The 1969 Pinecrest High School Pilots, Florida Class C state champions, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic season Friday night.
What a “feelin’” it was for the 1969 Pinecrest High School Pilots to win the school’s first — and only — state football championship 50 years ago.
The high school may not exist anymore, but the Pilots’ historic Class C victory is far from being forgotten. Anyone at Durant High School for the Cougars’ game against Lakeland this Friday will see for themselves when the Pilots, their coaches and cheerleaders come out to celebrate the season’s golden anniversary.
Many of the Pilots still live in the area and keep in close contact, often trading memories of their high school playing days. Donnie Johnson, who played fullback and middle linebacker, even has a scrapbook featuring newspaper clippings and other photos from that season, plus written game scores and more notes. He and teammate Richard Swilley, an offensive tackle, run Swilley Johnson Electric Inc. together from their Keysville Road office, just a minute or two down the road from Durant and not far from the original Pinecrest area. They recently got together with linebacker and running back Rob Sumner to talk about the season before the big day tomorrow.
That season started with high hopes thanks to a talented team and chemistry the men say was more like a brotherhood than what most teams had then and have now. In Sumner’s case, that was literally true: getting to play on the same championship team as his older brother, Cliston, was a thrill for him. The Pilots spent much of their free time together, whether that involved working out in Pinecrest, fishing with head coach Blaine Turner and assistant coach Garrett Cagiano or going to camp in New Hampshire. Every senior on the team and some of the underclassmen had their own nicknames thanks to Cagiano. The Pilots were so close, in fact, that everyone in the program (besides the cheerleaders) shaved their heads before the season after a bet Turner made “snowballed” into a team affair. Their shiny domes grace one of the pages of Johnson’s scrapbook.
“You couldn’t get 20 people to do that now for any amount of money,” Sumner said. “You might could get them to dye their hair blue or something, but not that.”
Back then, the Pilots would play in nine-game regular seasons before moving on to the playoffs. Pinecrest finished with a 6-3 record in 1969 — most notably including a 7-6 win over a strong Fort Meade team — but managed to make it to the playoffs.
“I remember when Turner would keep looking at who won and who lost every week to see if we were climbing up in the polls to be able to play for a district championship,” Johnson said. “I remember watching him really paying attention to how close we were getting. Finally, it happened. We moved up.”
Getting to the postseason created a buzz beyond the PHS community. Neighboring high schools, including crosstown rival Turkey Creek, came out to Pinecrest’s pep rally to support the Pilots before their district game at Alva (near the Fort Myers area). The newspapers started referring to the school as Tampa-Pinecrest, which wasn’t exactly accurate but still was a sign that the team was on to something big. The team even got a bus upgrade for that trip: instead of its usual school buses, they were able to get nicer Greyhounds for the trek south.
“The community support was just tremendous,” Sumner said. “The whole community was buzzing like you see when the Rays are in the playoffs, or the Lightning. How the whole community’s abuzz, that was what the Pinecrest community was like and it was just a thrill for everybody.”
Alva had a reputation for being a tough out for anybody, but the Pilots came prepared and picked up a 31-6 win in which Johnson’s running played a huge role. But he remembers another moment from the game, in which he was playing defense, fondly.
“I was playing middle linebacker and the center came out of their huddle first and came up,” Johnson said. “He actually picked the ball up and moved the ball. One of our guys, Melvin (Jones), he hollered, ‘Hit him! Hit him!’ So I rolled him up. He rolled back towards the huddle. Crowd went crazy because they knew I was fixing to get a penalty for being stupid, but (Alva) actually got the penalty because he moved the ball. So that was a highlight for me that night, being able to roll the center up. It worked out good, luckily.”
That set up a state championship clash in Plant City at Schneider Stadium, which is now part of the Florida Strawberry Festival grounds, against the Liberty County Bulldogs of Bristol.
“The day of the game, our assistant coach got several of us out on the basketball court,” Sumner said. “Eight or 10 of us. He was telling us how much they loved us, how much our head coach loved us and he would do anything for us… he said ‘If you knew how much that guy cared about you, you’d go out there and get him a state championship tonight.’ You could simultaneously see eight or 10 tears drop on that court. It was really emotional.”
Johnson’s performance in the district title game set Sumner up for a highlight night of his own. Sumner was strictly a linebacker for the team until the eighth game of the season, when an injury forced the coaches to play him at running back as well, and he continued to do so throughout the playoffs. Liberty County, according to Johnson and Sumner, had heard about what Johnson did to Alva and keyed on him for the entire game — which helped Sumner run for 153 yards.
“I know it’s kind of cliché to credit your offensive line, but there were some gigantic holes,” Sumner said. “I sometimes would get 10 yards before I’d get touched. They made it easy for me. But the overall effort of the team, that gets credit for that. I couldn’t have done that without these guys.”
The Pilots ran their way to a 25-14 win over the Bulldogs in front of hundreds of cheering fans in Plant City. Emotions ran high throughout the group of tough young men — soon to be dubbed the “Alafia Wonders” by the newspapers — as they celebrated the win and tried to process the magnitude of what they had just done.
“I had the most fun playing that game,” Swilley said. “The adrenaline was going and the guy in front of me, I could just handle him however I wanted to. It was just a fun game and being the emotional guy I was — still am — when we won the game and got in the locker room, our principal, John Bridges, looked over at me and said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I was crying. I was so pumped up I said, ‘You ever won a state championship before?’”
Most of the 22 players and eight cheerleaders plan on coming to the high school for the event, as do Turner and Cagiano. Those at the game will be recognized for their efforts, as will Cliston Sumner and Mike Daniels, who have since passed away. Any PHS alumni in the stands are asked to wear their old school’s colors, red and white, to the game. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. and the plan is to conduct a small ceremony for the team between the first and second quarters of the game.
1969 PINECREST PILOTS
Players:
Mike “Hopper” Daniels
Cliston “Smokey” Sumner
Rob “Slick” Sumner
Earl “Crow” Cook
Reggie “Rags” Flagg
Sam “Groundhog” Coward
Bobby “Tree” Sanders
Melvin “Twinkle Toes” Jones
Raymond “Moose” Cullins
Billy “Hammer” Hamilton
Mike “Perry” Mangum
Ronnie “Mary” Wimberly
Mike “Frog” Green
Wayne Dasinger
Richard Swilley
Donnie Johnson
Carl Howell
Joey Harris
Lloyd Sanders
Ronnie Greer
Tim Hunter
Randy Hiscock
Head Coach: Blaine Turner
Assistant Coach: Garrett Cagiano
Cheerleaders: Katy Corbett, Wanda McBride, Shelly Hendry, Cindy Neal, Debra Seder, Rita Hewitt, Davene Phillips, Sandy Swilley
