GREAT SUPERIOR TEAMS…PART 4
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- 7 min read
1952 SUPERIOR CATHEDRAL… PART 2 OF A 2-PART SERIES ON SUPERIOR CATHEDRAL
COVERING SOME GREAT HIGH SCHOOL TEAMS FROM 1930 THROUGH THE MID-1960’S ON SEVERAL CITY OF SUPERIOR FOOTBALL TEAMS
A few years back when I wrote my book I didn’t know about the record of the 1952 Superior Cathedral Panthers. Sorry I missed it because they would have been mentioned in several sections of the book. I hope this will, in some way make up for that “miss”.
I must digress for a moment. When I found out about 1952 Cathedral, I was frustrated that I would have to spend long hours in Madison at the historical society scanning grainy microfilm. I delayed my research, waiting for other avenues of getting the story. At the time the Superior newspapers were not available online. Often, I’ve had to rely on getting yearbook information from schools and libraries. For several years I would look at E.Yearbooks.com to see if a copy of the 1953 yearbook would show up but no, it did not. The public library, the county historical society and the Catholic Archdiocese had no copies. No info anywhere unless I wanted to go back to Madison and look at the microfilm. Then, two months ago Newspapers.com downloaded Superior papers. The digital copy on Newspapers.com was just a grainy as what I would find at the Historical Society but at least I had a search engine to speed things along. Now I started on research on several teams.
Just as February opened, I contacted the library and the local historical society again to see if they found copies of the 1953 yearbook. No. I then checked E.Yearbooks.com again, and to my delight the book had been posted!! The online papers are somewhat fuzzy because of age when digitalized. I was tempted to post the grainy team photo from the newspaper just to show you that there would be only one picture that I could use but I resisted team photo posting. The one newspaper photo that I posted of Ray Birch in the 1952 Proctor game was at best, the only usable reprint. Luckily the yearbook photos showed up well. So, with all this, on with the story.
For many years Superior Central dominated the city, often beating the other two high schools in town, Superior East and Cathedral, often by big scores. Central had more consistently winning teams like the 1918-20 squads under coach Irl Tubbs and then under Harry Conley. East would have some middle of the road teams. Central had twice as many students as East and often the better athletes in football seemed to attend that school.
Superior Cathedral was an even smaller school than East with only 225-300 students, usually in the 1950’s having around 250. In the early years they played both of the two public schools but later it was just the East Orientals that they met each season. The Cathedral Panthers would join the Michigan-Wisconsin Conference later in the 1950’s but would play an independent schedule in 1952. In truth, in my research it seems that the school was more of a powerhouse in basketball.
Cathedral opened in 1923 and started playing football in 1924. There would be several football coaches over the period up to 1932. After the 1932 season, with13 seniors, 10 were starters, on the team that had a 0-6-1 record the school had to make a decision. The football coach, who was also the basketball coach, quit. His replacement could only coach basketball. With student enthusiasm at a low point concerning the football program, the school’s principal decided to cancel the program, for the time being, in the spring of 1933. That cancelation turned out to last 11-years.
The school hired a basketball coach who lasted a few years, doing well in that sport before the school settled on hiring Morris “Morrie” Arnovich, Morrie Arnovich - Wikipedia, a major league baseball player who coached the basketball team during his off season from 1935-38. Arnovich was born and raised in Superior and had attended Superior Central. Morrie also attended Superior State College and had been a two-time All-Wisconsin player sat the college. Before Arnovich arrived, no matter who coached the basketball squads, they were strong on the hardcourt. Steve Bachand was a four-year starting forward, leading the team and the city in scoring during his sophomore-senior years but never played for Arnovich.
After graduating high school, Bachand stared at St. Thomas College in St. Paul and set scoring records there. He would then attend Superior State earning an MBA and later a Masters in history and return in 1938 to coach at Cathedral. In Steve’s first season, 1938-39, the Panthers went 11-6 but in his next year they were 17-2 followed by an 12-3 record in 1940-41. World War II rolled in and he left to enter the Army Air Corps (Forerunner of the Air Force) before Cathedral finished the 1941-42 season but he had coached the team to a 10-11 record. Upon returning from the war Bachand took the dual duties of coaching football (A sport he never played in school) and basketball. He would later become the school’s athletic director as well.
What was sort of crazy was that in 1943 the school decoded to reinstitute football as a school sport in the middle of a world war. From the newspapers I found that over the next three years the Panthers played some larger schools JV teams and even second-string squads but also a few regular varsity teams.
In one of the first stories about the 1952 team, it was mentioned that they had gone 6-1-0 the previous year. I wanted to find out how the Panthers fared the next year so I then jumped to 1953 and found that Cathedral posted a 7-0-1 record in 1953. 19-1-1 in the 1951-53 years!! Could this be the making of a HOF coaching career that has gone unreported? Next, I searched as to how his early teams performed. Some newspaper stories had Steve Bachand as the head football coach from 1948-52, others had his story going back to 1947 and ending with 1953. But I found that he took over the football duties in 1946 and as a new head football coach it wasn’t a good start. Gone were the games against JV or second-string players. He scheduled regular varsity opponents and his team got stomped, going 1-6-0 that year. 1947 brought a 2-4-0 record followed by a 3-3-0 posting in 1948. 1949 was a 4-2-1 season but things looked a bit better in 1950 as the Panthers went 4-3-0 with several crucial injuries to overcome. Then 1951 came along and his team went 6-1-0 before the magical 1952 year. And 1952-53 was also a magical basketball season as well. Bachand coached his team, led by football end Dave Tucker (22.2 points per game) and back Ray Birch (19.6 points [per game), to a 21-2 record. The teams only two defeats were to Superior East by four points, a team they had beaten earlier by 10 points. In the Wisconsin State Catholic Tournament, they lost in the finals to Menasha Saint Mary’s 69-67. Tucker would lead the city /area in scoring as a junior and senior and set numerous records. The only one he didn’t set was for points scored in a game and it was Birch who held that record with 44-points. Dave Tucker would go on to star on the University of Minnesota basketball team, return for a while as the Cathedral school’s football coach and then coached basketball for many years at Ontonagon MI.
The 1953-54 season was also successful. As noted earlier the football team was 7-0-1 and basketball was 19-3. The next few years were hit or miss for Cathedral football. 1954 they earned a 4-2-1 record followed by a 1955 ‘s disastrous 1-7-0 season. Rebounding in 1956 the Panthers were 6-1-0 but 1957 brought another bleak year as Bachand struggled through with a 1-6-1 season. Having some great success along some poor results on the football field, Steve Bachand quit the sport, turning the reigns over to William Meyers, his long-time assistant. No, it turned out not to be a WFCA HOF worthy football coaching career but it would be a gratifying one, non the less.
Steve Bachand would end up spending 31-years at Cathedral as the basketball coach, teach history, working as the school’s athletic director and forge a great impact on the school and the city of Superior. Superior Cathedral would close in 1969. The football team would have a breakeven final year in 1968.
Bachand had great respect for his players and they had great respect for him. He was proud of his association with Cathedral and being a citizen of Superior. Back in 1956 he helped, along with 10 other men, organize the Superior Youth Organization that would sponsor little league baseball. The SYO officially joined Little League Baseball in the spring of 1957. Steve was inducted into the Superior city Hall of Fame in 1995, and the WBCA Hall of Fame in 2005. After Superior Cathedral closed in 1969 Steve crossed the bay to teach at Duluth Cathedral HS. He later served as the City of Superior Parks and Recreation Department director until he retired. Lest you think that as he got older his skills as a coach diminished, I will point out that the Panthers basketball team went 19-1 in their final season of 1968-1969.
Yes, my stories are about great football teams and not basketball, I feel a need to include the exploits of some of those great teams, even in a small way.
