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Joe Davidson's Sacramento- Bee Article L.G. and Nancy Kubel FRED WRISTEN – CLASS OF ‘41 He’s a flinty looking guy. The kind of guy that watches football games, while cracking walnuts with his bare hands and all the time complaining about the youth of America. Only he isn’t. Oh, he could crack the walnuts with his bare hands alright but the rest isn’t Fred Wristen. He’s a happy guy, self-effacing if his former athletic ability is praised and quick to point out that whatever athletic ability he had was balanced by his academic performance.
“Sam Pepper owed him a lot,” says Dolores Silva Greenslate, Class of ’42; Sam Pepper being the somewhat flamboyant Principal of C.K. McClatchy High School from its onset in 1937.
I took the lead, “Why?”
“Why?!” He put the school on the map!”
“How so?” says I.
“Football, that’s why. Fred lettered in every sport he played at McClatchy but it was football.”
“Well, ah, exactly what did he do?”
“What did he do! He beat the Dragons in football that’s what he did. Of course, he had some pretty good players with him but, yeah, it was Fred.”
Fred would never tell it that way. Fred would say, “Yeah, we had a pretty good team that year. I played some.” True enough. He was All-Conference Tailback for McClatchy in ’40 when the conference included some pretty rough competition, not just from Sacramento, but Turlock, Modesto and Lodi among others.
Fred went on to play at University of Nevada on a football scholarship. His fullback was NFL Hall of Famer, Marion Motley and the pulling guard was Dan Calcott. As Fred said, “It was fun running behind the 2nd and 3rd fastest guys on the team.” The fun ended for Fred in November 1942 when his brother Hank’s cruiser,USS New Orleans, was torpedoed in the Solomon Islands and 150 sailors lost their lives. Fred got out of school and got into the Navy. He served on Guadalcanal and Tinian during WW II.
I don’t think Fred would ever describe himself as part of the “Best Generation”; I think he would say, “Heck, we just did what we were supposed to do.”
And maybe being a part of McClatchy High School had something to do with that.
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