Author: fartheroffthewall

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — 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 highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 13:

= Wilt Chamberlain: Los Angeles Lakers
= Paul George: Los Angeles Clippers
= Cobi Jones: Los Angeles Galaxy

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 13:

= Kenny Washington: UCLA football, Los Angeles Rams
= Keenan Allen: Los Angeles Chargers
= Max Muncy: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Tank Younger: Los Angeles Rams
= Cotton Warburton: USC football
= Caleb Williams: USC football
= Todd Marinovich: USC football

The most interesting story for No. 13:
Kenny Washington: UCLA football halfback (1937 to 1939); Hollywood Bears halfback (1940 to 1942); Los Angeles Rams running back (1946 to 1948), Los Angeles Angels infielder (1950).
Southern California map pinpoints:
East Los Angeles; Hollywood; Westwood (UCLA); Los Angeles (Gilmore Stadium, Coliseum, Wrigley Field)

On Sept. 29, 1946, Kenny Stanley Washington strapped on a modest, leather football helmet without a facemask — the one with the white horns of the Los Angeles Rams hand-painted on the side.

He was called into the second half of the team’s season opener at the Los Angeles Coliseum against Philadelphia to sub in injured star quarterback Bob Waterfield and ineffective backup Jim Hardy.

It had been six months since Washington signed a contract with this newly-transplanted NFL franchise, so the team’s season opener that was already something of an event just got more historic.

“Kingfish” Washington, also known as the “Sepia Cyclone,” had already been on this turf where he was the first All-American in UCLA football history, eventually the school’s first College Football Hall of Fame inductee.

The now 28-year-old out of nearby Lincoln High in East L.A., not the athlete he used to be, was now the first Black player to reintegrate the NFL, and the first professional Black athlete on the progressive West Coast.

Los Angeles Times’ sports editor Paul Zimmerman noted that, as 30,553 perspiring fans saw the world champion Rams make their first title defense in what would be a 25-14 loss, Washington’s contribution to the final score was worth a mentioned in the fifth paragraph, under the subhead “Gift Pair”:

Likewise, a story in the Los Angeles Valley Times barely noted Washington’s existence, waiting again until the fifth paragraph to mention the “Rams’ Negro quarterback”:

Washington completed just one pass in seven attempts, netting 19 yards. He had no rushing totals.

None of that was about to blot out more than a decade of an exclusionary, unwritten policy surrounding an NFL franchise signing anyone of a particular race. This was still 6 1/2 months before Washington’s former UCLA football teammate, Jack Robinson, made much bigger headlines by breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers on the other side of the country.

These days, they erect statues, rebrand stadiums and build museums to remember Robinson.

Over in Lincoln Heights, at the intersection of North Broadway and Lincoln Park Avenue, not far from the Lincoln High football field, there is a square named after Washington. It wasn’t put up until 2014.

Maybe comparing Robinson to Washington isn’t fair, considering the state of each league and the sports’ popularity. But the truth is that Washington, had he not died far too young at age 52 in the summer of 1971 from a rare blood disorder, might have had more to say about it.

Tragically, his friend Robinson died about a year later at age 53.

All that’s left now are changing narratives.

And yet it was Robinson who was once quoted: “Kenny Washington was the greatest football player I have ever seen. He had everything needed for greatness – size, speed and tremendous strength. … It would be a shame if he were to be forgotten.”

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — 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 highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 98:

= Tom Harmon: Los Angeles Rams halfback

The most interesting story for No. 98:
Parnelli Jones, race car driver (1949 to 1973)
Southern California map pinpoints:
San Pedro, Torrance, Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, Gardena (Ascot Park)

In the preface to his 2013 memoir, Parnelli Jones recalls a time where he didn’t really fight the law, and the law didn’t win either. But it made for a great story.

It was 1964 and, as he wrote, “my name had really gotten around. I’d won the Indianapolis 500 in ’63, which earned me a lot of attention in the media. That was true pretty much everywhere, especially in Southern California because from the time I’d started racing I listed Torrance as my hometown.”

He was “honking down” the Long Beach Freeway, the 710, in a Ford Fairlane given to him by stock car owner Vel Miletich, who would be his partner in a chain of tire stores and car dealerships as well as engineer vehicles for his career with the Vels’ Parnelli Jones Racing team.

“This Fairlane had a souped-up engine with three carburetors. Vel said it would pass anything on the road; I told him in passed everything but a gas station,” Jones continued.

Admitting he was “cruising along pretty fast” when he saw the blue lights of a California Highway Patrol car in his rear-view mirror.

“I pulled over and started digging for my license and registration. I had it ready for the patrolman when he walked up to my door.

” ‘You were going pretty fast,’ he said. ‘Who do you think you are, Parnelli Jones?’

“Later on, I had a few incidents similar to that one, but there’s nothing like hearing a line like that for the first time. It was such a kick that for a moment I wasn’t even mad at myself for getting stopped.

“I handed the cop my papers and said, ‘As a matter of face, I am Parnelli Jones.'”

Which made for a great book title released 50 years after that ’63 Indy win, when he commandeered the No. 98 Willard Battery Special roadster owned by J.C. Agajanian that may have been leaking oil but it still slid past the competition for another piece of lore in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

That also opened the eyes and ears of car-crazy Southern California.

While his surname may have been a fairly common, even for a someone who uncommonly raced everything from old jalopies at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, NASCAR four-door stocks in Daytona, Trans-Am titles, even a dune buggy championship in the Baja 1000.

It was his nickname that shot him forward.

Too many knew him by his first name, Rufus. Parnell was his middle name. His mother, Dovie, named him after Rufus Parnell, a judge who she worked for in Arkansas.

When he was 17 and legally too young to race cars, he and his friends came up with a name that wouldn’t be too recognizable. His friend Billy Calder would tease him that a girl in school named Nellie liked him, so somehow Calder took Jones’ middle name and started call him “Parnellie.” In 1951, Calder was also in charge of lettering the race car. Painting the driver’s name on the door, next to their No. 66, Calder one day came up with the alias “Parnellie Jones.”

“We lost the ‘e’ somewhere along the way,” Jones adds in the preface, “but I’ve been ‘Parnelli’ every since.”

He made quick work of it.