"Sports, sports, sports, and MORE sports,"
answered Mayor Gavin Newsom when asked
what he remembers most about his days
growing up in Marin during the 1980's.
"That's what high school was all about for me,"
he says, "That WAS Redwood!"
He wasn't kidding.
When just a Little Leaguer in 1980, playing for
the Italian Athletic Club's Corte Madera team,
pitcher Gavin Newsom hit the first home run of
the season and struck out 6 Larkspur Lions to
win the game. The winning never seemed to
stop from that point on. In high school,
Newsom was a two sport star for Redwood's
varsity baseball and basketball teams. In 1985,
the high school senior was named first team
MCAL as a power forward in basketball and as
a first baseman.
I was a few years behind The Mayor at
Redwood and don't remember much about him
except that he was an extremely tall guy who
looked like a GQ model. His hair was frozen in
a seemingly permanent wave which looked like
one of those long gravity-defying cliffs the
Coyote would chase the Road Runner over
before falling to his doom. And -- I may be
misremembering this -- but I could swear
Newsom regularly wore a tie through the halls of
campus. Family Ties' Alex P. Keaton meets
Flock of Seagulls. He generally seemed like he
was off to an important meeting with the President of the United States or
MTV... but somehow got sidetracked at our high school.
The Mayor was a bit coy when I asked him what in particular he remembers
about his high school days in Marin.
"Mt. Tam," he says after a bit of thinking and a devilish grin.
What specifically about Mt. Tam, I ask?
(More thinking...) "Well, we'd go to undisclosed locations..." he says, "I also
liked Christmas Tree Hill."
Like a good politician, Newsom has clearly mastered the art of choosing his
words carefully.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor!
