La Salle College High School Football: In Retrospect

NOTE: this is the first of, I hope, many retrospectives highlighting some unique history of the football program at La Salle. While this is meant to be informative, its real purpose is to entertain and energize the La Salle Alumni and faithful. Hope you enjoy these. Bill Wasylenko, ‘69 Issue Number One: “He’ll Make A Great Coach Someday” La Salle’s coaching lineage over the last 57 years comprises a short list, as the names of Flannery, Colistra, and Gordon can be said in one short breath. And that longevity has also incorporated legacy, with gridiron success immortalizing those men and their teams. But it wasn’t always this way at La Salle. The Explorers were coached by several unsuccessful short-timers, perhaps epitomized by James “Snapper” McLaughlin, who led the gridders to a humbling 0-8-1 record in 1934, in their return to the Catholic League after a 6 year absence. McLaughlin also went 2-3-2 in 1933. La Salle entered as a charter member of the Catholic League in 1920, and had a 1-1-3 record under yet another short-term coach. Some of the other coaches had some degree of success, though nothing like the terrific triumvirate. The typical La Salle high school football coach of the first half of the 20th century was a young teacher who was also assigned other sports as well, and weren’t around for a long time.

One of those young coaches was Bernie Bradley, who played for the college in 1933 and 1934, and who served as the high school head coach from 1935 to 1937, as well as 1943 to 1948, compiling a modest overall record of 36-39-4. After assisting at the college in 1939, Bernie Bradley went west, assisting at Loyola Marymount and then becoming head coach in 1942, but he came back to La Salle when Loyola suspended football operations due to the war prior to the 1943 season. Bradley’s second term at La Salle was better than his first; his best years were a 6-1-1 record in 1944, and 7-3-0 in 1946.

But the coach who led the team between the Bradley years was indeed another young teacher of high ambition, and, in the fall of 1938, this 24-year old coach led the Little Explorers into battle in the 2-year old McCarthy Stadium behind the 20th and Olney campus. This was a man who had just played three years for the College after graduating from Roxborough High School. Bonder… James Bonder

Jim Bonder may have bit off more than he could chew, as the 1938 Explorers limped home with an “unblemished” 0-9-0 record. But Bonder righted his ship, and eventually the Explorers rose to contend in the Catholic League, with 6-3-1 and 6-2-1 records in 1941 and 1942, respectively. At La Salle, he brought the T-formation, a West Coast phenomenon, into use, and refined it during his 5 years there. The war was beckoning, though, and Jim Bonder joined the Navy, serving our country during wartime. And that was the end of Jim Bonder as head football coach at La Salle College High School. But Jim Bonder was a man of high ambition, and the story doesn’t end there. I only found out that the story didn’t end during a recent weekend at West Chester University, where my daughter was playing in an AAU basketball tournament. Outside the court at Hollinger Field House was a glass-enclosed sports hall-of-fame display, with small wooden plaques of over a hundred honorees. And a face that I had seen in La Salle yearbooks was staring back at me, older, with less hair, but familiar. And it indeed was our Jim Bonder, on the plaque as Dr. James Bonder, West Chester Football Hall of Fame honoree. You see, our Jim Bonder went to West Chester State Teachers College in 1946 after being discharged from the Navy, and became line coach, a job he held for 14 years, gaining national renown as a great teacher of line play. Somewhere along the way, he also achieved a doctorate degree. In 1960, Dr. James Bonder became head coach at West Chester, and, different from La Salle, achieved immediate success, running off a 34-5 record to start, and leading the Rams to a Bowl appearance in 1962. He was, by all accounts, a great orator and football author and instructor, and was in demand as a speaker at banquets and football clinics. He also won an award from the Freedom Foundation for a talk on Americanism. He certainly had achieved those high goals he must have had when he was a young teacher and coach at La Salle back in 1938.

On a Friday night in October of 1965, during a game against Millersville, Dr. James Bonder was stricken with a heart attack on the sideline, and rushed to the hospital, where he died. His Rams were not notified of his death until after the game, which they won. Dr. James Bonder, our Jim Bonder, was just 51 years old.

Dr. James Bonder was elected into the West Chester Football Hall of Fame, and also the 21st Ward Sports Hall of Fame. And perhaps his lasting contribution to La Salle football was baptizing young end John Flannery with his nickname of Tex, after seeing John relentlessly devour Western novels. And maybe that legacy is enough for us to remember Dr. James Bonder, our Jim Bonder, as our own. A Little-Known Fact

While growing up, I read a lot about legendary football coaches. Knute Rockne, Clark Shaughnessy, Fielding Yost, Bob Zuppke, John Heisman, Jock Sutherland, and many other names were registered into my youthful brain. Another one of those coaches was one by the name of Lou Little, who I recall even today, was a long-time coach of Columbia University.

I had a reason to look into the life of Lou Little, so I did what most of us do these days, I Googled him. Lou Little was, indeed, a legendary long-time coach of Columbia University, just like I remembered. He coached the Lions from 1930 to 1956, amassing early success, as his 1933 team upset Lou Little Stanford in the Rose Bowl, winning on a trick play called “KF-79”, which was a fullback bootleg after a fake reverse.

Little’s Columbia teams were always competitive, but the university didn’t give out athletic scholarships, and had difficulty keeping up with those that did. Little developed a wing-T formation, combining the speed of the T and the power of the single wing; this fueled a Columbia resurgence from 1945 to 1947.

Lou Little is enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. But his coaching story had developed a few chapters before his Columbia days.

Lou Little, born in 1893 as Luigi Piccolo, was called “little Luigi” as a boy, and, even though he grew to a playing size of 6’-2” and 220 lbs, he utilized his childhood moniker in Americanizing himself as Lou Little. In 1924, 30-year old Lou Little applied for and won the Georgetown head coaching position, and achieved great success in his 6 years there, featuring a dominant defense. And, at his last game at Columbia in 1956, a victory over Rutgers, four players from his first Georgetown squad in 1924 were in the Lion locker room after the game to congratulate him.

Lou Little, coaching at a Columbia practice in the 50’s, under the watchful eye of future President Dwight Eisenhower, who was president of Columbia University between 1948 and 1953, and a former football coach himself But just prior to his time at Georgetown, Lou Little tried his hand at professional football, playing for two teams simultaneously in 1920 and 1921. On Saturdays, he played for the Philadelphia Quakers, a team comprised of former collegiate players. On Sundays, Lou headed north to play for the Buffalo All-Americans.

Lou was a former collegiate player, first at Vermont, then at Pennsylvania, where he played football both before and after duty in World War I, finishing up his Penn career in 1919.

So why, you may ask, am I enlightening you about Lou Little, of Columbia and Georgetown fame? Well, this Columbo, Monk, My Cousin Vinny, and Sherlock Holmes of amateur detective has drawn a circumstantial conclusion. You see, it seems certain now that Lou Little was seen in our whereabouts in the fall of 1920, playing for the Philadelphia Quakers on Saturdays, after finishing up his career at Penn the previous year. He may have found the time to do something else with his time, despite being in Buffalo on Sundays. And I think I know what that was.

Remember that I told you that La Salle entered the Catholic League in 1920, and netted a very bland 1-1-3 record with a short-term coach? I neglected to tell you the name of that coach. According to the records kept by the legendary Ted Silary, the head football coach for La Salle College High School in 1920 was a man by the name of, you guessed it, Lou Little. Through further investigation, it was determined that he also guided La Salle to a 7-1-0 record in 1921, when the Blue and Gold played an independent schedule after mysteriously dropping out of the Catholic League for two years, losing only to a team from La Grange, Illinois. Little left La Salle, and eventually made his way to Georgetown, and beyond. Indeed, Lou Little did make a great coach someday.

POSTSCRIPT

There’s so much more to unearth about La Salle football history. One mystery for me is that head coach Jim Gallagher, starting his career with a 2-8-0 record in 1952, reached the pinnacle in 1955 with an undefeated 10-0-0 team, first-ever Catholic and City champs, and yet Tex Flannery became head coach for the 1956 season. That mystery too has been solved, and we’ll talk more about that in a future Retrospect.

I welcome your comments, corrections, and additions. Go La Salle!!

Bill Wasylenko, ‘69 [email protected]

June 13, 2010, revised April 5, 2013