MILWAUKEE DON BOSCO…THE MILWAUKEE CATHOLIC CONFERENCE MID-1960’S POWERHOUSE

Over in St. Francis the Catholic Archdiocese seminary for Milwaukee in the mid-1940’s was flush with so many attendees that no new applications were being accepted. This was a far cry 25 years later when applications had drastically slowed. The Archdiocese invited the religious order, the Marianist brothers and priests from St. Louis to come and establish a school. They first formed Milwaukee Messmer on the north side of Milwaukee and then, seeing a need for a school on the south side established an all-boys high school at 12th and Becher Street in a former public grade school that had been built at the turn of the century. Over on 5th Street and Mitchell St. Stanislaus High School, a co-ed campus, changed its name to Notre Dame.

That new high school became Don Bosco which opened in 1945 with freshmen and sophomores in an elementary school building built at the turn of the century and formerly owned by the Milwaukee Public School system. It may have been a plan for the Archdiocese at that time to begin to close Pio Nono/St. Francis Seminary High School and have the boy’s move to Don Bosco. That didn’t happen well when St. Francis closed in 1946. Many of the 6-2-0 (5-2-0 in conference play) 1946 St. Francis team went to schools closer to their Milwaukee homes. The first graduating class was in 1948 but in 1947 the school played their first year of varsity football going 1-5-1 and played only fellow teams in the Catholic Conference which they had just joined. Phil Schrempf was their coach for the first two years. The 1947 varsity season though started with a whimper and a bang. The whimper was the season opener as they lost their very first game to Cedarburg, 19-7, scoring a touchdown in the waning minutes. The bang came in game two. That’s when they posted a 7-0 upset win over the 1946 Catholic Conference champion Racine St. Catherine’s. Against St. Catherines Don Bosco couldn’t mount any sort of a drive during the game, but their defense kept the Angles out of the end zone. The Don’s recovered three fumbles, intercepted a pass and stopped the Angles twice on fourth down tight pass coverage resulting on the Racine team turning the ball over on downs. In fact, St. Catherine’s as a team outgained Don Bosco 2-1 in overall yardage and picked up 16 first downs to 2. The lone score came when Don Klein, the Bosco center, playing linebacker on defense, returned a St. Kate’s interception for a 40-yard score in the fourth quarter. This would be the team's only win in 1947.

The next year, 1948, the two teams again opened the conference schedule, and the results were greatly reversed as the Angles pounded the Don’s 44-19. While the team was one of the doormats of the conference the team finished slightly above St. John Cathedral, 1-4-0 in conference play and 1-5-1 overall. Not only did Don Bosco beat the 1946 champion team (St. Catherine’s) they tied the 1947 champ, Messmer, to give that school their only blemish. Next season, 1948 they went 2-6-1. For some reason in 1948 the only team in the conference to play all of the other teams was Racine St. Catherine’s. In the seven-team conference the other team only played five of the other six members that season. Don Bosco finished tied with Milwaukee Notre Dame for last place. Both had 1-4 records in the conference. Don Bosco ended the 1949 year with an overall 2-6-0 record under the coaching of Marv Bell.

The school under Schrempf (1947-48), Bell (1949-51) and Robert Regent (1952) were only 15-30-2. In 1953 a new coach, Dan Fleming, brought a new life into the program, giving the school their first conference championship as they tied with Racine St. Catherine’s. The Racine team had led the conference all season but in their final game, against Don Bosco, the Angles fell, and fell hard to the Don’s 37-7.

The next season, 1954, they won the conference outright as there was a three-way tie for second between St. Catherine’s, Pius and Marquette. This truly was a strange season in the conference.

Don Bosco would have an overall 7-1-0 record; St. Catherine’s had a 5-3-0 season, losing a non-conference game to Green Bay Catholic Central then in conference losing to Pius and Marquette but they did give Don Bosco their only loss in game two, 13-14. Meanwhile, Pius lost to Don Bosco and then was upset by Notre Dame. Marquette also lost to Don Bosco and to Pius. The only non-conference game for Don Bosco, a 42-6 win was over a smaller school, Kenosha St. Mary, the precursor to St. Jospeh, the new school that opened a few years later. I cannot find any reference to coach Dan Fleming before or after his two-season stint at Bosco, but I feel confident that wherever he went he was a successful teacher and coach.

Fleming’s replacement was Edgar “Ed” Callahan who spent five seasons as the head coach, 1955-59 going 28-12-1. Don Bosco had a 7-1-1 season in his initial season of 1955 and then a 7-1-0 year in 1957. They finished second in the Catholic those two years and in the middle of the pack the other three going 4-4-0 in 1956 and 5-3-0 in each of the 1958 and 1959 seasons.

For coach Ed Callahan, his story is much more widely known. Born in 1929 in Youngstown, Ohio he attended Ursuline High School where he was a very good tackle. Standing 6’1, weighing 225, Callahan graduated in 1946 and he was offered many scholarships, but he chose Marquette because he wanted to go to a Catholic Jesuit University. Graduating in 1951 with a B.A. in mathematics, Ed stayed on to get a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration in 1952. He then went to Don Bosco as a math teacher and an assistant coach for football and basketball, before replacing Dan Fleming as the top football man. A very principled man with high integrity he was, to say the least, a man that others thought highly of.

In 1960 he was recruited by a new school in Rockford Illinois to start the football and basketball program at Boylan Catholic High School which opened that year. In 1966 Don Bosco played Rockford Boylan and the Don’s beat the Titan’s 26-25. Ed stayed as the football and basketball coach plus the head of the math department until 1970 when he became the school’s principal. In 1971 he took the job as superintendent of the Rockford Area Catholic Schools and stayed until 1975. Because Ed had a reputation as a very trustful and knowledgeable man, he was asked by the State of Illinois to become the Assistant Secretary of State and then soon became director of Financial Institutions for the state of Illinois. Ed and several of his assistants righted a corrupt department and set the ship right to serving the state’s financial institutions. A life-long Democrat, Ed caught the attention of Republican President Ronald Reagan who, in 1981, asked him to serve as Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), another government organization that had suffered through poor direction during the Carter administration. Ed left in 1985 and started his own company, Callahan and Associates which became the leading provider of financial data to credit unions in the United States. He served in several other positions before retiring in 2002 and then passing in 2009. His successor at Don Bosco stayed 22-years (12 at Don Bosco and then 10 at Thomas More after Bosco merged with Pio Nono).

As mentioned in my September 21, 2021 blog: THE GREAT 1949 ST. CATHERINE’S TEAM (THE GREAT 1949 RACINE ST. CATHERINE’S TEAM (wihifootball.com)). Jim Haluska was a much talented quarterback for his high school team as well as setting records at the University of Wisconsin. He played briefly as a pro for the Chicago Bears and then spent time with the Racine Raiders, a semi-pro football team. In 1960 he replaced Ed Callahan at Don Bosco and this started a Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame career. Besides playing for the Raiders after leaving the Bears, I’m not sure what Haluska did before taking over at Don Bosco as his WFCA H-O-F profile says he started there in 1960 teaching physical education and coaching (James Haluska - Don Bosco / St. Thomas More / Pius XI / Catholic Memorial (wifca.org)) other profiles mention that he also taught world history. It is known that in 1959 the fledgling Los Angeles Chargers (Before they relocated to San Diego in 1961) of the newly formed American Football League (AFL) approached Haluska to play for them. He turned down the offer and took the Don Bosco job in 1960 Also, that year, Haluska split time with coaching the Racine Raiders. He quit that position at the start of the 1961 season to devote his work to Don Bosco.

Jim Haluska at Wisconsin (From his Badger HOF profile)

A few notes about Haluska’s first year at Don Bosco. They won the season opener against Whitefish Bay Dominican. In week two they faced a very tough Milwaukee Country Day (Now closed and later it merged with Milwaukee University School) under the direction of WFCA Hall of Fame coach Kenneth Laird. Country Day had an 18-game winning streak at the time the two schools battled, and it was a barn burner. A 34-33 win for Country Day won by them very late in the contest. That win gave the school their 19th consecutive win and that would continue until they lost after two more victories to end with a 21-game streak. In game four Haluska faced his former high school coach, Eddie Race as St. Catherine’s edged Don Bosco out, on the last play of the game to win 28-26. The final game of note for 1960 was the 4-6 loss to Pius. The Pope’s scored on their first drive and the Don’s defense held them scoreless for the rest of the game. The Don Bosco defense was all over Pius holding their opponent to less than 100-yards, yet they couldn’t do much better, only scoring the two safeties.

After going 5-3-0 in his first season, things paid off for his Don’s as they went 7-1-0 and tied for the Catholic Conference title with Milwaukee Pius XI., a team that Don Bosco lost to 7-0. 1960 and 1961 were strange years for the Catholic Conference. They had 10 schools in the conference but were split into two divisions…the White was made up of the six bigger schools and the Gold held the four smaller schools. These two years were the only time in the overall 46-year history of the conference that there were two divisions. The Catholic would start in 1930 with five schools and later grow to as many as 11 members for football before contracting through mergers and closers and then the creation of the Metro Conference in 1974

Conference standings for 1961

It’s interesting that the White Division teams only counted the games that they played against other members of the White group in their overall conference records. But take a look at the Gold Division. Catholic Memorial and St. John Cathedral also played three teams in the White Division for six total conference games while Notre Dame and Dominican only played three games within the Gold Division and their other games were against non-Catholic Conference teams.

After the success of 1961 the Don’s finished in third place in 1962 and then tied for fifth place in 1963. 1964 rolled around and many of the underclassmen from the year before had gained much needed experience and Haluska’s players were ready to roll. The team opened with a 14-13 win over Oconomowoc before starting conference play as sophomore Mark Mulqueen led the way on the ground and Chip Grelach directed the offense. If you look at the “Coach Jim Haluska Wall of Champions” web site…Wall of Champions - St. Thomas More (tmore.org) a number of things mentioned there stand out to me. First, the name of Chet Gerlach…Chip was used by the newspapers so maybe Chip was a nickname. Second, the listing for the team’s record is 9-0-0 but a newspaper search shows it to be 8-0-0. I’m listing their 1964 schedule below. Tackle Ted Derynda earned first team All-Catholic Conference as well as first team All-State on the U.P.I. All-Private team as well as High School All-America. The Milwaukee Journal newspaper did mention in several stories and in the article on the All-Catholic Conference team that guards, not tackles, Tom Walczak and Tim Marola were in the first team. Marola also made All-State on the U.P.I. All-Private team. Several times the opposing coaches talked highly of these two guards in post- game interviews. Gerlach’s passing stats for the conference were 48-80-2-580-5 as he earned All-Catholic first team and fullback Jerry Jenders earned second team. Jenders picked up the slack when Mulqueen, who had scored three touchdowns against Pius in game two, was lost for the season late in that game with a broken leg. Jenders had a great game against Dominican, rushing for 111 yards on 20 carries while scoring three touchdowns. Against St. Joseph he showed his defensive prowess recovering two fumbles and making 12 tackles from his linebacker spot.

When asked about his coaching style Jim Haluska told the Milwaukee Journal that while with the Chicago Bear’s he came into contact with a coach from another team. He said he learned a lot from the Bears coach George Halas but even more in talking to Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown. For those who are don’t know Browns coaching history here’s a rundown. He coached high school ball at Massillon Washington, Ohio going 80-8-2, five state titles and also earned four mythical National Championship titles over nine seasons. He then moved on to become the head coach of Ohio State University from 1941-43 and then after World War II where he coached military team’s he helped found the Cleveland Browns in 1946 where he stayed until he was let go in 1963. He then founded the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968 and coached them until 1975 and remained as the team’s president until his death in 1991. While not universally liked he was an innovator for creating the modern face mask, using game film of opponents, created the draw-play, had a large staff of paid full-time assistants and he played a major role in breaking professional football’s color barrier. In the 1930’s his high school team was asked almost every season to play an additional game against a southern opponent, say Miami (FL) High or Knoxville (TN) High. He turned them down, losing much needed money for his school because the host school requested that he not bring his “negro” players. Check out his Wiki page: Paul Brown - Wikipedia

Like Brown, Haluska was a strict disciplinarian and used much of Browns terminology and methods. One was he ran ahead of his team out onto the playing field where most coaches just sauntered behind their squads. He ws their leader not a follower. Another coach who influenced him was Army’s Earl Blaik and Haluska utilized a version of Blaik’s Armey offense in what was called “the lonely end” offensive formation. I’m not sure how long he kept it in his playbook but in the 1964 variation his flanker, not end, Don Petchel was split 15-20 yards out from the rest of the team. He was one of the first coaches to utilize the “quick kick” on second down, not just once but often each season as the need appeared.

As you could see by looking at the 1964 schedule the Don’s didn’t score a lot as they beat their opponents with an adequate offense and a tough defense. 1964 was the first of four consecutive Catholic Conference titles, 1964-67. 1964 and 1966 (7-0-0 in conference) were shared titles and 1965 Don Bosco tied with Pius (With 6-1-0 records each). In 1967 they tied with Catholic Memoria (6-0-0)l but each team in the 11-team conference only played six opponents that season.

His six conference titles in the 1960’s was the most by any other team. (Pius had five solo or shared titles) Don Bosco copped a solo title in 1970. The school merged with Pio Nono in 1973 to become Thomas More and they tied with Marquette for the final Catholic Conference title, each with 7-1-0 records. Hulaska’s 1974 team went 9-0-0 but was not chosen to play in the WISAA playoffs. That was the schools last undefeated season but in 1976, 1977 and 1981 WISAA state championships as the squads went 10-1-0 each season.

Jim Haluska retired from Thomas More after the 1987 season but he didn’t retire from coaching. He moved to teach at Pius and assist a great coach, Bill Young, at Catholic Memorial. If you look at the first chart of the blog on the 1954 conference season or the chart of their 1964 season you will see that, as already stated, the team wasn’t a high-powered scoring machine.

In fact, I can only find a few Catholic Conference teams over the 47-year conference records that scored more than 200 points in conference play. Like other schools, Haluska’s Don Bosco rarely scored more than 160 points in conference play. Defense was the name of the game for the Catholic schools. A 7-0 or 14-12 score was often common. As examples, the 1962 champion Pius team went 6-0-1 and scored only 116 points and allowed 56 while fourth place Kenosha St. Joseph was 4-2-1 and scored only 71 and allowed 78. Fifth place Waukesha Memorial played an even season…3-3-1, scoring only 50 points and allowing 50 points in conference play. Not all seasons were like this, teams playing this type of ball but for some seasons this type of low scoring wasn’t uncommon.

In 2001 Haluska was inducted into the WFCA Hall of Fame. In addition to his three state titles his squads won 12 conference titles…6 each at Don Bosco and Thomas More…he compiled a 206-60-4 record at the two schools and helped influence others like Marquette’s Dick Basham and, as stated before, Catholic Memorial’s Bill Young plus other coaches from all around the state. His influence is still felt today after his passing on September 20, 2012.

THE 1960’S…A DECADE OF BIG CHANGES…PART 3 (A BIG CHANGE IN THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL LANDSCAPE)

This blog deals with the Catholic schools, for the most part, in the Milwaukee Archdiocese…schools in the Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan, Washington, Dodge, Ozaukee, Walworth, Waukesha and Fond du Lac counties. There are several charts to view to hopefully illustrate my research.

My story starts in the 1950’s by keying in on the Milwaukee Archdiocese. In 1957 the Milwaukee Archdiocese had 24 high schools, four colleges and 198 grade schools as they served over 100,000 students. Across America, about 85% of grade school and high school students in private schools attended Catholic schools. In Wisconsin the percentage was about 87% and in Milwaukee it was around 91%. Many of those Catholic schools would close or merge in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

If you look back on my blog about the 1949 Racine St. Catherine’s football team, you can count among their eight opponents seven schools in the Milwaukee Catholic

St. Catherine’s (Of course)

St. John’s Cathedral

Milwaukee Marquette

Milwaukee Messmer

Milwaukee Pius XI

Milwaukee Don Bosco

Milwaukee Notre Dame

Today, only St. Catherine’s, Marquette, Messmer and Pius still exist. Don Bosco merged with Pio Nono and became Thomas More (Now Saint Thomas More). St. John’s and Notre Dame closed.

As I’ve mentioned, beside the above Milwaukee Catholic Conference schools there were also:

Burlington St. Mary’s (Now Catholic Central.

St. John in Rubicon

Milwaukee St. Benedict Moor

Milwaukee Divine Savior

Milwaukee Holy Angles (Now merged with Divine Savior)

Milwaukee Divine Savior Convent

Milwaukee St. Joan Antida

Waukesha Memorial

Whitefish Bay Dominican

Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs

Fond du Lac St. Agnes

Milwaukee St. Joseph

Milwaukee Mercy Academy

Sorrowful Mother Convent

Kenosha St. Joseph

Sturtevant St. Bonaventure

In the 1950's and 1960’s Whitefish Bay Dominican, Kenosha St. Joseph and Waukesha Memorial would play football and join the Catholic Conference. St. Francis Pio Nono, a school that first played football in 1922 and then closed in 1941 reopened in 1965 and played Catholic Conference football until it merged with Milwaukee Don Bosco. Burlington St. Mary’s and Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs also had teams with Springs part of the then Fox River Valley Catholic Conference that included De Pere Pennings, Appleton Xavier, Green Bay Premontre, Menasha St. Mary, Oshkosh Lourdes, Little Chute St. John and Marinette Catholic. Burlington St. Mary’s played in the Southeastern Badger Conference, one that included Kettle Moraine, Waterford, Pewaukee, Salem Central and Arrowhead.

This is not meant to be a religious discussion, but a little Catholic history is needed to understand the changes. A feeling that Catholics needed to send their children had prevailed since the 1884 Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, a meeting between American Bishops. That meeting began the movement to open many Catholic schools to meet the needs of the families that attended the local church. In 1890 only about 69% of children that were school age attended classes, averaging only about 86 days per year in attendance but only about 3.5% graduated. Not every child in America were like the kids in TV series "Little House on the Prairie who seemed to always be attending school on a regular basis. Did you ever see an old Western movie where someone was asked to “make their mark” on a legal paper (Usually just an X). Or have you viewed the Tom Hanks movie “News of the World” in which Hanks travels around the southwest reading the latest newspaper stories to those who can’t read? Life was like that in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Catholic church saw a need to educate the population and they set about helping to do so. And they did it well.

Fast forward and in 1959 Pope St. John XXIII called for a gathering to modernize, to update the church. There were many changes that came out of Vatican II (1962-65), some the members liked and some that they did not. One of those changes was the direction of Catholic education. Questions were raised in and out of the church at this time as to the need for Catholic schools to compete with the public school system. With the reduction of men and women entering the Catholic religious life there was less and less support for maintaining the schools. There were also economic problems as well as populations moving out of the city of Milwaukee to the suburbs. Sustaining the schools became very difficult as well without new or updated facilities.

Check out below, Chart #1 of Milwaukee Area Catholic football playing schools and their enrollment:

The chart only includes schools that played football, but you can see the sharp decrease over the years in attendance. Francis Jordan closed in 1969, Don Bosco merged with Pio Nono in 1972 and became Thomas More (Now St. Thomas More) and St. John’s Cathedral closed in 1975. All three, Don Bosco, Cathedral and Francis Jordan needed new facilities. Pio Nono, having the space so Don Bosco, with a larger attendance, moved to the St. Francis school building. Notre Dame and Don Bosco were only a few blocks from each other and when Bosco moved four miles to the south Notre Dame gained a few students who didn’t want to travel that far. But, as mentioned previously, the finances were too much for that high school to continue.

Chart #2…Catholic Conference 1966 standings...

NOTE: The 1966 season for St. John’s Cathedral (7-0-1 overall) was their best since 1937 (4-1-1).

Many of the Catholic high schools at this time were boys or girls only and while some merged with other similar schools, many also closed. These were mainly neighborhood schools and as church attendance waned, so did sending students to the Catholic schools. This paralleled a growth of public schools as I mentioned in other blogs about Milwaukee high schools. Milwaukee public schools had a large growth spurt in the 1960’s and 1970’s to accommodate new students.

By 1970 the conference had changed with Francis Jordan and Notre Dame dropping football as they tried to cut costs or closed. Cathedral had a poor record of winning only eight games in the eight years between 1967-74. After the 1970 season they attempted to withdraw from the Catholic Conference to play an independent schedule but that was disallowed by the conference. In 1928 the state Catholic schools formed the WCIAA, the Wisconsin Catholic Interscholastic Athletic Association, to control school sports like the WIAA for the public schools. The WCIAA was re-formatted in 1968 into the WISAA, the Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association to include all parochial, non-Catholic schools like Milwaukee Lutheran, Wisconsin Lutheran. Milwaukee University School, Wayland Academy, Brookfield Academy, Winnebago Lutheran, Fox Valley Lutheran, Racine Lutheran, Watertown Prep and Delafield St. John’s Military Academy, to name a few.

If you look below at the next chart, #3 (1970 Catholic Conference final standings), and compare the list of schools to chart #1 you will see that Francis Jordan closed in 1968. For some reason the Archdiocese did not post any student numbers for St. John’s Cathedral in the 1974 attendance reporting.

Chart #4, 1974 conference standings, has three items of note: First, notice the conference name change from the Catholic to the Metro. 1973 was the final year of the Catholic Conference. Second, this was Cathedral’s final season and finally, as the conference name changed there was an addition of a non-Catholic school to the group…that being Milwaukee Lutheran.

While I have concentrated on Milwaukee area Catholic schools, take a look at a chart that I updated from a year 2000 story by Cliff Christl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with current WIAA information. Cliff’s story concerned the shutting down of the WISAA and those schools joining the public schools to grow a larger WIAA.

Chart #5, from the Cliff Christl story covered not only Milwaukee area schools but statewide as you can see.

Note the collapse of some of the outer-Milwaukee area schools in attendance. Because of these numbers some schools have had to co-op or revert to 8-player football.

But numbers don’t always mean success. Take Pius XI for example. The school had a huge student population for many years and a few good teams. In the 44-years of the Catholic football conference the Popes only won the conference title six times. They were seldom in the mix for the conference title. In the end, since the private schools joining the WIAA. Except for 2006, 2013 and the 2020 season that had no championships due to the COVID pandemic there has been at least one private school and often three or four schools in the state finals each year. While many championships have been in the lower divisions, larger schools like Milwaukee Marquette, Fox Valley Lutheran, Green Bay Notre Dame and Wisconsin Lutheran have come out on top. In the middle to lower divisions Catholic Memorial has been a regular to the finals and of course Burlington Central Catholic, Eau Claire Regis and the perennial performer, Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs have proven that having huge numbers in the school doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful.

Now sometimes having the right number of players is needed to compete to cover for injuries but as mentioned in a previous blog, a school like Wausau Newman can fair very well in 8-player football.

It can't be denied that while private school's lost attendance they lost talented athletes. So, in the end, where did all the students go as schools shut down and consolidated? They of course moved out of the area and some small high schools like Hartland Arrowhead, Muskego and Kettle Moraine ballooned in attendance over the years. Like schools in the Milwaukee Public system the suburbs had to exp and their facilities to handle the growth. But as school populations dropped drastically in some Milwaukee Public Schools (Like Washington, a school that once had 2,400 students but now has only about 600 attending) the schools have had to contend with a lack of interest in the sport, competition with soccer and the challenges of students/players to meet academic standards. Also, some families left for alternative Christian churches and their schools or burgeoning private charters. Uniquely, with the popularity of School Choice in Wisconsin, Catholic schools may have been shielded from further loss in numbers as many non-Catholic families have opted for a private education for their children, regardless of the religious nature of the school.

Soon I will cover Milwaukee Don Bosco’s rise in the 1960’s with a bit more about their coach Jim Haluska.

THE 1960’S…A DECADE OF BIG CHANGES…PART 2

THE TOP GAME:

So many games to choose from for the top game of the 1960’s. My first choice after going over a list of several great match ups including the season ending game between 1968 Madison East and Madison LaFollette and the 1966 Elmwood vs. St. Croix Central event that I mentioned in my book. That game started in September, but the end was replayed in November. Two good choices but as I said in Part 1 of this blog, the 1965 season ending battle between Oshkosh and Green Bay East is the one.

Both Oshkosh and East were undefeated, 8-0-0. Oshkosh was ranked #1 in both polls and East was #3 in the UPI and #5 in the AP. The pressure was on Oshkosh to maintain their top spot. East had nothing to lose, so to speak. East’s coach, Al Mancheski, thought that they had an advantage. The Oshkosh Indians, under coach Hal Schumerth, had a pretty easy time in their eight wins setting a conference record for the most points scored in a season. This season the Fox Valley River Conference expanded to 10-teams son they didn’t play any outside competitors. Their last close game was in 1964 when they fell behind 6-0 against Madison East but the Indians were able to come back and win 21-12.

In 1965 the Red Devils of Green Bay East had some tighter games. Oshkosh was scoring at a 33.0 points per game rate and their defense was very tight, only giving up 4.1 per per game. East was a much lower scoring team averaging 22.5 points each game but allowed only 5.5 points per contest. Going into the game Oshkosh had a 19-game winning streak plus they were the 1964 state champion, so they were heavily favored.

The game opened with a few unfortunate incidents. Just moments into the first quarter halfback Jim Schroeder fumbled and this led to East scoring first. East could only gain three yards in three plays but then their punter, Jim Wright, was roughed and his team regained the ball on the Indians 28-yard line Schroeder, the 221-pounder, was called for the infraction. On second and eight from the 26, Red Devil quarterback Larry Ebert tossed the ball to halfback Karl Kolodzik who carried it to the one. From there Ebert crossed over on the two plays later for the score which was followed by a John Barnhart extra point kick. East led 7-0 and for the first time in 18-games Oshkosh trailed.

Seemingly unshaken Oshkosh took the following kickoff and drove for a score of their own. Schroeder, shaking off two would be tacklers ran 26 yards to their own on- yard line. He crossed over for the score on the next play and quarterback Bruce Erickson kicked the extra point and the game score was now even, 7-7. During one of the early series, standout East defender Keith De Keyser was kicked in the head and suffered a concussion, and he left the field for a nearby hospital.

On the first series of the second period George Dahl of Oshkosh picked off an Ebert pass and returned it 54-yards to East’s 36-yard line but offsetting penalties negated the play. Whenever the Indians tried to drive the Red Devils were able to hold and so the half ended still tied.

Two third quarter drives ended for Oshkosh on Easts six and 10-yard lines. Since Easts offense was stymied, they utilized the quick kick both times on third down and this pushed Oshkosh back. The first kick went 40 yards and the next went 54. The 6,000+ game attendees at Green Bay’s City Stadium were very conscience that the game could go either way.

A fourth quarter drive by the Red Devils took up so much time that when the ball changed hands the Indians only had three minutes and five seconds to push the ball over the goal line. The Indians started a drive but was held back and was forced to punt with forty-two seconds and George Dahls kick ended on Easts 16-yard line. East wasn’t done yet. With 37 seconds left Indian linebacker Vern Ratchman dumped Ebert for a five-yard loss and almost wrestled the ball away from Easts quarterback. On the final play, as time ran out, Ebert tried one more pass, but Bruce Erickson batted it down. The game was over. A 7-7 tie despite Oshkosh out gaining East 247 yards, all on the ground, to Easts 176 yards. Officially, the visitors were penalized four times for 40 yards and lost two fumbles. East played an errorless game with no fumbles or penalties. While East lost Keith De Keyser early and had three other players have to leave because of injuries, those three were able to return. The game was a true battle of undefeated teams. Oshkosh would stay #1 in the polls, barely beating out Milwaukee Boy’s Tec-0-0h in the AP. Green Bay East would be voted to the #3 spot in the AP poll. Two days later the UPI final poll was issued, and Oshkosh was still #1, followed by East in a close second spot and Tech was third.

Following the game, the secondary story in the Green Bay Press Gazette read: “East Beat Us: Schumerth; Tie as Good as A Win: Al” (Referring to coach Al Mancheski). This is the battle of the decade.

THE TOP COACH

This was another tough choice…I guess they all are when trying to pick The Best.” Many all-time greats a terrific decade of success. In the end it boiled down to two men. First, the one and only Win Brockmeyer of Wausau who was the top choice for the 1940’s and in competition for #1 in the 1950’s. Here he is again, the last decade that he coached (He retired in 1970). The Lumberjacks only earned one top spot in the press polls during the 1960’s and that was when they went undefeated (9-0-0) in 1963. Overall, Brockmeyer and his Wausau teams went 70-14-2. They won at least six games each season, never lost more than two games any year and won or shared a number of Big Rivers Conference titles. They seemed to always be in the top 10 of the polls. Yet, he only won one title.

Harold “Hal” Schumerth…1968

Just as the 1940’s were Wausau’s biggest decade, the 1950’s were Kenosha’s from the beginning to the end, the 1960’s belonged to Oshkosh and coach Harold J. “Hal” Schumerth. While Wausau often played a 9-game schedule, the main tradition in the 1960’s was to play eight, so Schumerth’s record was 62-15-3 during the decade. But you have to look at the overall record as his Indians won three state titles (1964, 1966 and 1968) and five conference titles. He did this while placing second twice and regrouping from losing four times in 1966 and then losing five in 1967.

Hal came to Oshkosh in 1943, after coaching at Algoma from 1939-1942, and he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, his teams prior to the 1960’s were 57-67-11 and usually finished in the middle of the Fox River Valley Conference. Schumerth was a coach who believed in the ball-control, power run game and his teams reflected that as they seldom threw more than 40 times a season unlike his opponents who utilized the pass more often.

If there is an additional honorable mention to the Coach of the Decade besides Brockmeyer, it would be Milwaukee Boy’s Tech leader, Jim Richardson who directed the teams to six city championships, one AP state press poll title and one second place standing.

THE TOP PLAYERS

In some cases, as has happened in the past editions of the great decades, it has been hard to pick only a few players for each position. Such was the case for the quarterback spot. Jerry Tagge (1969) of Green Bay West was voted to the second team of the 1993 Milwaukee Journal All-Time Team. He was a high school All-American just as were Dick Hanson (1960) of Eau Claire Memorial and Greg Bolig (1965) also of EC Memorial. And then there was the do-it-all Auburndale star, Mickey Vandehey who was an honorable mention All-American. So, I put all three on the list. It was also hard to nail down only three spots for the running back position as all four players named are some of the all-time bests in Wisconsin high school football for the 1960’s. And so, it went on. Decisions, decisions. Like Bob Seeger in his song “Against the Wind”, it was “What to leave in and what to leave out” or where to put a two-way star.

Hindsight is almost always 20-20. Rhinelander’s Mile Webster (1969) only made second-team All-State as a defensive lineman despite being a four-year All-Conference center on offense and on defense as a lineman. He would earn the NFL Hall of Fame for his play with the Pittsburgh Steelers as one of the all-time great centers. Webster made my defensive first team as a lineman and honorable mention as an offensive lineman. Dave Casper (1969) only played one season for Chilton after moving there from Illinois. Known as a very good blocker and receiver on a team that didn’t often pass, Casper was a defensive star at the linebacker position and was a VERY good punter. Like Webster he earned honors on the AP second team All-State squad at the linebacker spot. He would star for Notre Dame and the Oakland Raiders of the NFL as a tight end. Casper is on my Honorable Mention list. But I picked players for what they did in high school. Another great was Bob Olson who earned All-State as a running back and as a linebacker. He is on my defensive team at linebacker and honorable mention as a running back.

A special mention goes to Honorable Mention player John Francis “Packy” Paquette of Superior Central who was a top player on both the 1965 and 1966 teams. Paquette mad the honorable mention listings in the All-State postings for 1965 and In 1966 he was named as the fourth running back on the UPI All-State team. This was unprecedented and the only time a fourth running back (After the addition of the quarterback spot on the teams) has been named to the first team or any other All-State team that I am aware of. “Packy” was the top running back in the state until a mid-season broken ankle left him on the sidelines. A multi-sport star who so impressed the voters that they named him to their team as a member of the first team. Paquette stared in basketball, baseball and especially track. His tragic death in a car crash on a November weekend in 1968 ruined what appeared to be a fine college career at the University of Minnesota. An award to the “Most Outstanding Male Athlete” at Superior High School is given annually. Even 52-years after his death a yearly special track meet called the “Packy Paquette Invite” is held at the University of Wisconsin-Superior track complex in his honor.

The 1960’s brought a lot of changes to the game. One other change that I found out after the post in PART 1 was in 1961 the WIAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSA) mandated that all football players wear mouth guards.

There would be more as the next decade unfolded.