Great and grand legacy

11-27-2004

Imagine the great grandson of Ted Williams starring on a baseball diamond for a San Diego high school. Now let your mind wander to football and the great grandson of another San Diego sports legend, Harold “Brick” Muller.

That’s the kind of historic aura that envelopes Mira Mesa High quarterback Mike Coughlin when the 6-foot-5, 200-pound junior steps behind center. His great grandfather was the West’s first All-American college football player, an Olympic silver medalist and a California high school legend.

Muller played end for Cal’s “Wonder Teams” of 1920-21-22 and was twice a first-team pick on the famed Walter Camp All-American teams of 1921-22. College football in the West established national prominence with those Cal “Wonder Teams.” "Sports Illustrated" once named Muller to its all-time college football team and in all he was named to seven "all-time" teams.

The Cal "Wonder Teams" at one point had an 18-game winning streak, and the 1920 club, considered at the time college football's greatest, finished 9-0, outscored its opponents 510 to 14 and routed favored Ohio State 28-0 in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1921. Muller threw a touchdown pass in the Rose Bowl that traveled 53 yards in the air, from the Bears' 47-yard line to the goal line, which was an astounding distance for a time when the game was played with a bigger and rounder ball than it is today. The Ohio State safety was once quoted as saying he let the receiver run free behind him because he didn't believe anyone could throw a football that far.

Muller also played pro football for the Los Angeles Buccaneers, a traveling team in the early days of the NFL.

As an Olympian, Muller brought home a silver medal in the high jump from the 1920 Games in Antwerp.

As a high school athlete, Muller was part of four state championships at San Diego High and Oakland Tech as well as a landmark championship in Southern California football.

The 1916 San Diego High football team, when Muller was a sophomore, won the school’s first Southern California championship and was considered at the time by Los Angeles-area pundits the greatest team in Southern California history, according to “Caver Conquest,” a book chronicling San Diego High’s sports history. Muller and teammates Byron “Pesky” Sprott and Cortis Majors went on to play on the Cal “Wonder Teams.”

As a junior in the spring of 1918, Muller led San Diego High’s baseball team to a state championship while also competing in track and field and winning the state high jump title. As a senior, his family moved to Oakland, where he led his new school, Oakland Tech, to the state baseball title and repeated as the state high jump champion.

Yes, Ted Williams may always be considered the grandest of sports icons from San Diego, advancing from Hoover High to the Boston Red Sox and immortality in the national pastime. But before Williams, who was the last Major Leaguer to bat .400 with a .406 average in 1941 and a Korean War hero as a Marine Corps pilot, there was Brick Muller, San Diego’s original sports legend who became a renowned orthopedic surgeon, donating his time and services to operate on children born with physical deformities.

“I don’t know a lot about him,” said Coughlin of his great grandfather who died in 1962 at the age of 61. “But it’s nice knowing there was a great athlete like him in your family history.”

Mike Coughlin is the youngest of three boys of Jim and Melissa Coughlin. Melissa is Brick Muller’s granddaughter, but she knew little about her famous grandfather because Melissa’s mother, Marilyn Farmer, Muller’s daughter, grew up in the East after her parents divorced while Muller remained in the Bay Area.

But with the success of the Coughlin boys in football, the family began to learn more about their football patriarch.

The middle son, Nate Coughlin, was an All-Eastern League quarterback at Scripps Ranch who plays quarterback at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania.

The oldest son, Ryan Coughlin, was an All-Eastern League defensive end at Scripps Ranch. Ryan didn’t continue his football career in college, but he was promising enough that Tom Craft, now San Diego State’s head coach, encouraged Ryan to play for him when Craft was still at Palomar College.

“My father would have loved having grandsons or great grandsons who played football,” said Marilyn Farmer. “He loved children and he did a lot for them as a doctor. His son didn’t play football, and I know for me it was hard being his daughter. When we lived in Northern California, where everyone knew him, I never wanted to try any sports because people would watch me. I would compare the pressure to being the son or daughter of Joe Montana.”

Jim and Melissa Coughlin have been to the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum and seen the plaque that honors Muller as the first athlete inducted into the Breitbard Hall of Fame in 1953; Williams was inducted in 1954.

The Coughlin boys are taller and thinner than Muller, who played at Cal as a 6-1 ½, 220-pounder, but Jim believes they carry Brick’s competitive athletic gene.

“From what I’ve read, I think Mike and my other sons have the same competitiveness,” Jim Coughlin said. “None of them like to lose at anything – sports, video games or card games.”

Mike, although only a junior, gained Division I recruiting interest after leading Mira Mesa to an 8-4 season. The Marauders, the Eastern League runner-up, advanced to the quarterfinals of the CIF San Diego Section Division I playoffs before falling to Rancho Bernardo.

Coughlin had a career-best night in the first round of the playoffs, a 45-10 win over Chula Vista, when he completed 14-of-18 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns. He topped that passing yardage total against Rancho Bernardo when he was 23-of-38 for 263 yards and two touchdowns. His finished his 12-game season completing 147 of 242 passes (.607) for 1,767 yards (147.3) and 17 touchdowns.

“Mike is always getting better,” said Arnold Briggs, the Marauders’ senior receiver. “He wants to get the job done and be No. 1. When we’re in the huddle, he’s always driving the team to put more points on the board, even when we’re winning.”

Although it may seem natural that Brick Muller’s great grandson is a star on a San Diego gridiron, it actually took a twist of fate. Jim and Melissa Coughlin were both raised in the Bay Area, but they had friends living in San Diego when Jim, who works for Kyocera Wireless Corporation, had an employment opportunity open up in San Diego and they decided to make the move. It was upon arriving in San Diego they became more interested in learning about Muller’s athletic exploits.

“It’s a real honor to be in the Hall of Champions,” Jim said, “and I wanted my boys to know what he did and why he was inducted.”