Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories on Manteca High graduates and faculty members as the school gears up for its centennial celebration this fall.

When jersey day came around at Van Allen Elementary School, Chris Teicheira knew it meant that he was inevitably going to get beaten up by the older kids.

In a school that sent 99 percent of its matriculating students to Escalon High School, Teicheira was the lone Buffalo – the son of Manteca High School graduates, and the grandson of a member of the Class of 1941 (his grandfather missed high school to milk cows so that his younger brother Frank could be a standout star at the town’s only high school) – and there was no chance that he was going to present himself as anything else.

While he knew that he was in for a hard time with the Escalon kids every time he donned a Manteca High football jersey, there was no way that he wasn’t going to represent the school that was in his family’s blood.

“Back then you used to be able to see the towers from Spreckels Sugar from the school,” Teicheira said. “It was just awesome knowing that every time I looked that direction that I would be going there when I got old enough.

“It was a daily reminder of where it was, and I couldn’t wait to get there.”

While the Teicheira name has been well-represented at two Manteca high schools over the years – his grandfather’s brother had a son who sent his kids to his area school, Sierra, and the stadium is named after one of them – it’s a local family that has its roots firmly entrenched in the soil beneath the haven of the Buffalo.

With both a teacher and a cousin that currently teach at Manteca High School, Teicheira is well plugged-in at his alma mater and says he loves it when he’s able to get old school apparel that is either turned in or left behind by coaches – filling his closet with a treasure trove of green and white gear that would make even the most well-outfitted athlete jealous.

And it doesn’t matter whether the football program that he was once a part of is winning or losing – he’s always going to be talking up his alma mater and doing whatever he can to make it whatever big game happens to be taking place.

“It’s just the tradition – generations of people that have been paying it forward – and it’s the hope that they’re going to go all the way,” Teicheira said. “There are down years at Manteca High School like there are anywhere, but when you’re a kid and you go to a game and see all the old timers like Manuel Valverde there and they know your name and they say ‘hi’ to you, you get the feeling that you’re a part of something.

“People have been going to those games for years and they’ll be going long after you’re gone, and you got to be a part of that tradition. It’s a great feeling – there is nothing else like it.”

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.