HILLSBORO, Kan.   In the first twelve seasons of Tabor College football, they managed to have one .500 record season. That all changed in 1979, when the 'California Connection' and the Bluejays broke through with a 7-3 record.

Kerry Denison was recruited by his former high school coach, Dan Thiessen, before the fall of 1978 after a couple of junior college years. At the time, Denison was training for multiple Division I colleges and universities, when Thiessen asked him if he would join him, as he had just accepted the head coaching position at Tabor.

"I thought about myself, I said, 'Well, I could be a small fish or a minnow in a big lake, or I could be a big fish in a little pond.' And I thought the latter would be the best of it," Denison said. I'm glad I chose Tabor. It changed my life. It changed who I became." 

Denison recalled that he was initially recruited as a free safety, but Thiessen convinced him mid-game to play wide receiver for an injured player. He ended playing both ways for a few games before a broken collarbone forced him to miss the rest of the season.

After the injury, Denison stated that Thiessen reached out to offer this advice: "Whatever you do, don't go home. Don't go home because you're good enough. Don't go home.' And I thought about it. I'm like, 'Why would I go home? Why would I go home? The people are good to me, they treat me well. And you know what? It just gives me more drive for my senior year.'"

Marc Sandall, who was also from Bakersfield, decided to commit to Tabor as a tight end following stints of playing at San Diego State University and Bakersfield College. While attending California State University, Bakersfield, he was still seeking another college football opportunity.

"During break from school I worked in a sandwich shop and across the street was a sporting goods team sales division. I went over there on my break and talked to a gentleman who ran the place and he told me, 'Hey a friend of mine is coming through here and he just accepted a head coaching job. He's looking for certain guys for a certain offense they're running.' Right off the top of my head I said, 'I don't care where it is, I'm going,'" Sandall said.

Rodney Wallace was a quarterback coached by Frank Thiessen, Dan's brother, at Wasco High School in California. After playing at Bakersfield College, Wallace thought his football career was over. However, Tabor's Thiessen reached out to Wallace and asked if he was interested in coming up to play for the Bluejays prior to the 1979 season. 

"I met with him and I had already told my dad that as long as they could get my tuition down to the same I'd have to pay for Fresno State, I wanted to play some football still. And so Dan came in as a typical coach. He came in and he started giving the recruitment spiel and I just said, 'Hey coach, let me just tell you something right now. I'm coming. I want to play. I'm coming out there,'" Wallace said.

In a preseason article written in an August 1979 issue of The Hillsboro Star Journal, Thiessen expressed optimism for the upcoming season. "We've had a pretty good recruiting year. We lost some (players) that I wish we wouldn't have, but for the most part the people that we have are talented. I am real pleased with what we have coming in."

"Going back, when you go out there to warm up the first day of practice, Coach Thiessen said to everybody, 'Hey everybody, introduce yourself' as we're stretching. 'Introduce yourself and any awards you got, as far as State and everything like that.' And it was amazing to me. Here we are at a little NAIA school, and we're going through and almost every player was all-state, second all-state, honorable mention all-state, all-league, all-conference. To me, that was amazing," Wallace said.

"That team to me was special. It's just a special team to play for. I played in junior college, we were number five in the country. And I think that Tabor team was more close than that team that was ranked in junior college. Everybody loved each other and working together. That's what I loved about my time there. We all bought in and that we all believed in each other," Denison said.

Wallace noted that while the team lost the opener to Hastings College 35-6, there was a level of confidence that the team took from it and the team rallied together. As a team, Tabor had 455 yards of total offense, but had too many possessions that would end empty because of penalties. 

"The opener to me, it really showed that we were a team because I was actually sitting on the bench in the first quarter. Steve Webster was quarterbacking and I remember vividly he comes off after one series of offense and he comes over to Coach Thiessen and he says, 'Coach, I'm done playing quarterback. Put Wallace in, I want to play defense.' I think that showed we're all about what's best for the team, not individually," Wallace said.

One of the changes Theissen made was playing Denison solely at wide receiver that season. Denison was officially recorded with 11 catches for 236 yards in the game, prompting the 'California Connection' nickname for the trio.

"It gave us a glimpse into the future of what could happen in the future for us. I think it set the precedent that had we not had the penalties you would've saw a national record being brought on all levels of college," Sandall said. "According to their (Hastings College) stat man - who walked across the field and talked to us and I was right there - he came and talked to us and said, 'Kerry, you know if you hadn't gotten those penalties you would have had 18 receptions for 356 yards.' Both of our mouths dropped open and we thought, 'Holy mackerel!'"

After dropping the opener to Hastings, Tabor found their stride, winning seven of their next eight games, including six in a row.

"What started us to become believers in ourselves was the fact that we did believe in ourselves and chemistry was amazing. We had guys from all over the country and we were recruited for a reason so we thought let's do the best we can and have fun doing it. A lot of teams haven't seen the passing attack we have. We set the run up by throwing the ball and they were getting up on our path and we'd run the ball and I think it was a good complement," Sandall said.

Denison recalled one of the teams' biggest wins, a 23-8 road win at rival Bethel College during their homecoming weekend. "The team was pretty fired up to play them. I remember saying we got a point to prove that we're not no kickover anymore. We're just gonna go in there and play our game. When it ended, I remember people running onto the field. It was a pretty special moment. Anytime you beat a rival it's pretty special."

In a November 1979 issue of The Hillsboro Star Journal, Thiessen was quoted as saying, "I had set my goals to try and win the conference. I knew that we had the talent. I was concerned about the depth, injury-wise. The biggest thing I wanted to do was to go into homecoming undefeated in the conference. If we could beat Southwestern (after homecoming), I felt we had a pretty good shot of going all the way."

At 7-2 overall and 7-0 in conference, Tabor had an opportunity against Bethany College, who was also undefeated in conference play, to compete for the Kansas College Athletic Conference (KCAC) title in their final regular season game. While the Bluejays would lose the game, the team took much more from their time at Tabor.

"God really changed my life when I got there. He just made me understand. I went on to play afterwards and I just remember, people had always asked me, 'What has He done for you?' I go, 'Well, the one thing is that I never get cut from His team. If I ever get cut, it's not from His town. I'll never get cut from His team. The playbook is the Bible. That's my playbook,'" Denison said, who finished the season with 1,303 receiving yards, the most in the KCAC. "And I think that's the gist of what we're there for, is that we learn in life and to be a servant to Him. That's why I try to serve with my kids and understand just the choices you make in life."

"I just wanted to experience a smaller atmosphere. I needed to mature in my Christian faith. I wanted to go somewhere where I could help the team and Tabor was the lucky recipient," Sandall said, adding that he was just as fortunate to end up at Tabor. He finished the season seventh in the KCAC with 44.5 receiving yards per game.

"It was a great experience just how I fit in, as far as I'm concerned, to what Tabor was all about. I think it was great. It gave me an opportunity as a Christian school to stay focused on what I should be doing as a human being and I think that was a great experience for me," Wallace said, who led the KCAC with 2,197 passing yards that season.

After graduating in 1980, Denison played football professionally for the Birmingham Stars in the United States Football League and the Ottawa Rough Riders in the Canadian Football League. He then retired from football and pursued a career in education and coaching in Kansas, with stints at Chase High School, Tabor, and Baker University. Denison moved to Colorado to teach and coach at Westminster High School, where he turned a struggling football program into one of the best in the state, breaking a 20-year playoff drought in his first season. He was there for over 20 years, before retiring from teaching in 2019 and is now coaching at Ralston Valley High School. Denison and his wife, Karen, have been married for 27 years with four daughters, one son, and three grandchildren.

In the aftermath of graduating from Tabor in 1981, Sandall went back to California and has done a variety of work for the community. He started out primarily coaching high school football and baseball, eventually moving on to just baseball. In addition to coaching, he is a Veteran volunteer and the founder of the Kern County World War II Veterans Memorial. He was inspired to found the memorial as a way to honor his late father, who was a pilot in the Atlantic operation during World War II. Sandall noted that he has grown a lot in his faith after college and became a member of the Influencers Global Ministries to help married men become the best that they can be.

Upon graduation in 1981, Wallace went back to California to teach and coach, including back at Wasco High School, where he helped end a 36-year playoff drought. He then reunited with Theissen at Garces High School in California, coaching JV football. Wallace later went to Suwon, South Korea for three years and was a founding administrator of a government-funded Christian school, Gyeonggi Suwon International. From there, he returned to California to be a superintendent. After a brief retirement, Wallace was convinced to go back into teaching and coaching tennis and golf at Bakersfield Christian High School. These days, Wallace resides in Arizona with his wife, while his two children have grown up and have started their own careers.

According to the 'California Connection', the team has stayed in contact over the years and makes a concerted effort to make it to Homecoming each year to reunite with their former teammates. While Denison is the only one of the trio that plans to be there this year, he believes many of his teammates and alumni will be at the Homecoming football game on Saturday.

The football game will take place on Saturday, Sept. 30 in Hillsboro, Kan. against Bethel College at 2 p.m. at Joel H. Wiens Stadium.

Special thanks to Angela Vix and Mike Klaassen for their contributions to the article.