{"id":315562,"date":"2022-10-03T13:25:14","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T20:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/?p=315562"},"modified":"2022-10-03T13:26:13","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T20:26:13","slug":"coaching-legend-quita-mulkins-re-visits-vikings-sports-past-at-100th-anniversary-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/coaching-legend-quita-mulkins-re-visits-vikings-sports-past-at-100th-anniversary-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Coaching legend\u2019 Quita-Mulkins re-visits Vikings\u2019 sports past at 100th anniversary celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foot planted squarely in mouth. That was me, chatting with \u201ccoaching legend\u201d Maggie Quita-Mulkins, who guided La Jolla High girls tennis to 22 Western League titles and 17 CIF championships from 1974 until her retirement 38 years later in 2012.<\/p>\n

Momentarily forgetting the reality of pre-Title IX before 1972, which we had been talking about, I asked Quita-Mulkins, \u201cSo, what sports did you play in high school?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have any sports,\u201d replied Quita-Mulkins calmly. In fact, the reality of post-Title IX implementation has brought growth and development in girls’ and women\u2019s sports in high school and college, but it isn\u2019t perfect.<\/p>\n

The La Jolla grad, Class of 1968, didn\u2019t sugarcoat it: \u201cI think it\u2019s still a struggle.\u201d She didn\u2019t go on to enumerate the reasons, which include lack of coach recognition and support, funding issues, boys\u2019 practices, and games being scheduled on better fields and courts at more convenient times, and public perception of women\u2019s sports as \u201cinferior\u201d or \u201cless than.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Quita-Mulkins didn\u2019t skip a beat because of my momentary lapse. On the occasion of her alma mater\u2019s 100th birthday celebration with Homecoming 2022, a parade at halftime of La Jolla\u2019s football game on Sept. 30 against San Diego High (the only older high school in City Schools), and an alumni celebration at Coggan Pool, La Jolla\u2019s jewel of a swimming facility, she proved to be her usual self-effacing person, not calling attention to her considerable contributions to the Vikings\u2019 success in sports, STEM, theater, and many other fields.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Vicki Eveleth sits serenely with her roses while husband Rick Eveleth acknowledges the crowd, as grand marshals of La Jolla High Homecoming on Sept. 30, which marked the 100th anniversary of the school. PHOTO BY ED PIPER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She repeatedly invoked the names of her long-time colleagues on the LJHS staff in the 1960s-\u201970s-\u201980s especially: Gene Edwards (1958-1990), Dick Huddleston, and Dave Ponsford (football); Vicki and Rick Eveleth, volleyball and basketball coaches, respectively, grand marshals for the Vikings\u2019 Homecoming Procession with their son Ty Eveleth; Bob Allen, baseball; and more.<\/p>\n

In Quita-Mulkins\u2019 time as a student at La Jolla High, and later as a coach, it was a different era. \u201cWe had to kneel on a chair\u201d to have their skirt length checked. Girls, and guys, could not wear shorts to school except on special dress-up days. In coaching, \u201c(Almost) all the coaches were (on-campus) teachers, so you got to know the kids really well and you could track them,\u201d Quita-Mulkins says. \u201cThey would go to the coaches\u201d in case of needs.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Homecoming festivities, the Vikings\u2019 football team (1-0 in the Eastern League, 4-3 overall) dominated SDHS 36-16 in a successful defense of \u201ctheir house,\u201d which is now populated with a new locker room, training, and coaches\u2019 facilities, along Edwards Field that didn\u2019t exist 20 years ago. On a campus tour Saturday, alumnus Kevin Hall discussed the \u201cacademic emphasis\u201d that continues LJHS\u2019s scholastic excellence and the expansion of the campus footprint over the years to 14 acres. Eleven students in the first yearbook became the present 1,300 students in an ever-diversifying student body.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foot planted squarely in mouth. That was me, chatting with \u201ccoaching legend\u201d Maggie Quita-Mulkins, who guided La Jolla High girls tennis to 22 Western League titles and 17 CIF championships from 1974 until her retirement 38 years later in 2012. Momentarily forgetting the reality of pre-Title IX before 1972, which we had been talking about, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1484,"featured_media":315563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Foot planted squarely in mouth. That was me, chatting with \u201ccoaching legend\u201d Maggie Quita-Mulkins, who guided La Jolla High girls tennis to 22 Western League titles and 17 CIF championships from 1974 until her retirement 38 years later in 2012.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[12941],"class_list":["post-315562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports","tag-la-jolla-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}