A Fifth-Grade Luckout: Reflections from USC Hall of Famer Ron Mix

Story Courtesy of Trojan Wire USA Day

I must have been really good–looking in the fifth grade at Richard Henry Dana Elementary School in Hawthorne, California.

The five most popular girls in my class began bothering me early in the year, surrounding me in a group and asking which girl I liked. Finally, to stop the frequent assaults, I told them I would tell them at the end of the last day of school.

When that day arrived, on the playground, they pestered me again: “Who do you like? Who do you like?”

I was tempted to say that Sophie was who I liked. Besides me, she was probably the only other Jewish kid in our class and I wanted her to feel good about herself. However, I decided to let love win out. I said, “I like Carole.”

Carole then dismissively said, “Well, I like Dougie.”

Stunned, I did not know what to say. I guess she participated in the fuss because she was just curious as to who I liked. 

In addition to (probably) being good looking at that time, I was tied for the toughest kid in all of the three fifth-grade classes and was the fourth-best athlete. The best athlete was Ralph Valladares, who later quit high school after his sophomore year to start a storied career in roller derby.

Whenever a new kid showed up in class, someone would ask him if he wanted to fight me. Saying yes was a mistake because, unlike all the other boys who would try to wrestle, I could box.

Before my mother, brother, grandmother, and I moved to Hawthorne with my uncle Sam — who had just returned from five years in the Army in World War II and purchased a home in Hawthorne under the G.I. Bill for no money down and a mortgage payment of $50 a month — we lived in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles. During the summer, the athletic coach at the local Jewish Community Center taught all of the boys to fight. At my elementary school in Boyle Heights, you could always tell which kid was Jewish: It would be the kid who was throwing combinations — left, right, left uppercut, right cross. 

When Ralph Valladares arrived at our school, someone asked him if he wanted to fight the toughest kid in class, so we went at it after school. Like me, he could box, but unlike me, who had strings for arms, his arms actually had muscle definition. After about five minutes of mostly each of us blocking the other’s blows, he asked if I wanted to call it a draw, and I agreed.

Many years later, when I was playing for the San Diego Chargers, Ralph’s roller derby team came to town and I went to watch him. In the program, it gave his age and I found out he was two years older than the rest of us had been in the fifth grade. Of course he would have muscles, and no wonder he was the best athlete.

After the roller derby match, I waited at the players’ exit and reintroduced myself to Ralph, because we had not seen each other after our sophomore year in high school. We went for a late dinner, enjoying each other‘s company again. I asked him if he remembered our fight in the fifth grade and he did. I told him I just found out that he was two years older than me.

I told him that, instead of fighting me then, he should have said: “Are you sure you want to fight me, Kid? I’m old enough to be in the Marines.” We laughed, comfortable again in our company, the absent years not diminishing our friendship a bit. 

That is the background information about a decision I made in the fifth grade that charted the course for the rest of my life. Midway through the fifth grade, I was walking to school through one of the many undeveloped spaces of land between my home and the school. I and a friend were smoking cigarettes because, I don’t know, we thought we were cool. The school bus went by with the faces of many kids pasted to the windows watching us, surprised to see two students smoking. I recall being pleased that so many students saw me smoking, because they surely would think I was hot stuff. 

That feeling evaporated that morning when my teacher told me the school principal wanted to speak to me and that I needed to go to his office. I was certain that someone, maybe the bus driver, had told him I was smoking and that I was going to be on after–school detention for a month. 

But, no, that was not the reason the principal wanted to speak to me. A few weeks earlier, the school had administered a long series of tests measuring student proficiency in math, grammar and IQ. The principal told me I had performed very well on the recent tests, and that he and my teacher believed I should be promoted to the sixth grade. He asked me if I would like to do that.

A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind: I’m only the fourth-best athlete in the fifth grade; if I move to the sixth grade, I will be way down the list. Most of the girls in the sixth grade were taller than me, so there was no chance any would like me. A lot of those sixth-grade boys were not only bigger than me, they had muscles; my tough guy ranking would likely go way down. I couldn’t tell the principal what really bothered me about being promoted a grade, so I told him I would rather stay in the fifth grade with my friends. He said that would be OK. 

That decision turned out to be the most important decision I made in my life. Without it, I would not have received a football scholarship to the University of Southern California, played professional football, met my wife, or had the three children we had.

You see, I was late to mature. As a freshman in high school, I was five feet, five inches tall and weighed 125 pounds; as a sophomore: 5-8 and 140 pounds and a member of the B football team, then the high school team for undersized players; as a junior: 5-11 and 155, in my first year on the varsity and, how to put it kindly, a bench-warmer; then, finally, as a senior, a starting end on the varsity … but only because the better player ahead of me got injured.

By then, I was 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds, and easily one of the least talented players on our starting lineup. Want proof? Well, Hawthorne High School was in a league that had only six teams. At the end of the season, the only recognition I received was honorable mention; somewhat akin to a participation certificate in Little League baseball. 

But I had something going for me: I loved the sport. Every now and then during my senior year on the team, I would have an instant when I would do something good. That encouraged me to believe that if I worked harder, I could become better. My dream was to play at El Camino Junior College in Torrance, California, for two years and then transfer to UCLA and try to make its team.

So, when the season ended, I decided to incorporate weightlifting as part of my training. I know you readers are thinking that would be the natural thing to do, but it was not in those days. At that time, throughout the country, coaches at all levels, from high school, college, and professional ranks, instructed players not to lift weights, believing it caused muscles to tighten up. They said it made players less athletic.

I thought two things: One, the game requires strength, so doing something that increases strength would be good. Two, I had nothing to lose, because if I did not get bigger I would not make the El Camino team. My high school did not have a weight room. Later, when I attended USC, it did not have a weight room. I began lifting at Redpath Gym in Inglewood, a city adjacent to Hawthorne. 

By the end of the school year in 1956, I had grown a couple more inches and my weight had increased to 190 pounds. I was stronger and faster than I had ever been. In addition, I did sprint and agility drills and had friends throw passes to me.

Here is where good fortune entered. That year my school’s league, the Pioneer League, had agreed to play an all-star game for senior class members in July following my senior year against another group of all-stars from another league. My high school coaches, Hal Chauncey and Dave Capelouto, were named coaches for the Pioneer League. They were literally stuck with me as one of the all-star ends because, that year, the best ends in our league were two juniors who were not eligible to play in the game, and a senior who decided not to play in the game. 

There were two weeks of practice before the game and, to my absolute surprise, I had become everything I ever dreamed of being as an athlete and was clearly one of the best players on our team. At that time, in both high school and college, players were required to stay in the game, playing offense and defense and special teams.

My strength, skill, and conditioning training before the two–week camp began made me stand out as a player to such an extent that one of our players from another high school in our league, who was highly recruited — including by USC — took me aside one day after practice and told me that he told USC about me. It was possible USC might send a coach to watch me in practice or in the game. I could hardly get my mind around that because, at that point, no college had expressed an interest in me ... and now USC! 

The USC end coach, Bill Fisk, watched a practice and the all-star game. A week later, he contacted me and invited me to the USC campus for a lunch meeting with him and the offensive line coach, Mel Hein, the former New York Giants center and linebacker who, in 1963, was part of the inaugural class of enshrinees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Both Bill and Mel were tall and thick-bodied, both appearing to be about 50% larger than my high school coaches. It’s funny how the young mind works, but I took that to mean I was about to enter a level of football that was beyond anything I could imagine. 

After Bill ordered lunch for the three of us, he said they wanted to get right to the point, that they wanted to offer me a scholarship to play football at USC and would I accept. Yes, sir, I said, hardly believing what I had heard.

I said a lot of yes sirs: I could gain more weight; I liked to block; I understood that the team ran the ball far more than passing the ball and that was all right with me.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

Driving home in the black 1941 Ford coupe I had bought from my brother for $75, I made a promise to myself that was perhaps just as impactful on my life as my decision not to be promoted to the sixth grade. Whereas that earlier decision was motivated by a childish desire to not have anything interfere with my standing among classmates, the promise I made to myself, the new recruit to USC, was more altruistic.

I decided that, in return for the football scholarship, I owed USC my complete commitment to do everything possible to become the best player I could become. That meant regulating my life on and off the field. I vowed to work out year–round and not have any alcohol or sweets or soft drinks during my entire four years at USC. 

I kept that promise. It wasn’t that I had an alcohol problem, but in high school, I did drink after games. The truth was that the first two days after that were wasted; instead of being able to practice effectively and improve, the days were spent recovering from the drinking. Now, as to total abstinence from alcohol and sweets for four years: Had I indulged moderately in either, it is unlikely that there would have been many adverse physical effects, but each time I declined the temptation, I was reminded of my allegiance to my school, to the football program, to my goal of proving to USC that it made the right decision when it gave me a scholarship. 

After my freshman year, I discovered that the concept of giving full value back for what one receives was not unique to me. That summer, the athletic department had arranged for me and a bunch of other players to have jobs with a construction company that was laying cement in the Los Angeles River. Our main task was carrying 15-foot-long iron rebar to be laid as support for the cement. It was called “punking iron,” and it was hard work.

We were granted the right to take a 10-minute break each hour. One of the regular workers, Sergio, a Mexican national, never took a break, and I asked him why.

He said: “They pay me to punk iron for eight hours so I punk iron for eight hours.”

I like to think that I let those words resonate with me for the rest of my work life. 

Back to my fifth–grade decision. Had I accepted the promotion to the sixth grade, by the time I reached my senior year in high school, I would have just been that 5-11, 155-pound clumsy kid who had yet to have any moments of success on the football field. I would not have had that moment which caused me to believe that, just perhaps, with more work I could improve. 

Some 60 years after my fifth–grade decision, when reading Malcolm Gladwell‘s book “Outliers,” I recognized what I had done. That book opines that the “self–made man” is a myth; what truly lies behind the success of the best people in their field is often a series of lucky events, rare opportunities and other external factors, which are out of our control.

One of those factors, states Mr. Gladwell, is the month one is born in. He cites that older children in the same grade tend to do better because they are bigger, more coordinated and more mature. It is now a common practice for parents trying to shepherd their athletic child to a college scholarship to hold the child back in school. Well, I did the same thing by refusing to be promoted to a grade where I would be the youngest, the least coordinated, the least mature. 

Mr. Gladwell did not attribute the path to success only on mere chance and date of birth; he also identified, whether in athletics or any other field, that practice is the essence of genius. His studies revealed that the most successful people had put in 10,000 hours of effort. My decision to try to give USC more value in return for what it gave me resulted in my ability to exceed that 10,000-hour standard. 

Still, notwithstanding that I later put in the effort and dedication on a scale that was not common for those times, none of this particular success would have occurred had I not declined to be promoted to the sixth grade.

Knowing that, I am even getting close to forgiving Carole for liking Dougie. 

Ron Mix, a USC alumnus, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. He is one of only 20 men to play in all 10 seasons of the AFL’s existence. He was an All-AFL selection in nine of his 10 AFL seasons. He won the 1963 AFL championship with the Chargers.

In the cover photo for this story, Mix is shown on the left with fellow Pro Football Hall of Famers and former Chargers Charlie Joiner (middle) and Fred Dean (right), at a ceremony in Carson, California, on Dec. 3, 2017.