LAKE FOREST PARK — As people filed into the Lake City Elks Lodge, old friends greeted each other and memories flooded back.
About 100 people gathered Aug. 12 for a reunion dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Shoreline Univac youth athletic club.
Old team photos, yearbooks and letters from former players were available for viewing. Former players and coaches spoke fondly of some of the best times of their lives.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers lineman and University of Washington standout Ray Pinney, a Shorecrest graduate who lives in Seattle, recalled his father taking him home in the trunk of the family car and hosing him off in the driveway after playing on Saturdays on the muddy Hamlin Park fields.
Former Oakland Raiders quarterback and Brigham Young star Marc Wilson, another Shorecrest graduate who lives in Woodinville, reminisced about playing for the Seattle city championship in three inches of water in his first year of Univac as a 9-year-old against Rainier Beach. The team lost 6-4, but the next year, with Wilson playing quarterback for the first time, the midgets’ team beat Beach 12-0 for the city title. The coaches picked Wilson as quarterback of that team by default to avoid having to pick between two players who had started as nine-year-olds. “I’m so grateful for the support you gave us at that age,” Wilson told the coaches.
Judy Murphy, nicknamed “Mad Dog,” remembered playing in the mother’s football fundraiser games against the Richmond Junior football and Lake City football moms.
Attendees included guys who played on the first Univac team in 1956, to Wilson and Pinney’s generation who played in the late 1960s and early 1970s to the younger generation that suited up in the 1990s.
Univac eventually encompassed a variety of sports, football, basketball, baseball, track, hockey and even girls’ drill, but it all started with a peewee football team.
Coaches like the late Don Jones, an ex-Marine and one of the founders of the club, demanded discipline, taught fundamentals and expected toughness out of the boys.
“They weren’t the kind of dads that would be babysitting,” said original Univac player Greg Boeitker, 59, who now lives in Port Ludlow.
One of the drills was called the “meat grinder.”
“It was like you had two guys down here and you were the ball carrier and you had to run through these two guys,” said Boeitker. “That was not a lot of fun. You were not going to get through.”
On game days, players learned to be meticulous, shining their shoes and helmets.
The early Univac teams were modeled after the Shoreline High School program, the only high school in the Shoreline area in the late 1950s.
“We ran the same plays and we did everything that Shoreline High School did,” said Tim Jones, 59, son of Don Jones.
When Shorecrest High School opened in 1961, many of the Univac players ended up going there. In 1975, Wilson’s senior year at Shorecrest, the Scots won the state AAA baseball championship, played for the city basketball title and had a talented, although somewhat underachieving football team.
“Our success in high school was related to our success when we were younger,” Wilson said.
Univac’s prowess carried on into the 1990s.
“My best feeling for Univac was that nobody wanted to play us because we were the hardest hitters in the league,” said Eric Hamshaw, 27, who played Univac football from 1985 to 1994. His older brother, Brian Hamshaw, played for Univac teams in four Eastside Junior Football title games and won three of them. The Hamshaws’ grandfather, Dwight Joyner, coached Univac football in the 1960s and 1970s.
T.R. Leary, who played Univac sports in the early 1970s, organized the evening and a golf tournament at Nile Shrine Golf Course earlier in the day. The events raised about $1,500 for the program, including a $500 donation from former Washington Redskins’ receiver and early 1970s-era Univac player Mark McGrath, who wrote a letter in support. Seattle attorney Sim Osborn, who played Univac sports, wrote one of the letters Leary read and donated $500 for the Univac scholarship.
Univac is fielding one team of rookies, 8 and 9-year-olds, in the Eastside Junior Football Association this season and practice for the 18 players began Aug. 15. John Nelson, the current Univac president, hoped the evening would generate new excitement for the program and lead to new memories for the next generation. Univac didn’t field a football team for the first time ever last year.
“It’s made a difference in my life,” said Scott Jones, brother of Tim Jones, and a vice president for Fred Meyer in Portland, Ore. who played on the first team 50 years ago. “If I hadn’t played Univac and sports in my life I wouldn’t be as successful as I am in my business.”
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