La Salle College High School Football: In Retrospect
NOTE: This is the twenty-seventh of, I hope, many retrospectives highlighting some unique history of the football program at La Salle. The topics to discuss seem endless at this time. Hope you enjoy these.
Bill Wasylenko, ‘69 Issue Number Twenty-Seven: 1975 – Rise From The Ashes
La Salle football had hit rock bottom. In 1974, for the first time since 1951, the team did not win or tie a game, joining a small fraternity that included the 1903 and 1938 teams.
Attending a La Salle football game was virtually an afterthought. The winless season took a toll on the players; some of the juniors on that 1974 team chose not to play in 1975.
Head coach Tex Flannery’s one-year fling with the wing-T in 1974 was scrapped as a failed experiment. The offense, as well as the defense, which was commandeered by assistant coach Joe Colistra, needed rebuilding, using a core group of dedicated seniors, and a promising group of feisty juniors.
Most importantly, the pride in La Salle football needed to be restored. This is the story of the 1975 team whose pride helped them rise from the ashes.
Head Coach John “Tex” Flannery The Players
First, the seniors: Gary Uzelac was to quarterback the 1975 squad. At 6’-3” and 190 lbs, Uzelac was a gifted athlete, also starring on the hardwood. He was both a running and passing signal-caller, and was certainly a team leader.
Eric Hildebrandt was a tough kid from Olney, a bruising presence at both guard and linebacker. Mark Visco and Chris Daniel anchored the tackle positions on offense; other linemates included Bob Michel, Phil Damm, John Gillespie, and Rick Barth, who also punted. Senior John Walsh joined the team as the kicker. Ron Guerra was a solid back on both sides of the ball, but broken thumbs kept him on the defensive side of the ball, where he excelled. Joe Webster blossomed into the “go to” receiver for Uzelac, and Paul Meehan was a versatile offensive end. The core group of seniors had heart, but were missing size (only one player, Daniel, over 195 lbs), a center, a running game, additional Flannery, with seniors Mark Visco & Gary Uzelac receivers, and a defensive backfield. The juniors would step into those voids.
Tall, raw-boned Bernie Fitzgerald would fill the center position. Receiving help came from the likes of Phil “The Vulture” Regan, Vince Kostos, and John Wozniak. The defensive backfield added Del Markward and John Tamasitis, who also was the backup QB. Running backs included Chris Santoro, Gene Barbera, Mike Vesey, John Gannon, and soph Dan Fitzgerald. Additional line support came from Frank Varallo, Ron Guerra & Chris Daniel with Tim Vahle, Sandy Morris, and Jim Eric Hildebrandt Br. Edward Conway Gillies. This group of players was anxious to win some games and restore The Coaches some pride in La Salle football.
John “Tex” Flannery was in his 20th season as head coach at La Salle. He won Catholic League championships in 1957, 1958, and 1960, but had not reached a playoff game since 1961. At age 53, he still had the fire to innovate and to find ways to help his team succeed. He would rebuild the offense after the 1974 failed wing-T experiment.
Joe Colistra, All-Catholic lineman who played at Villanova, would be the defensive coach. Colistra needed to devise defensive schemes for each game, depending on the opponent. The Northern Division of the Catholic League in the mid-70’s featured high- octane offenses with some stellar players, like RB Greg Bedesem of Archbishop Wood, QB Rocky Antoni of Bishop McDevitt, and the great RB Lawrence Reid of Cardinal Dougherty.
Kevin Brett and Chris Walters, former stars, coached the running backs and receivers, respectively. Bill Loughery was assigned to handle the defensive backs. The Opponents and Their Coaches
The Northern Division of the Catholic League was in an experimental era, splitting into two “sections” which represented the City and the Suburbs. The City teams included Cardinal Dougherty, Father Judge, North Catholic, and Archbishop Ryan. The suburbanites were in a 5-team group, including Bishop McDevitt, Archbishop Wood, Bishop Kenrick, Bishop Egan, and La Salle. Section winners would meet in a playoff game to decide who would meet the Southern Division winner, who had similar sections.
Bishop McDevitt had a rarity – a head coach who was a man of the cloth, Father Charles O’Hara. Archbishop Wood, a strong team through most of the 70’s, was guided by Skip Duffy, Bob Wagner led the Eagles of Bishop Egan, and Jack Hash was the new Bishop Kenrick coach.
George Stratts was a second-year head coach at Cardinal Dougherty, and Bill Travers led the North Catholic Falcons. John Quinn was in his 8th season as head coach of Archbishop Ryan, and Whitey Sullivan was in just the second season of his long, successful tenure at Father Judge.
The Archbishop schools, Ryan and Wood, were the section winners in 1974, and both returned strong teams. All other schools, except La Salle, were all in the middle of the pack, but some, including Father Judge and Bishop Kenrick, would distinguish themselves in 1975.
La Salle was just hoping to compete, and to return some pride to Explorer football. The Season Starts
On Saturday, September 13, the Blue and Gold headed across Paper Mill Road to take on their neighbors, the Spartans of Springfield High. La Salle had a great defensive game, taking a 7-0 lead into the locker room on a Gary Uzelac to Joe Webster 12-yard pass, and a John Walsh PAT.
Any halftime satisfaction was quickly dashed when the Spartans’ Woodring intercepted a Uzelac pass and returned it for a touchdown in the 3rd quarter. In the final stanza, Henrich recovered a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown to give Springfield the lead, and another La Salle fumble led to another score late in the game, and the 20-7 loss sent the Blue and Gold trudging back home with an opening day downer.
But the defense played strong, and their performance would continue into the next week. Bill Travers’ North Catholic Falcons were the opponents in the first league game on Sunday, September 21, and the defenses were the story on both sides, resulting in a 0-0 tie. Uzelac combined some good running and passing stats, leading the Explorers to 247 yards of total offense, and the Falcons’ Lou Sigmund netted 107 yards on 15 carries. But both sides left the game unfulfilled.
The 1976 Blue and Gold Yearbook had this quote after the North Catholic game: “Anyone who said that a tie is like kissing your sister didn’t go 0-9-0 the year before”.
With a bye week in hand, it was time to regroup. The defense was solid so far, and work was done to improve the offense. On Saturday night, October 4, at Roosevelt Field in Norristown, the eager Explorers took on the Bishop Kenrick Knights.
Uzelac, running a lot more now, scored twice in the first half on runs of 9 and 3 yards, and John Walsh’s extra points knotted the game at 14-14. In the fourth quarter, La Salle took a 20-14 lead when John Gannon found Paul Meehan for a 23-yard touchdown. On the PAT, La Salle had a false start, and now Coach Flannery went for two instead. But the two-pointer failed, leaving the window open for the Knights.
And Kenrick broke through that window by blocking a punt and returning it for a touchdown; Joe Migliarese’s extra point sent La Salle to a heartbreaking 21-20 loss.
The defense was stellar in the second half, holding Kenrick to just two net yards of offense, but the loss really stung the team. The Streak is Broken
Bishop Egan was next on the agenda on Sunday, October 12, up at Wilson Field in Levittown. Egan’s football fortunes had faded after a decade of excellence, but from La Salle’s position, no team could be taken lightly. It was exactly 23 months ago that the Explorers last won a game. In the first quarter, John Wozniak recovered a muffed punt within the Eagle one-yard line, and Gary Uzelac scored on a quarterback sneak to give the Explorers a 7-0 lead. Egan came right back to march down the field and score at the start of the second quarter, and the half ended in a tie, 7-7. Egan was running the ball well against the Blue and Gold in the first half, and Coach Colistra made the necessary adjustments to shut down the Eagle offense. But the Explorer backfield was being decimated, as several running backs went down to injury, including soph sensation Dan Fitzgerald. But Uzelac took over, and scored on a 6-yard sprintout with 3:40 left in the game to give the Explorers a 14-7 lead. Egan had a few more shots to score in the final minutes, but an interception by Ron Guerra, his second of the game, with less than a minute to go sealed the game for La Salle, and the streak of 13 games without a win was finally over. Tex Flannery said: “The worm had to turn sometime”. And finally, it did. The Vikings of Archbishop Wood were a high- scoring team in 1975, and were coming off an exciting 26-25 defeat of Cardinal Dougherty. They featured fullback Greg Bedesem, son of Dick Bedesem ’49, former Viking coach as well as former Bishop Egan coach, who had taken on the Villanova head coaching position. Greg Bedesem was one of the great running backs in the Northern Division; he would be voted as the Most Valuable Player in the Northern Division by the coaches. Stopping Bedesem and the Wishbone offense would be a daunting task for Coach Colistra and the La Salle defense.
On Sunday, October 19, the Vikings scored first as quarterback Priore faked a handoff to Bedesem and bolted 76 yards for a touchdown. But La Salle tied “Old Reliable” Joe Webster the game at 7-7 in the second period, as Gary Uzelac, who threw for 194 yards on 14-for-28 It was another bitter defeat for passing, used his legs on a 10-yard run to score. the team, but a sense of pride Wood scored in the third period on a Wiltroot TD, had developed among the but they missed the extra point. The Explorers had seniors that they were kept Bedesem in check, and had a chance to upset certainly competing; playing the Vikings, as Bob Michel intercepted a pass in the La Salle was no longer a 4th quarter. Uzelac moved the team into scoring cakewalk, and the team, position in the waning moments of the game, but despite its 1-3-1 record, was Wood’s Brian Davis picked off a pass in the end certainly a formidable zone to ice the game for the Vikings, 13-7. opponent for anyone on their schedule.
On Sunday, October 26, at Springfield High School, it was time to face Cardinal Dougherty, and their incomparable running back, Lawrence Reid.
QB Gary Uzelac avoids Archbishop Wood tackler Lawrence Reid was a man among boys. A 6’-2”, 215 lb junior, he played at a level above everyone else. Earlier in the season, Reid rushed for a then-record 379 yards against Bishop Egan, and seemed to grind up yardage at will. Reid would go on to play at the University of Michigan, but right now, he was an irresistible force that La Salle’s defense would have to contend with.
But stopping Reid was easier said than done. The Cardinal star scored twice in the first quarter on runs of 7 and 39 yards, and Dougherty led after the first quarter, 13-0. But the seemingly invincible Reid was indeed mortal: in the 2nd quarter, Eric Hildebrandt, Ron Guerra, and Frank Varallo teamed up to gang-tackle Reid, who broke his hand on the play. Ultimately, he would have to sit out for the rest of the game.
La Salle crept to within one score on a 3-yard run by soph Dan Fitzgerald, but the Cardinals scored right before half on a Doyle to Bruno pass to lead 19-6. The tide had turned, though, as Reid’s injury had the Cardinals play cautiously. Near the end of the 3rd quarter, Gary Uzelac found Joe Webster on a 9-yard pass for a touchdown, and John Walsh’s extra point brought La Salle to within 6 points, 19-13, entering the fourth quarter.
La Salle was now controlling the line of scrimmage, and Uzelac’s passing, combined with the running of Chris Santoro, established field position for the Explorers. And then, still early in the 4th quarter, it happened. The Cardinals had to punt from their own 43 yard line, and John Tamasitis caught the punt at his own 15-yard line, and, 85 yards later, raced into the end zone and tied the game for the Explorers. Walsh’s kick gave La Salle their first lead of the day, 20-19.
The Cardinals could not score again on the surging La Salle defense, and the Explorers had won their second game of the year. The celebration afterward was like winning the Catholic League championship; the winning feeling had been so distant of late, and a come-from-behind win was a sweet taste in the mouth of every Explorer. With a 2-3-1 record, the Blue and Gold looked forward to their last three games of the season, knowing that they could play with anyone in this powerful Northern Division.
Gary Uzelac against Cardinal Dougherty John Walsh’s kick beats Cards Bob Michel & Eric Hildebrandt Uzelac and his posse
Three Moral Victories
Bishop McDevitt had become La Salle’s “neighborhood rival”, as many Lancer and Explorer players came from the surrounding parishes. The La Salle-McDevitt game was always a close affair; the Lancers had yet to win a Catholic League championship, but were always competitive, and 1975 was no different, under the leadership of signal-caller Rocky Antoni.
Father O’Hara had taken over from George Stratts after the 1973 season, as Stratts moved east down Cheltenham Avenue to coach Cardinal Dougherty. Father O’Hara led the Lancers to a 5-5 record in 1974, but McDevitt was having a disappointing year when they hosted the Explorers on Sunday, November 2.
La Salle was looking to even their record at 3-3-1, and came into the game exuberant and confident. Antoni led McDevitt on an opening drive that stalled, and the Explorers, behind running back Dan Fitzgerald, moved the ball near the Lancer goal line, and Uzelac took it in from there for a 7-0 lead. But Antoni was just getting started, using his running ability to score the first touchdown, and then passing to Gordon for another score before half. The Lancers had a 14-7 lead at half, but La Salle had been in this situation before.
In the third quarter, Uzelac found reliable receiver Joe Webster for a 13-yard touchdown, but the PAT was blocked, leaving La Salle one point down at 14-13. But Antoni was relentless, driving through the La Salle defense on his way to 142 rushing yards, and he scored from 1-yard out. His two-point conversion increased the McDevitt lead to 22-13 late in the third quarter. The Explorer offense, at its season’s peak, with Fitzgerald rushing for 91 yards, continued to move the ball, and Uzelac again found Webster for a touchdown to get to within 22-19. But the La Salle defense, stout in the second half all year, could not stop the Lancer rushing game.
Fullback Dan Abahazy put the game out of reach with a 19-yard touchdown run, and Bishop McDevitt had burst the modest La Salle bubble, 29-19.
It was again time to regroup, and focus on defeating the Raiders of Archbishop Ryan.
The Raiders had developed into a perennial contender under John Quinn, and were competing with Father Judge for the top spot in the City section of the Northern Division. Ryan’s strength was their defense, especially their defensive line, and La Salle’s rejuvenated offense would need to find ways to put points on the board against the stingy Raider defense.
At George Washington High School on Sunday, November 9, the Ryan defense was as advertised, and La Salle could only notch a single score in a 14-7 loss. A late drive left the Explorers 17 yards from the end zone as time expired.
A frustrated George Foley La Salle was now running a gauntlet of tough teams, and their season finale was on Homecoming Day, Sunday, November 16, against Father Judge, the eventual Catholic League champion. La Salle’s defense came out on fire, notably Eric Hildebrandt, Ron Guerra, Bob Michel, Jim Gillies, Sandy Morris, and Gary Szostak, limiting the Crusader offense to just 70 overall yards in the first half. The Explorers mounted an 11-play, 82-yard drive in the second quarter to score on a series of passes from Gary Uzelac to ends John Gannon and Joe Webster, culminating in a 21-yard scoring strike to Webster, who shook off several Judge tacklers on his way to the end zone. The Explorers were upsetting the heavily-favored Crusaders, 7-0, at half.
Judge was finally moving the ball midway through the 3rd quarter, aided by an offsides call on a fourth down and three. Tom Little did most of the work on the ground, and finally Tom Kearns caught a fade pattern in the right corner of the end zone from QB Mike McKay, and the game was now tied at 7-7.
La Salle moved the ball down the field to the Judge 8-yard line, but an Uzelac pass was picked off by the Crusaders’ Matt Kaupp. Early in the 4th quarter, La Salle tried a pass off a fake punt, but Vince Kostos’ pass to Mike Vesey was batted down, and the Crusaders had great field position at their own 46 yard line. Little did the lion’s share of work on the ground on the subsequent Judge drive, and, with under 4 minutes to play, Jim DiGiovanni scored from 4 yards out to give Judge a 14-7 lead. And that’s how it ended for La Salle, despite outgaining the formidable Judge offense.
ERIC PAUL RON GARY MARK HILDEBRANDT MEEHAN GUERRA UZELAC VISCO All-Catholics
Despite going 2-6-1, La Salle was awarded 5 All-Catholic positions. Eric Hildebrandt was a first-team linebacker, and honorable mention awards were given to offensive end Paul Meehan, offensive lineman Mark Visco, quarterback Gary Uzelac, and defensive back Ron Guerra. All-Area – Ambler Gazette
Gary Uzelac and Eric Hildebrandt garnered first-team berths, Ron Guerra was a 2nd- team defensive back, and Honorable Mention went to Joe Webster (E), Phil Regan (E), Chris Daniel (OT), and Mark Visco (DE). Standing Above the Ashes
The 1975 team record of 2-6-1 can lead one to dismiss this team as another failure in the twilight of Tex Flannery’s career. But there were sparks in the embers of the 1974 season. The core group of dedicated seniors played their hearts out to restore the pride in La Salle football. The coaching staff also dedicated themselves to making La Salle competitive in every game they played. And the juniors who got a golden opportunity to play as regulars gained some great experience that they used in their successful 9-2-0 campaign in 1976.
But success is not always measured by wins and losses. Sure, they will look back and wonder “what if” the penalties, turnovers, and special team mistakes did not occur. But the pride that the seniors of the 1975 team still have in their hearts is a result of the commitment that they made after the disastrous 1974 campaign to stick their collective chins out and to restore Explorer football to a competitive level. And that pride is something that no one can ever take away from them. If You Beat Them, Join Them
Many of La Salle’s 1975 opponents decided to send their sons to La Salle. Here are just some (hoping I’m correct!):
• Bishop Kenrick’s kicker Joe Migliarese, whose PAT defeated the Explorers, is the father of Joe Migliarese ’08, All-Catholic end, who went on to play at Rhode Island, and Vinny Migliarese ‘10, cornerback on the 2009 State Champions. • Rocky Antoni of Bishop McDevitt sent his sons Mike and Gabe to La Salle, where they starred in baseball and ice hockey, respectively. • Archbishop Ryan’s All-Catholic offensive lineman Rob Brassell sent his son Rob ‘03 to La Salle, where he also achieved All-Catholic honors on the defensive line. Young Rob played his college ball at Gettysburg. • North Catholic’s head coach John Travers not only became a La Salle assistant coach, but he also sent his quarterback sons John ’98 and Ryan ’06 to La Salle. John went on to play at La Salle University. • Tom Little, the Father Judge fullback, was an honorable mention All-Catholic, and he sent his son Tom ’05 to La Salle. • Joe Wilker was a defensive back for Bishop Egan, and his son Austin ’12 played freshman football at La Salle. • On Cardinal Dougherty’s team, Jim Sinnott was the offensive line coach, and his brother Tom was a defensive back and brother Bob was a linebacker. Bob’s son Steve ’10 was an All-Catholic on the 2009 State Champions, and is currently a starting defensive end at William and Mary. • Greg Bedesem, the Archbishop Wood fullback, was voted as the Most Valuable Player of the Northern Division. His dad was Dick Bedesem ’49, who was a great running back, first for La Salle, and then for Villanova. Dick also was an assistant coach at La Salle in the mid-50’s. • Many other surnames ring a bell, but I can’t verify that their sons went to La Salle. Nevertheless, it’s quite interesting to see the link between the 1975 opponents and a future generation of La Sallians. The Legacy of 1975
Gary Szostak is the uncle of Steve Szostak ‘10; Ron Guerra is the father of Cosmo Guerra ‘10. Steve and Cosmo were part of the train called the Hershey Express, which took La Salle to its first PIAA Quad A State Championship in 2009. State champions like Steve and Cosmo were able to get Championship jackets and Championship rings, and deservedly so. And the memories of that snow-filled day in Hershey will last forever for us.
For Gary and Ron, so will the memories of the 1975 season. No jackets or rings; just pride. And that pride that they have in helping the La Salle football team rise from the ashes of 1974 is as strong as the pride of a State Champion, and it will last forever for them. TEN SENIORS FROM THE 1975 TEAM
SAM RICK PHIL CHRIS GEORGE ANDREWS BARTH DAMM DANIEL FOLEY
JOHN BRIAN BOB GARY JOE GILLESPIE JULIANO MICHEL SZOSTAK WEBSTER
I welcome your comments, corrections, and additions. Go La Salle!! Bill Wasylenko, ‘69 [email protected] December 3, 2012, revised October 20, 2013