Photo courtesy of John Baker
The Bell Game between South San Francisco and El Camino high schools at Clifford Field, with Sign Hill in the background, was always a hard-hitting affair.
By John Murphy
Sixty years ago I attended my first high school football game.
My dad was an English teacher at South San Francisco High, and the powerhouse Warriors were a hot ticket. They had Greg Jones at running back before he starred at UCLA and then became a Buffalo Bill.
I was 9 or 10 years old and I’d grab a warm coat for a fall evening at Clifford Field. My dad drove my older brother and me up the El Camino Real to “South San Francisco The Industrial City,” as it says on nearby Sign Hill.
We parked on a cul de sac behind See’s Candies and climbed concrete steps. We trekked across a practice field and saw the Friday night lights. The excitement grew.
Prep football in the 1960s was different. When South City played rival El Camino in the Bell Game, the stands were packed. There were bands, cheerleaders, and fans cheering, “South City, South City, South City High!”
My brother Jim, witnessing all this, was impressed. So he played with Lynn Swann at Serra High against the likes of Dan Fouts at St. Ignatius.
Nothing gold can stay, as Robert Frost wrote. By 2018, South San Francisco High football had cratered. The program lost more than 20 consecutive games, then forfeited its varsity schedule in 2021 due to lack of student interest.
But now the Warriors are back, as proved by a 12-2 record and section title in 2023 and a 9-3 mark in 2024. And though the team is only 2-3 this year, it’s nice to see the Warriors relevant again. They were, after all, my first football love.
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