CORONA CALIFORNIA
The town of Corona, California was a small agricultural community in 1944. The town was surrounded by citrus groves and there were several citrus packing sheds in the area. Also a crew of research scientists were working to develop frozen lemon concentrate for the food industry. This plant was a cooperative owned by a number of large citrus growers. Among the owners were the Jamison family who really represented the economic and political power in the town at that time and who also controlled the water supply used to irrigate the vast citrus groves. It was the general feeling among the citrus growers that their success depended in large part on low priced labor.
Corona had grown up around a one mile race track and the old brick track was called "Grand Boulevard." It was a perfect circle and the town's main claim to fame was that Barney Oldfield had raced on the track in 1910.
With one exception, California school districts are separate political entities and have no relationship to cities except in name. San Francisco is the exception and is a county, a city and a school district all in one. In Corona the city consisted of three or four square miles while the school district covered two hundred sixty seven square miles. It included Home Gardens, Eastvale, Norco, Temescal Canyon and areas far up on the mountain range south of the town of Corona.
Our first big problem when we arrived in Corona was finding a place to live. The Norconian Hotel and resort had been converted to a hospital for Navy personnel. Their families and dependents occupied nearly all the available rental space in the area. We first put our furniture in storage and went to a small hotel while we searched for a place to rent. When nothing turned up after a week or so Guin and Carol went to Phoenix to stay with Grandpa and Grandma Robinson. I "batched."
I started football practice at the high school and "advertised" the housing problem among the ball players. They came up with a number of suggestions but none of them worked out. Finally, one of the high school teachers told me that he had an apartment that we could rent so I took it and called Guin and Carol. At least we had a place to live for awhile.
Corona High School had about four hundred students when I taught there and I estimate that about half of them were of Mexican descent so a good percentage of the football squad was Mexican. These boys were from the low priced labor families so necessary to the citrus industry.
I had an immediate problem because I had never coached eleven man football. At Patagonia we had played six man. At the time Stanford University was the dominant college football power and they used the T Formation so that is what I started with. After the first game I realized that we just did not have a quarterback who could handle the T Formation so I suddenly switched to the Single Wing. We won a few games but really did not do well in football my first year and it was my fault.
