It was the biggest game of the season. The band and cheerleaders were at full force hyping the crowd. The stands were filled with family and friends eager for the win. El Camino College enters LeBard Stadium at Orange Coast College Saturday, Dec 5, 1987 with a 10-0 record to battle Taft College with a 9-0 record.
Tension had been rising for the teams throughout the season with the usual locker room hazing and crowd rile-ups. Taft was ranked No. 1 team in the country.
But it wasn’t a close game. The Warriors dominated and left the field with a score of 24-6, coming out of the game with a victory and a National Championship title under their belts.
Thirty-nine years after they last stepped foot on the field, former football players Dwight Pickens, Kevin Ray Harris and coach Eugene “Gene” Engle reunited during a Wednesday football practice.
Current Warriors were running sprints and tackling dummies at Murdock Stadium when the former players and their coach walked onto the field. Coaches and players paused when they saw them. An exchange of nostalgic pleasantries followed.
“People said we played ugly,” Engle said.
Their season came shortly after the National Collegiate Athletic Association decided to implement Proposition 48, which required incoming freshmen to maintain a 2.0 grade point average in order to compete in athletics.
Since the proposition passed, John Featherstone, who was leading the football program, was getting an influx of student athletes who were supposed to be committed to Division I schools around the nation, but their grade average cost them the opportunity.
The team became what some called a “United Nations” because of its diversity.
But it was more than the proposition that landed them in the ECC history books.
“Coming into ’87, the biggest difference we had was strong leadership,” Engle said.
Engle coached for 35 years and taught for 40. By 1987, his fifth year coaching, he was serving as part of the coaching staff.
Back then, Featherstone, who passed away in 2021, brought relentless energy and helped create a transformational program with his coaching staff. He held dinners at his home with some of the players and coach Engle held chapel before games.
“[Featherstone] was a dynamic and motivational presence,” Engle said.
Both Pickens and Harris have their names on a plaque for El Camino College’s 1980s All-Decade Team, where top performing players become part of an ECC “all- star” team.
Pickens originally came to ECC to play baseball. He later pivoted to football, where he became a wide receiver and earned a scholarship to California State University, Fresno after graduation. He was later drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1990, then played for the San Antonio Riders of the World League of American Football a year after.
Harris earned a scholarship to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is now the CEO of All-American U, a platform that provides student-athletes with social networking resources.
The camaraderie extended beyond the field. After games, players celebrated in the school’s parking lot, and Saturday nights became a central part of campus life as the band and cheerleaders hyped the crowd. The team entered the national championship game with a 10-0 record.
Race was never a factor in the team’s bond.
“If you messed with one of us, you were messing with all of us,” Harris said.
Editor’s note: Story was edited Monday, May 18, 2026 to turn over a photograph to an upright position.
