ARCADIA RAIDERS…THE BILL CASHEN ERA…THE FIRST 23 YEARS

Long before 1949 when a great decade of success began people knew about the Arcadia football program. It had been successful before then but that would be the start of something special.  First, the beginning of the Bill Cashen era.

William “Bill” Cashen came to the school in 1925 after spending one year at his former high school in Monticello, Iowa.  Bill had graduated from Loras College in Dubuque with a teaching degree in mathematics.  Arcadia had just restarted the football program in 1923 after not playing the sport since the 1909 season. 

Besides football, Bill would, at various times, coach basketball, track, and baseball in his 39-year coaching career at Arcadia.  He also found time to coach for a few years the school boxing program.  The “Red Raiders” as they were nicknamed in those days started slowly, going 3-1-0 in 1925 as the team only scored 32 points but held their opponents to 25.  The Raiders would post the first of Cashen’s 12 undefeated teams in 1928 by having a 6-0-1 record.  Arcadia scored 229 points in 1928 and allowed only 18.  The season highlight was the 100-0 crushing of La Crosse Aquinas.  This is the most all-time points in a game scored by Arcadia and the worst loss for Aquinas who was playing football in their inaugural season.  All the La Crosse Tribune could report besides the score was: “Aquinas could do nothing to stem the tide and had the ball in its possession but seldom”.  End of story.   Only a tie to Winona Cotter marred an undefeated season.

The 1929 Arcadia “Arcadian Acorn” Yearbook

When Bill Cashen started at Arcadia it coincided with the formation of the Mississippi Valley Conference.  Originally made up of Galesville (Now Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau or G-E-T), Black River Falls, Viroqua, Augusta and Mondovi, it would change in membership over the next 40-years.  

Average record seasons followed until 1939 when Cashen directed his team to a 6-0-0 record as they went undefeated, untied and unscored upon. 

                           1939 Arcadia (6-0-0)

In 1939, coach Bill Cashen led Arcadia to an undefeated, untied and unscored upon season, going 6-0-0. He is only the second coach known to post two such seasons in their career.  He would accomplish this feat again in 1950 with a 7-0-0 record. Left halfback Marcellus Brownlee was the team leader for the Raiders as he racked up 13 scores and 3 extra points for 81 of the team’s 133 points. Brownlee left the University of Wisconsin to enlist in the Navy as a pilot during World War II. He tragically died in an explosion and crash of a B-24 bomber on June 22, 1945, in the Philippines at the age of 23.

It should be noted, after further research done in 2019, besides Cashton and Arcadia having two undefeated, untied and unscored upon seasons under one coach, Eau Claire had the first two consecutive seasons, doing it in 1903 and 1904 but under two different coaches.  Delafield St. John’s Military Academy also did it in two consecutive seasons, 1904 and 1905 but under one coach, Louis Christopherson. There have been a few other schools t5o go undefeated, untied and unscored upon. I have posted stories on a few of them, most notably on Cashton High School...CASHTON…1978-81

There was success the next few years as the Raiders went 4-0-1 in 1940, 6-1-0 in 1941, 6-0-0 in 1942, 4-3-0 in1943 and 6-0-1 in 1944.  That’s three more undefeated seasons in Cashton’s first 20-years at Arcadia bringing his total to five up to then.  An interesting point about 1942 is that the team actually had a 5-1-0 record before, after losing to Black River Falls 18-12, it was discovered that BRF had used an ineligible player and the school forfeited their win to Arcadia alo0ng with several other wins to other opponents. 

In 1944 the team returned eight lettermen from the year before as Cashen and Arcadia went through a 4-3-0 season.  Those returning players formed a nucleus of a powerful group to develop a well-balanced team.  As you can see below, the defense was close to having another unscored upon record.  In fact, Mondovi scored only in the last minute of the game.  Bad weather played into keeping the Galesville score down but the offense picked up for the final three games.  It was the defense that was the main focus of Coach Cashen’s program.

There were a few lean years followed by huge success starting in 1949 and actually ending in mid-1959.  It was a great decade for the school. 

More on that next time.