softball star, making his fast-pitch debut in a league in Torrance in 1933. Intermittently, he tried out for PCL teams — the Hollywood Stars in 1935 and the Angels in 1937, but he didn’t catch on, so he went back to playing softball in Huntington Beach and took on the “Mad Russian” nickname. By 1939, the Angels were interested and he was sent to various affiliates before hitting .452 in 36 games during several call-ups. He claimed The Sporting News’ Minor League Player of the Year that season. On and off with the Chicago Cubs, Novikoff was sent back and forth to the Angels as their PCL affiliate playing at L.A.’s Wrigley Field. Novikoff said said he feared chasing fly balls into the ivy-brick walls at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Before the 1945 season, Novikoff went back to the Angels and hit .310 in 101 games before he was inducted into the U.S. Army. Later, Novikoff went back to softball in Long Beach in the 1950s and would become the first inductee into the International Softball Congress’ Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the PCL Hall of Fame in 2015, living out his life with his family in South Gate.
Delino DeShields, Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman (1994 to 1996):
In the 2009 book by Doug Decatur, “Traded: Inside the Most Lopsided Trades in Baseball History,” there’s much ado about the Nov. 19, 1993 trade that sent Dodgers 21-year-old pitcher Pedro Martinez to Montreal for 25-year-old second baseman DeShields, who had been a lifetime .277 hitter. In L.A., he had a .241 average in 370 games with 114 stolen bases. In two post-season appearances in ’95 and ’96, he was 3 for 16 in five games and a .188 average. The Dodgers gave him $8.7 million for seasons produced a WAR of 1.7, 3.0 and minus-1.4. Known as “Disinterested DeShields,” he signed with St. Louis as a free agent for $1.6 million after the ’96 season and retired in 2001. Martinez, by contrast, lasted 18 seasons, won 219 games, led the league in ERA five times and in strike outs three times and went into the Hall of Fame. Deshields did spawn a son also named Delino DeShields, drafted by Houston, spent two seasons at single-A Lancaster, and came up with Texas for a seven-year MLB career.
Rick Adelman, Loyola University basketball guard (1965-66 to 1967-68):
Born in Lynwood and a standout at Pius X High School in Downey, Adelman gravitated to Loyola University (prior to its Loyola Marymount University name change). Under coach John Arndt, Adelman capped off the last of his three seasons as the West Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Year in 1968 when he averaged 21 points a game for the 19-6 Lions. Adleman, the team’s leading scorer as a junior and senior, was the third player in program history to finish a season with an average better than 20 points per game.
The San Diego Rockets took Adleman in the seventh round of the 1968 NBA Draft and he turned that into seven pro seasons — the longest career of anyone chosen beyond the fourth round. Adleman, most known for playing with Portland, became the Blazers’ coach to start a 23-season career in that capacity. He landed in the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2021 after winning 1,042 games as a head coach, leading Portland, Sacramento and Houston to the playoffs 16 times. Only four other coaches — Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and George Karl — logged more games and had a better winning percentage than Adelman (.582). In his first full season as a head coach, Adelman turned the franchise fortunes around and led Portland to 59 regular-season wins, then into the 1990 and ’92 NBA Finals. His Sacramento Kings were one win away from playing for the 2002 NBA title when, in Game 6 against the Lakers in the Western Conference finals, the Lakers were awarded 27 free throws in the fourth quarter — two more than the Kings shot all game — and escaped with a four-point win. The Lakers then won Game 7 at home to eliminate the Kings. Adelman, inducted into the LMU Hall of Fame in 1986, died just shy of his 80th birthday in June of 2026, having seen his son David become coach of the Denver Nuggets. NBA commissioner Adam Silver called him “a brilliant strategist and teacher of the game, and an even better person.”
Ward Bond, USC football tackle (1926 to 1931):
At 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds, Bond started as a lineman on USC’s first national title team of 1928. The bachelor’s degree in engineering he received at graduation in 1931 was hardly put to use — he had engineered a friendship with Trojan teammate Marion Morrison — aka, John Wayne — that drew him into a movie career. That started in 1929 when Bond (as “Midshipman Harold”) and the entire USC team was hired to appear the the early talkie “Salute,” a football film directed by John Ford about brothers who played on opposite sides of the Army-Navy football rivalry. Wayne was uncredited in the film in the role of “Midshipman Bill.”
Ford bonded with Bond and Wayne on the film and would direct them in several major projects. Bond appeared in 31 films released in 1935, and 23 more in 1939, rarely playing the lead (including Bert, the cop, in “It’s A Wonderful Life: in 1946) His most memorable role didn’t come until he was the lead in the television series “Wagon Train” from 1957 until his death in 1960.
We also have:
Brandon Ingram, Los Angeles Lakers small forward (2016-17 to 2018-19)
Sam Perkins, Los Angeles Lakers forward (1990-91 to 1992-93)
Shaun Livingston, Los Angeles Clippers forward (2004-05 to 2006-07)
Slava Medvedenko, Los Angeles Lakers forward (2000-01 to 2005-06)
Darrall Imhoff, Los Angeles Lakers center (1964-65 to 1967-68)
LeRoy Ellis, Los Angeles Lakers center (1971-72 to 1972-73). Also wore No. 25 for the Lakers from 1962-63 to 1965-66.
Brad Holland, UCLA basketball guard (1975-76 to 1978-79), Los Angeles Lakers (1979-80 to 1980-81).
Michael Holton, UCLA basketball guard (1979-80 to 1982-83)
Logan O’Hoppe, Los Angeles Angels catcher (2022 to 2026)
Kiki Hernandez, Los Angeles Dodgers infielder (2015 to 2020). Also wore No. 8 in 2023 to ’25
Dan Haren, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher (2014)
Giorgio Chiellini, LAFC defenseman (2022 to 2023)
Frank St. Marseille, Los Angeles Kings right wing/center (1972-73 to 19976-77). Also wore No. 11 in ’77.
Artimus Parker, USC football safety (1971 to 1973)
Anyone else worth nominating?
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