A century ago, below the green hills where the first talking movies were being made, the city of Los Angeles built a series of public high schools to accommodate its rapidly growing population. Most were named after presidents or founding fathers—Franklin, Jefferson and Roosevelt high schools sprang up between 1916 and ’25—and today they still stand as architectural marvels, even if their exteriors show a few cracks.
In 1935 these tight-knit secondary schools formed a sports league they called the City Section. Together, over the remainder of the American Century, they produced a parade of future professional Hall of Fame athletes, including Bob Waterfield (Van Nuys High, Class of ’38), Hugh McElhenny (Washington, ’48), Don Drysdale (Van Nuys, ’54) and Gail Goodrich (Polytechnic, ’61), not to mention champion swimmer and film star Esther Williams (Washington, ’39).