An Optic photo which sticks in my mind after several decades concerns a group of Highlands University football players who had taken a walk to Whorton’s Food Market in order to get weighed.
    It was in the fifties, around the time the Cowboys began taking football seriously and recruiting across state lines was becoming the norm for intercollegiate athletics.
    The half dozen men in the photo, it was explained, went to the market with their coach, Don Gibson, where the Las Vegas Clinic for Youth now resides. They went there because the Highlands scales topped out at 250 pounds. In the photo, appropriately titled “Tons of Beef,” players lined up to take their turn on Whorton’s beef scale, which apparently was accustomed to handling many sides of beef.
    Those college heavyweights represent the tonnage of many of today’s high school teams.
    So let’s first take a look at typical lineups for local teams of 1963.
    Twelve starters on the 1963 Robertson High School Cardinals football team ranged from 140 to 185 pounds, with the majority around 150. The heavyweight of that group was a center named Steve Stuckwisch. The lightweight was an end named Joe Montano. The others with listed weights were Nat Kearns, Pat Malcheski, Jake Rael, Tony Mares, Jerry Trujillo, Allen Minish, Lawrence Sandoval, Robert Sanders, Gilbert Gonzales and Ed Ledoux.
    The 1963 Cardinals’ counterparts on the west side, by contrast listed only three players heavier than 155: center Mike Tejada (170), guard Danny Ciddio (160), and the big man, an Arizona transfer student, Dicky Martinez, a 180-pound tackle.
    Pete Lucero, a left end, and Leo Apodaca, a back, weighed 125, while Wilfred Garduno, a blocking back, and Ray Collins, were listed at 130, with right end Joe Montano weighing 140 pounds. The others—heavier than Apodaca but lighter than Dicky Martinez—were Benjy Lopez, Louie Baca, Herman Martinez, David Maestas, Danny Herrera, Max Madrid, Leroy Lopez, Reynaldo Gonzales, and Frank Sanchez.
    And how different are today’s Dons and Cardinals from those of 40 years ago? Let me count the ways.
    The Dons’ 2003 roster lists 51 players, 19 of whom weigh more than 200 pounds. Two of those heavyweights would have needed the Whorton’s scale: linemen Joe Dimas and Jimmy Chavez, both listed at 250.
    The lightest man on the Dons’ roster is freshman lineman Marcos Cordova, at 125, whereas four others are listed at 135: sophomore running back Julian Jaramillo, sophomore wide receivers Elan Griego and Michael Scott Vigil, and Chris Arellanes, a freshman wide receiver.
    In addition, 18 Dons stand 6’0″ or taller, a rarity in 1963.
    By contrast, the 2003 Cardinals field an apparently much lighter and shorter team, though much heavier than their ’60s counterparts. The RHS roster lists only three players heavier than 200: linemen Jesse Baca (220), Dominic Garcia (238) and Joseph Madrid (270). For the 14 upperclassmen at RHS, the average weight is 163. West shows 31 juniors and seniors, with an average weight of 197, a weight advantage of 24 pounds per player.
    RHS sophomore wide receiver Anthony Gonzales is the lightest boy on the roster, at 112, and just a few pounds heavier are Antonio Coca and Dwight Torres, both at 115.
    The Cardinal roster lists only five players at 6’0″ or taller: junior linemen Darin Romero and Martin Dominguez, senior tight end Keiechi Okora, and freshmen tight ends Ryan Snyder and Nathan Vigil.
    It’s hard to account for the wide disparity between weights and heights of the two local high schools, the Dons clearly outweighing and outheighting the Cardinals. Part of the difference might be attributed to the scales themselves, the dates and conditions of weigh-ins, and whether the players were al fresco at the time.
    Or perhaps some of the weights were mere guesstimates. In the mid-fifties, one of our players at Immaculate Conception, Desi Romero, tipped the scales at 103, soaking wet. But the players’ lineup, as it appeared in the Optic, customarily transposed the last digits to make him seem heavier. One year the I.C. Colts got pureed by the Roy Longhorns at Perkins Stadium. They outweighed us by a mere five pounds per player, so experience and skill must have also been a factor.
    In high school—and I emphatically state that I was not a star(ter)—we discovered that five pounds often meant the difference between whether we played on the offensive line or ran in the backfield or became ends.
    Experience has shown that no matter what the physical differences are between the two rival schools such as the Dons and the Cardinals, too many Vegas Bowl games have been upsets, or at least extremely close.
    But questioning the vital statistics of the respective teams is not the issue. The point is how much bigger kids grow nowadays. Even in the pros, during the early days of football, the heaviest linemen usually spend their off-days on their day jobs: as jockeys and ballerinas.