HUNTINGTON BEACH – They began early, the honorifics, starting with the freckle-faced future generation of Edison Chargers, selling programs signed by the man who donned the cover.
Forget the football game. He was whom the crowd came to see.
It was a game that was two parts ceremony, one part Sunset League rivalry. In a contest whose conclusion was all but foregone, nostalgia could be afforded.
Huntington Beach was not stopping Edison. Not on this Friday night, the last regular season game in 39 years in which Coach Dave White will be on the sidelines.
The final score was 42-6, though those in attendance will remember Nov. 4 not by the sealing of another Sunset League title, the ninth in the past 11 years, but by the end of an epoch.
Charger (9-1, 5-0) quarterback Griffin O’Connor was magnificent, leading three consecutive scoring drives by finding three receivers for touchdowns to open up a 21-0 lead. By halftime, after Jack Carmichael blew past the Huntington Beach secondary for a 75-yard touchdown and Blake Bowen added some points on the defensive end with a 45-yard interception return for a score, the Chargers led Huntington (4-6, 2-3) by 35. Thus began the countdown of the final 24 minutes remaining in White’s final Sunset League contest.
The programs had sold out by then, mementos to a long and fruitful Edison era that is not yet over. Playoffs loom, and the Chargers are likely to contend.
And when the game ended, after much pomp and circumstance, there was White, surrounded by players of Edison teams past and present, in faded letterman jackets and stained jerseys, green and gold all.
“It’s not over yet,” he told his 100 or so players. “We still have four more.”
