James M. Garrett, a graduate of Benicia High School’s Class of 1961 and fomer longtime teacher, is the author of “One Great Season 9-0!” (Photo courtesy of James Garrett)

My novel “One Great Season 9-0!” continues to reach people as football season approaches.
The fictional city of Homestead, and Homestead High School, is an obvious reference to Benicia and Benicia High School. I wanted to capture the atmosphere of a small town in 1960 as it was in Benicia at that time. Too much has changed in society for towns such as those to exist anymore. The story is told through the eyes of a local sports writer who had been asked to come out of retirement to again write about the best team ever produced in the small town.
For “One Great Season 9-0!” I researched football games from Benicia High School’s past for inspiration. Some of the games were played on fabled Sanborn Field and some on the gridirons of the opponents. The opponents against whom the Homestead Mavericks played were based on Benicia High School competition in a number of games from the early 1950’s through 1960: Clarksburg, Courtland, Davis, Folsom, Galt, James Marshall, John Swett, Lincoln, Rio Vista, St. Elizabeth’s, St. Vincent’s (of Vallejo), and Vacaville high schools with cameos from a few other high schools. I gave hints of which schools were represented in which games by the names chosen for the opposition and the names of their mascots.
Players on the Homestead team are composites of athletes from Benicia High School teams I played on, or I knew and saw play. In a way, “One Great Season 9-0!” is in honor of all those players. For example, the actions of the halfbacks in the novel are based on the play of 12 athletes who manned that position for the Benicia High School Panthers in the time frame shown. They are all interconnected in the story, but each has reference to specific events in which they were involved in real life. Nobody can say, “Hey, that was me”, or “I know who that was” without talking with me, and I would not tell. Many of those players have passed.
However, the most dominant player in the novel, Ken Myles, is based heavily on Charles Kimble. He and I were graduates in the Benicia High School Class of 1961. He later became Dr. Charles Edward Kimble. I wanted to share the novel with Chuck, and was close to doing so, but he passed before that could happen. As with the other names in the book, I made up names based on real people. (Example: Ken Myles as in the Miles-Kimball Company.) It was my way of having a little fun. Opposing players, who were given names for the novel, are also composites. As with many of the actions depicted by the Homestead players, much of their play on the football field was also true.
The three coaches are based on thoughts of my three football coaches at Benicia High School: Barney Corrigan, George Drolette and Phil Goettel. They were icons in Benicia at one time, and now they are legends known to a dwindling number of people. From the 1948 season through the 1960 season those three men led the Benicia High School Panthers, with an enrollment of approximately 390, to a varsity record of 86-20-2. There were seven varsity championships and two co-championships. There were also two junior varsity championships in that period.
George was not an active football coach the last three seasons, but still part of the “Three Amigo” connection. He last was an active coach with the 1957 junior varsity. The freshmen on that team later were 8-1 and champions in both their junior and senior seasons with each loss coming by only seven points.
The high school principal is based on thoughts of my Benicia High School principal, Lawrence Hamann. He served Benicia High School and the community for decades.
The personage of the school secretary is in thoughts of my wife, Roberta, the first office manager at Joe Henderson Elementary School in Benicia, and Marie Andrews, the longtime office manager at Benicia High School.
The fictional sports writer is based on thoughts of Bob Silva who for many years was the sports editor of the Benicia Herald. As with Barney, George, Phil, Lawrence, and Maria, he has long since passed.
Here are some quotes from my novel “One Great Season 9-0!” with my comments.
Page 13: “…..The coaches were caring human beings, and ethically sound. They did what should have been done. They were that kind of men.”
Comment: Communities across the country continue to produce such people.
Page 4: “What was presented out on the field was simply good old-fashioned American boys. They went out to practice, or play a game, to the best of their ability and as hard as they could.”
Comment: That is what was expected of them.
Page 73: “Then something I had never been witness to occurred. Each coach spoke of those seven players as a group, and also spoke of some who must have been as much their personal favorites, as if they were their sons.”
Comment: Throughout history and across the globe, many leaders of young people have felt the same.
Page 82: “Over the years I’ve seen some teams marshal their effort for a big play, have it fail, and be done for the remainder of the contest. That was never the case with Homestead under their three long-time coaches. For many of those Maverick players, I think, to let down those coaches would have been like letting down their fathers.”
Comment: The paragraph above reflects on how many who were coached by Barney Corrigan, George Drolette, and Phil Goettel felt about them. George coached girls as well as boys in tennis and swimming along with coaching football and boys’ basketball. However, none of the three coaches sired male children. They each had daughters. I may be incorrect, but I think part of their love and enjoyment of coaching boys was because they had no sons of their own. Thinking of the original version of the movie “Good-bye, Mr. Chips” I think they had hundreds of sons, “the sons they never had”, all the sons of Benicia they coached, helped mold, and loved.
Page 90: “The coaches were wrong in feeling they wouldn’t be missed. They were all missed, not only in the small realm of football, but in the larger sphere of what is life. They were all missed more than anyone knew at the time, and few today will ever know. An era had passed in a moment, as the long shadows of time lengthened.
“I bet the three of them have been in Heaven, since going ahead of the remainder of us, preparing for the next high school football season with each passing year. They have a number of fine young Homestead men to mold each year, as they did for so many years in our town. As it should be the passing of time finds more of their former players called to join them. Each team will produce a good season.”
Comment: Some people will never know, or fully understand, the impact they have had on youth.
Page 92: “Stone markers push from the ground, at various sites on the planet, where the coaches, and some of the players, rest. On some Friday evenings in the fall, I think ghosts rise from beneath the asphalt which covers the parking lot. They play high school football again, and wait for other teammates to join them.
One day all the players will be together again. Perhaps they will replay that season of 1960. They were ‘Nine – 0’, and, truly, gave us all ‘One Great Season’.”
Comment: In time everyone passes. Their legacy holds.
As with my novels “Benicia and Letters of Love,” “The Mansion Stories,” and “Chief Salt”, writing “One Great Season 9-0!” was an enjoyable experience for me. The inclusion of so much of “Benicia” in the novels, the recalling of memories of “people, places, and events,” the simple fact of reminiscing with those memories while sitting at the computer were good times. The challenge of how to tell the stories while changing “names, dates, and places” was fun.
There were “trials and tribulations.” My “Editor-in Chief,” Roberta, often said, in her polite way, I might want to change a word or move a paragraph. Between the two of us, we got the stories told. I think we told them well.
I humbly thank those who have taken the time to read my words, reflect on them and comment to me on them. Your words are welcome.
“One Great Season 9-0!” may be purchased through outskirtspress.com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and many other sources.
Peace to you and yours on the journey.

James M. Garrett has lived in Benicia his entire life. He retired after a career of teaching at Benicia High School. He is the author of “Benicia and Letters of Love,” “The Mansion Stories,” and the compiler of “The Golden Era,” a history of Benicia High School football from the 1948 through 1960 seasons. Contact him at Jgstoriesnpoetry@aol.com.

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