San Marcos High celebrates 50-year birthday

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

San Marcos High School alumni, students, administrators and community members celebrated the school’s 50th anniversary yesterday with special assemblies and a gathering of more than two-dozen former homecoming queens.
While many local residents likely remember being part of the school’s first graduating class in 1958, few can say what Bob Mullaney, the school’s longtime football announcer can say.
“I’ve been to every one they’ve ever played [at home],” Mullaney said.

Not only has Mullaney been to every home game, he’s called out the names of each and every player to ever take the field in a Royal’s varsity uniform.
At the age of 86, Mullaney told the Daily Sound yesterday that he remembers climbing to the top of telephone poles at La Playa Stadium before the Royals’ first home football game in 1959, and stringing up speakers. He then ran wire to the press box and announced the first game.
Mullaney didn’t limit his mic skills to the football field. He announced track and field, baseball and wrestling to name a few.
Mullaney said his favorite thing about announcing sporting events is educational in the sense that he informs the spectators about who has done what and it’s a way of recognizing a student athlete for his or her accomplishments.
“It gives you an opportunity to keep the kids into the spirit and reward those [athletes],” Mullaney said.
A graduate of Santa Barbara High in 1939, Mullaney took up a teaching career at San Marcos, where he taught industrial arts before retiring in 1986.
Mullaney said he saw sports as a way to engage kids in academic activities.
He said he saw many athletes get get involved in school by first getting interested in the numbers that impacted them, such as yardage on the football field, their weight and the weight of their opponents and baseball statistics.
“There’s a lot of good things in [sports] that that a lot of people don’t even think about,” Mullaney said. “Remembering all those plays and where they’re going to be -- they ain’t going to get lost going home.”
But as steeped in tradition as football and other sporting events are, they are a small slice of the pie that make up a school.
San Marcos Principal Craig Morgan said the teachers and staff that operate the school on a day-to-day basis are stellar in every way.
Morgan said six of the Santa Barbara School District’s eight national merit semifinalists were San Marcos students this year and that the schools academic scores have consistently increased over the past few years.
Morgan, 60, has been the been at the helm of the school for the past five years and called his post a “dream come true.”
“We have fabulous students, fabulous parents and a great staff,” Morgan said.
Morgan said one of the marquee qualities at San Marcos is that the staff works well together.
Brian Sarvis, superintendent of the Santa Barbara School Districts, attend a luncheon yesterday where the school’s former homecoming queens and others gathered to celebrate the anniversary.
“The room was just filled with people who really exemplify the spirit and success of the school,” Sarvis said. “50 years is a historic mark. The school has a fine tradition of excellence.”
For better or worse, much has changed over the years. But Mullaney, who lost count of the total number of games he’s announced years ago, has not, and last night, like so many prior to that, Mullaney took hold of the mic in the press box that carries his name, and fans heard his voice over the PA.
“It’s fun to be organized in something that you feel is worth while,” Mullaney said, adding that he’s pondered retirement but can’t quite seem to stop.
“I’ve had a very enjoyable time with the whole thing,” Mullaney said. “86-years-old ain’t nothing for a kid like me.”