La Salle College High School Football: In Retrospect

NOTE: This is the fourteenth 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 Fourteen: 1955 – Pioneer Champions

In 1917, La Salle College High School’s football team went undefeated at 6-0-0, and claimed the “Catholic Championship”, even though only one game was played against a Catholic school (St. Joseph’s Prep). The “official” Catholic League was not formed until 1920, and though La Salle had several notable seasons, including a Championship game against Catholic High (Roman Catholic) in 1927, no football championships were won since that mythical championship of 1917, until the mid-50’s.

La Salle had many ups and downs in football during the interim, and the second Bernie Bradley era gave way to Johnny Meyers in 1949. Despite a winning record in 1950, the 1951 Explorers went 0-10-0, prompting the Blue and Gold yearbook to mention that “even Notre Dame has its bad years”. So, in 1952, the reins were handed over to Jim Gallagher ‘43, assistant coach, and history teacher.

Gallagher had returned to La Salle in 1949, having graduated in 1943. He was a punter on the football team, and he also played at Villanova. And though he brought in some new offensive schemes, his immediate focus was on defense. His 1952 team won only two games, but had only one game where they gave up 27 points or more, compared to the 1951 squad’s ignominious 8 times.

In 1953, the Blue and Gold were winless through their first 5 games, with just two ties to show for their efforts. But they caught fire, winning their last 4 games, and finishing with a 4-3-2 record. Tex Flannery ’40 returned to La Salle to serve as line coach and as an assistant to Gallagher, and this 1953 squad with just 8 seniors generated the hope of future success on the McCarthy Stadium gridiron.

In the Winter 2006 issue of The Explorer magazine, Andrew C. Monaghan ’01 noted that “the junior varsity football page of the 1953 Blue and Gold says, ‘La Salle has long awaited the honor of a football championship. The performance turned in by the Explorer jayvees suggest that the fulfillment of this hope is near at hand.’ These were not empty words from the pen of Brother Joseph Reagan, FSC ’33. This was a bold prediction, and one that would prove to be true.”

So I’m sure that anyone closely associated with the program could see that something great was coming, and the 1954 season was looked upon with great anticipation. Dick Bedesem ‘49 came back to La Salle after his gridiron days at Villanova, and became the freshman coach while teaching history. La Salle’s eagerly anticipated season started slow again, with 4 losses in their first six games, but again, the Explorers strung together 4 wins at the end of the season to complete a 6-4-0 record. But, most significantly, five of the six wins were shutouts, and the defensive focus of Gallagher’s tenure at La Salle was reaching its apex.

Again, the next season of 1955 was eagerly anticipated. According to The Explorer article, Bedesem became a backfield coach, along with Vince McAneney ’47. John McAneney ’51 contributed as the quarterback coach. In retrospect, there has probably never been the assemblage of legendary coaches like this group in the entire area, let alone the Catholic League. With the junior varsity of 1953 becoming seniors in 1955, the die was cast for a memorable season.

But there was still one missing component: a quarterback. Bill Dick ’56 mentions that Gallagher wanted him to be the quarterback, but Dick didn’t feel comfortable with his own QB abilities. So Gallagher went recruiting in the school, and his eyes landed on Hugh Brolly, a star on Charles “Obie” O’Brien’s team.

Brolly was tall (6’-2” in the game program), and Gallagher felt that a tall quarterback’s long arms would be great for the “dive” handoffs in the Split-T formation used by La Salle, and he’d be able to see over the linemen prior to calling his own plays. Much to Obie’s chagrin, Brolly went to camp, and took to the quarterback position well; Hugh was a natural leader and great athlete. By all accounts, 1955 was the only season that Hugh Brolly played football. Hugh Brolly

The Split-T formation that Gallagher used was the Oklahoma Split-T made famous by Bud Wilkinson, who had the Sooners in the middle of a 47-game winning streak at the time. The straight-ahead blocking schemes were used on dive plays, quarterback options, and the occasional trap. It was an offense designed for perfect execution, and Brolly was indeed the perfect man for the job.

So the 1955 season also started with great anticipation, and La Salle, with an entire new backfield of Hugh Brolly, Bill Dick, Ray Frankson, and Tom Hopkins, rolled over St. Matthew’s, 38-13. La Salle had not scored as many as 38 points in a game since a 1948 game against St. Joseph’s Prep (courtesy of 4 TD’s by Dick Bedesem). There were many long runs in the game out of their Split-T formation, and the defense chipped in with interceptions by Mike Boland and Chuck Murray. But no one could possibly know at the time that the La Salle defense would give up only 7 more points the rest of the season. The second game was against the Burrs of West Catholic, and the Explorers won their third game in a row against their “cousins”, 19-7, as Hugh Brolly opened up the scoring by passing to end Chuck Murray. Bill Dick contributed a 60 yard run, and La Salle went 2 and 0 for the first time since 1950.

The Bulldogs of St. James were next on the schedule, and the Explorers broke a 4-game losing streak against the Jimmies with a hard-fought, 12- 0 win. The defense stymied St. James, and the offense controlled the line of scrimmage, as two long runs by Bill Dick were featured in the Blue and Gold’s two touchdown drives.

Bill Dick

South Catholic had become Bishop Neumann a year before, but nothing else changed, as their bruising style of play, and distinct weight advantage allowed them to always match up well against the undersized Explorers, who had lost 8 straight tussles with the Pirates.

In what may have been the most defining moment of the 1955 season, and maybe the most important play in La Salle College High School football history, Chuck Murray intercepted a Neumann pass in the second quarter, and raced 27 yards into the end zone for the only score of the game. The Explorers were now 4-0, and were now in sole possession of first place in the Catholic League. Chuck Murray’s interception The fifth game was a relative frolic against St. Joseph’s Prep, 31-0, as La Salle’s early lead allowed the reserves to play much of the second half, and the “Pony Backfield” of Paul Aita, Lou Greco, and others showed a portent of things to come in future years.

The 13-0 shutout of the Cahillites of Roman Catholic, and a tie by St. James and Bishop Neumann, actually allowed La Salle to clinch their first ever Catholic League Championship with two more league games still to go. Bill Dick scored both touchdowns, and the defense kept Roman outside of the Explorer 20-yard line for the entire game. The only other time that La Salle garnered four straight shutouts was if you overlapped the 1941-1942 seasons. But the defense wasn’t content with just 4.

The Explorers beat the Golden Bears of St. Thomas More, 22-0, as Tom Hopkins’ two rushing touchdowns led the way. Bill Dick tacked on another score, and Mike Fonte entered the scorebook by notching a safety.

The Thanksgiving holiday was celebrated in grand style, as the neighborhood matchup with the Germantown Bears went easily to La Salle, 33-0. La Salle scored four times in the first quarter, and cruised to the victory.

Tom Hopkins Ray Frankson All-Catholic MVP Bill Brooks blocks a Germantown punt during the Thanksgiving Day game.

The final regular season game was played against the Falcons of North Catholic, and the boys from Bridesburg nearly pulled off an upset. La Salle had to reach into their bag of tricks, and a double reverse from Brolly to Frankson to Dick resulted in the game’s only score. In this “one-division” era, there was no Catholic League championship game unless there was a tie at the end of the regular season, so the Explorers now readied themselves for a City Championship game at on December 10, 1955, against the Vikings of Northeast High School.

La Salle entered the game as an 18-point underdog. Northeast had two future NFL players in its backfield, Herb Adderley and Angelo Coia, and had averaged over 36 points per game in an unblemished season. With La Salle on a 7 consecutive shutout streak, this was a classic case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

But Gallagher, Flannery, and Bedesem had a game plan to take Northeast off their game. And that plan was an early offensive strike the first time they got the ball. The plan was a trap play to Ray Frankson, with Northeast thinking that the ball was going to Bill Dick, and the play went for 58 yards down to the Northeast 7-yard line. This was the first volley in a sustained attack that allowed all four backfield men to score en route to a shocking 26-0 shellacking of the Vikings. Hugh Brolly was named the game’s MVP.

Also, Bill Brooks, a guard (a lineman!), was named the Catholic League MVP.

And that’s the story of the 1955 season in a nutshell. But there’s so much more to this story.

How did this happen? There are certainly a lot of Gallagher and Brolly reasons: The Coaches

Jim Gallagher was a special coach, with a fiery rhetoric in his game-day speeches. He certainly deserves the lion’s share of the credit for turning the Explorer football fortunes around to a level never seen before. I’m sure that it was quite a shock to his players past and present when he left La Salle after the 1955-56 school year to go to Hatboro High School (and beyond), but Dr. James Gallagher had even greater achievements in him, including becoming the founding principal of Central Bucks East High School.

Tex Flannery was a familiar presence on the 20th and Olney campus since his playing days in the late 30’s. He assisted Bernie Bradley in the mid-40’s, and eventually landed the head coaching position at Bartram High School before coming back to La Salle in 1953. Tex was awarded the head coaching position after Gallagher left in 1956, and he remained as head coach until his retirement in 1984. He was seen at many games in the 2000’s prior to his death in 2007.

Dick Bedesem was just starting his legendary coaching career while an assistant at La Salle, and he soon left La Salle to take over the fledgling program at brand new Bishop Egan High School. Bedesem built a juggernaut at Egan in the 60’s, and also had great success in the 70’s at Archbishop Wood before becoming Villanova’s head coach. The Bedesem name carries on in the suburbs, as his sons and grandsons continue their patriarch’s passion for the game.

Vince and John McAneney went on to great coaching success beyond La Salle. See Retrospect Number 12 for more details about the McAneney coaching legacy.

By all accounts, these men worked together as a real team, with a common mission in mind. All were strong personalities, but this year of 1955 had all of them working as one, and the results on the field were an indication of the preparedness that this coaching staff had in this magic year of 1955.

The Numbers

At this point in their history, La Salle was still one of the smaller schools in the Catholic League, graduating 176 from the Class of 1956. Large schools such as North Catholic, at its peak, West Catholic, and Bishop Neumann had a numbers advantage over smaller schools like La Salle and St. Joseph’s Prep. Monsignor Bonner had just started, along with Father Judge, and Cardinal Dougherty and Bishop Egan were on their way.

One may assume that sheer numbers in football offer a distinct advantage, until one realizes that the “one-platoon” rule used at the time actually benefited the smaller schools. Though the exact details of the rule deserve to be chronicled here, the gist of the rule was that only one substitute could enter the game at a time, but that more liberal substitution could be made at the end of a quarter. This allowed a team that had, for instance, about 15 good players, to compete with those schools who may have had more. La Salle had its 15 good players, and then some. The Players

The 1956 team was built around its seniors, with only junior Clark Hodgson as a starting underclassman, due to a late-season injury to tackle Jim Goodyear. The linemen included Hodgson along with Jim Osborne, Mike Boland, John Lavelle, and Bill Brooks. Ends Tom Heron and Chuck Murray rounded out the line. The backfield of Brolly, Dick, Frankson, and Hopkins was stellar, but great underclassmen in the “Pony Backfield” included Lou Greco, Paul Aita, Eddie Dever, and Johnny Herrera, the “Cuban Flash”, also contributed. By many accounts, Herrera was the greatest running back in La Salle history.

Other senior contributors included Joe Malizia on kickoff duties, ends Bill Henry and Tom Garoppo, tackles Jim Goodyear and Carmen Rodia, and guard Rich DeLuca. Some blowout games late in the season gave some of the seniors more playing time, as well as showcasing the future of La Salle football with the stellar underclassmen. Tom Heron Interception But, in addition to their talent, there were two more factors to the players’ success. Many of these players were multi-sport athletes, and their individual physical conditioning was second to none. Last but not least, this group of players was reputedly a bunch of really tough guys who obviously used their toughness on the defensive side of the ball by amassing 8 straight shutouts.

Their Legacy

There were many All-Catholics from this great team of 1955, including Brooks, Jim Osborne, Murray, Heron, Dick, and Frankson. Hodgson and Greco won their honors in 1956, along with Aita and Herrera. Aita and Herrera duplicated their efforts in 1957, and other 1955 players who attained All-Catholic notoriety in 1957 included Bill Clements, Tom Yannessa, and John Osborne. All in all, the 1955 team had 13 players who would eventually achieve first or second-team All-Catholic honors, and others received honorable mention, including Harry Eustace and Tom Boyle.

This group went on to play college ball as well. Brooks, Dick, and Lavelle played for the Naval Academy; Goodyear became a Demon Deacon at Wake Forest. Heron, Hopkins, and the two Osbornes toiled for the Main Line Wildcats of Villanova. Frankson and Aita were Penn Quakers, and Bill Clements went out to South Bend. Hugh Brolly turned in his cleats for sneakers, and starred on the hardwood, with the 1956 cagers coming up just short of a Catholic League title. He then took his academic and athletic talents across the courtyard at 20th and Olney, and became a star basketball player for the College. Jim Osborne eventually put on a striped shirt as an NFL linesman.

This 1955 team has stayed close together, and they mourn when they lose one of their own, like the loss of Chuck Murray in 2010. I had sent this out before, but here’s a picture of the 1955 team at Jim Goodyear’s farm back in 2004:

Their Video

A Youtube video is available which displays a “live” team picture, along with highlights of the City Title game, narrated by Chris Schenkel. High school football was still in its heyday, and watching the film of the game at Franklin Field certainly was a treat.

Look to see Ray Frankson’s great 58-yard run on that trap play, one that set Northeast back on its heels, and gave La Salle the confidence to know that they would win this game. And check out the long run for a touchdown by Hugh Brolly, the MVP of the game.

Here’s the link to the Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbOzyZohbY0 1955 Game Roster

Tom Boyle Al Solecki Bill Henry John Herrera Hugh Sheridan #21 - C #22 - B #23 - E #24 - B #25 - B

Lou Greco Tom Garoppo Mike Fonte Vince Tague Paul Aita #26 - B #27 - E #28 - E #29 - C #30 - B

Bob Franiak Ed Dever Tom Yannessa Bill Brooks Joe Malizia #32 - E #33 - B #34 - G #35 - G #36 - B

Vince Higgins Tom Heron Bill Dick Jim Osborne Brian Monaghan #37 - G #38 - E #39 - B #40 - T #41 - E 1955 Game Roster

Clark Hodgson Ray Frankson Mike Boland Chuck Murray Rich DeLuca #42 - G #44 - B #46 - G #47 - E #48 - G

Carmen Rodia Hugh Brolly John Sharp Tom Hopkins John Osborne #49 - T #50 - B #51 - T #52 - B #53 - C

John Madden Harry Eustace Bill Clements Jim Goodyear John Lavelle #54 - G #55 - T #56 - T #58 - T #59 - C

Bill Gibbons John Schmidt Hugh Ward Jim Marks Jim Crowley Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Final Notes

I’ve continuously received a lot of emails from the Class of 1956; they are an intensely proud group, proud of their achievements back in the 1955 season, but probably most proud of their camaraderie with each other. They claim their memories are fading, but then they hit me with the details of the PRACTICES before the Northeast game at Franklin Field. Certainly, their record of 8 straight shutouts and an unblemished season puts them in contention for the greatest La Salle football team of all time. And I’m sure they will argue with their “underclassmen” from the 1957 team that was voted into the inaugural class of the Hall of Athletics at La Salle in 2012.

One final note – I’ve mentioned in emails about spotting Hugh Brolly at Mass at St. Jude. On Saturday, June 25, 2011, after the Vigil Mass for the Feast of Corpus Christi, I went over and introduced myself to Hugh. After a brief conversation outside, we went to our respective cars, and respective waiting wives. And all the nice things that you guys from the Class of 1956 said about Hugh was true; I now know it myself. And, as part of the revised version of this Retrospect, I saw Hugh and his wife last night at Church as well; some things never change!

Hail to the 1955 team, our Pioneer Champions!!

I welcome your comments, corrections, and additions. Go La Salle!! Bill Wasylenko, ‘69 [email protected] June 27, 2011, revised May 26, 2013