SALINAS >> Retirement has not kept Danny Teresa from adding to his legacy as a player, coach, administrator and now author at Hartnell College.

A year after producing a book on the history of Hartnell baseball, the recently retired athletic director has completed his book on Hartnell football.

Unlike his baseball book on the Panthers’ program, which was 250 pages, nearly 90 years of Hartnell football put the book at nearly 500 pages.

Football at Hartnell “started in 1932,” said Teresa, who played football and baseball at Hartnell in 1981-82. “It was a lot of research through archives, old programs and talking to different people.”

Teresa, who remains on the Hartnell Hall of Fame committee, wanted to compile one last project from his 35-plus-year career.

“After the baseball book, a lot of my friends and former players said ‘what about the tradition of Hartnell football?’” Teresa said. “It’s one of the richest sports at Hartnell and in the nation.”

Teresa has spent the past two years sifting through old papers and programs, finding results, as well as stats and team photos that date back to 1932.

“Sports stories in the 1930s and ’40s were mixed in with other articles in the newspaper,” Teresa said. “It made it a little more challenging.”

Having played and coached at Hartnell, along with his father Tony, Teresa found stories that he wasn’t aware of about the program’s history.

“When the war broke out in the 1940s, football was an intramural program,” Teresa said. “So there wasn’t as much information. Seeing the names that came through here is mindblowing.”

Hartnell’s storied past includes playing to a tie in the 1952 Junior College Rose Bowl. Yet, that might not have been the school’s best team.

In 1958, behind All-America running back Jim Stireman, Hartnell went undefeated, but didn’t get invited to the JC Rose Bowl.

To this day, it is one of just two teams that completed perfection, joining the 1953 team that went undefeated and untied.

Ironically, 25 years after that 1958 undefeated team, Teresa and Stireman’s son David, played together at Hartnell for one season in 1982, leading the team to a conference title.

“I don’t know the whole story of why they did not get invited,” Teresa said. “But it was one of the better teams Hartnell has ever had. That team is in the school’s Hall of Fame.”

As Teresa continued his research, he stumbled upon a throwback in Ron Critchfield, who participated in football, basketball and track and field at Hartnell.

Critchfield compiled nearly 500 wins as a boys basketball coach in the county, achieving most of his success at Palma.

“The amount of JC All-Americans that went through Hartnell is incredible,” Teresa said. “We could put two or three players each year into the Hall of Fame based on making all-state.”

Among the notable names who went on and played pro football include Ed Brown, Bob Kelly, Tony Teresa, Gary Plumlee, Rocky Thompson, Greg Cox, Anthony Toney and Carl Nicks.

Teresa estimated over 5,500 athletes have played football at Hartnell.

The football program has 30 conference titles on its resume and 16 bowl wins, making it No. 18 in the nation with over 500 career wins.

“This book will have stats for all individuals, as well as team stats of nearly 800 games, not to mention stories,” Teresa said. “There are articles from games over the last 90 years.”

In addition to players’ stats, the records of all coaches were recorded, including Marv Grim, who won a school record 108 games over 14 years, compiling a 73 percent winning percentage.

Matt Collins put together the longest run as a Hartnell football coach at 17 years, winning 93 games, while Dick Voris was nearly perfect in two seasons, going 20-0-1 in 1952-53.

“The reaction I’ve gotten from some of the former coaches and teammates I’ve shown it to — the expression on their faces said it all,” Teresa said.

Teresa hopes to have the book on Amazon by mid-August.

“It is so thick, we can only do a hard cover,” Teresa said. “I feel pretty good about it.”