The details have mossed over with time, but Ken Stills remembers the heat, the muscle aches and fatigue, the dry mouth and dehydration.
“It was a different era,” said Stills, a standout defensive back in the El Camino High School Class of 1981. “You could get out there and do it all day in full pads. I don’t remember a lot, but I remember bear crawling and running on that hot football field all day. It was the dog days of summer, but we loved it — we didn’t know any better.”
Two decades later, the kids were different, but the practices stayed the same.
“The practices were very intense,” said Antwain Spann, also a star defensive back (Class of ’01). “We hated two-a-days. Even the guys that loved the sport hated them. They put us through hell.”
Love or hate those long days under the August sun in Oceanside, Stills and Spann agreed they were a necessary foundation for eventual NFL careers — Stills with the Packers and Vikings (1985-90), and Spann (2005-09) playing for the Patriots after he was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Giants.
“With the Packers, we went all day, every day — El Camino definitely prepared me for the NFL,” Stills said.
“El Camino built me in way, that if I hadn’t gone, I would have struggled,” Spann said. “I was ready for college football day one.”
The constant for El Camino football from 1976 through 2003 was head coach Herb Meyer. Recently named one of Oceanside’s “Hometown Heroes,” Meyer was the through-line connecting Stills, Spann and several other former NFL players, including Toniu Fonoti, Bryant Westbrook, Dokie Williams, Michael Booker, J.C. Pearson and Toussaint Tyler.
“You form a football family,” Stills said. “All those guys; we always talk about how Herb impacted all of us.”
From 1959 until 1976, Meyer was the head coach at Oceanside High School, posting a 113-44-6 record. At El Camino, Meyer went 226-104-9, winning eight San Diego Section championships.
Twenty years after he coached his final game, Meyer’s combined record of 339-148-15 remains the highest winning percentage in county history.
Meyer was an old-school coach who pushed hard. Both Stills and Spann saw similarities between Meyer and the head coaches they played under in the NFL.
“He was very stern and knew how to get you to your best,” Spann said. “At the same time, he would crack jokes and was loving – he did it in his own way. He had the same personality as Bill Belichick. They both are very detailed. Coach Meyer taught us techniques and coverages that we were running in the NFL; two guys at the top of their game.”
“Forest Gregg was my head coach [with the Packers], they had a lot in common,” Stills said.
On April 8, Meyer died while on a family vacation in eastern Washington. He was 87, but to his former players, he still seemed larger than life.
“Some people you think are going to live forever and he was one of them,” Spann said. “I was hurt; that was someone responsible for why I was able to take my talent and move on to the next level.”
“I cried,” Stills said. “He was an important guy to me.”
In Meyer, Stills and Spann found an additional father figure — someone they could go to when trouble found them, as it often finds teenage boys.
“If I got in trouble, Herb was always there to support me,” Stills said. “We had a place that was shelter, that we could turn if we got in trouble, so we didn’t have to go home to our military parents who we knew were going to whoop our butts.”
As a sophomore, Spann was expelled from El Camino for using marijuana on campus. Meyer let Spann back on the team the following season, but it was a bumpy path back to playing time.
“Herb told me how disappointed he was in me — it was like I had a bright future before that happened, but you are going to have to work your way back,” Spann said. “He made me work my butt off to get back. I was on the bench. The only time I got back on the field early that year was on special teams.”
After Stills’ playing days ended, he transitioned into coaching, with the help of Meyer, making good on a promise from years earlier.
“Herb told me, ‘Kenny, if you ever need a job when you come back [from Green Bay] you come see me,’” said Stills, now the head coach at Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School in Spring Hill, Fla. “He gave me my first coaching job. I retired, moved back to Oceanside and he put me on his staff and continued to mentor me.”
Twenty years since his last whistle, in the age of social media and the oft-lamented “participation trophy,” could Meyer’s style of coaching work? Undoubtedly, but with more griping.
“You would have a lot more parents complaining,” Spann said with a laugh. “The kids might complain more about how tough he is, but it would still work.”
Meyer is gone, but for Stills, Spann and countless other players, students and community members, the legendary coach’s impact continues to be felt.
“The things he taught me I still teach people to this day,” Spann said.
“His philosophy was, ‘We are only as strong as our weakest link,’ and I took that with me,” Stills said. “We are going to win as a team not as individuals. I enjoy mentoring young men. I was blessed to have it given to me, now I am going to give it to these young men.”
