The Bold Bave Men of Archbold 1954: Boston U.

[SWC75]

(in case people would like to escape to a simpler time, but one that had it's own complications)

In the days of old, when knights were bold
Every city had its warrior man.
In the days of new, when fights are few
You will view them from a big grandstand.
In our college town one has great renown
If the game of football he should play.
With his pig-skin ball he is cheered by all,
He's the Saltine Warrior of today.
The Saltine Warrior is a bold, bad man,
And his weapon is a pigskin ball,
When on the field he takes a good, firm stand,
He's the hero of large and small.
He will rush toward the goal with might and main
His opponents all fight, but they fight in vain,
Because the Saltine Warrior is a bold, bad man,
And victorious over all.

We are early in a new era in SU football- the Doug Marrone era. 60 years ago, another era began- the Ben Schwartzwalder Era, during which SU rose from its greatest depths to its greatest heights, and then all the way back down again. It was the era into which I was born, the one I remember from my youth. I can still recall listening to the games on the radio and waiting until Tuesday to see the grainy black and white films of the previous Saturday’s games on the local news. The music played over these highlights was not “Down, Down the Field”. It was “The Saltine Warrior”. My Dad thought he knew the beginning of it and would sing “The Saltine Warrior was a bold, brave man”. I later found that the line was “bold, bad, man”. But that’s not the way I learned it and it’s not the way I like it. My heroes were not “bad” men. They were “brave” men. They were the “Bold, Brave Men of Archbold”.

 

[SWC75]

The Build-up

Syracuse had two weeks to prepare for this a game and, after the poor performance against Penn State, they needed it to try to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The defense received some credit for holding the Nittany Lions to 13 points considering they got no help at all from the anemic offense. Ben Schwartzwalder said “This will give us a chance to get our offense in high gear and also some of our wounded healthy. It also afford us a little time for experimentation.” Quarterbacks Mickey Rich and Eddie Albright were “smothered repeatedly before getting off their passes” and will have to be speeded up in their timing”. SU had gained only 94 yards vs. Penn State, their first game of under 100 yards since 1948, before Schwartzwalder took over. In fact the only game in which Ben’s team had failed to gain at least 200 yards was the 1951 Penn State game.

Ben: “We feel now that the work we might have done in spring practice has been completed. The flaws in the play of untested men has been brought to light and we know what we must correct. We would, (sic), have plenty of blocking fundamental drills this week and in an effort to give our ball carriers some more help and to set up a better screen of protection for our passers.” Also, “several new faces may be given a crack at showing what they can do.” Ray Perkins and Bill Wetzel were expected to over their injuries for the next game, against Boston University.

Under the lead line “Statistics sometimes tell queer tales”, the paper noted that Syracuse, after two games, was leading the nation in pass defense and 6th in total defense with 140 yards per game. Unfortunately they’d only gained 98 yards on 8 completions in 25 attempts. “Teams with good passing attacks should hit on almost 50% of their tries.” Ben was looking for his quarterbacks to throw more “short quick aerials” to give them a better chance of making completions. They were also focusing on “better ball-handling and fakery”. Rocky Pirro was working with the linemen to make their pull-outs “quicker and speedier” to improve the pass protection.

Boston U. was fourth in total offense with 421 yards per game. SU had beaten Villanova and lost to Penn State. Boston U. had impressive wins over minor league opposition: Brandeis, (33-0) and Connecticut (41-13) but then did the same to Fordham (55-20). Buff Donelli had had to rebuild his line, which had only one starter returning. But his Winged Split T attack had rushed for 220 yards a game in 1953 and had an experienced quarterback in Tom Gastall, who had completed 18 of 30 passes for 292 yards and 3 scores, and fullback in Sam Pino, who had terrorized the Orange defense in 1950 and was just back from Korea. Their best all-around player was halfback Joe Terrasi, who led the team in receptions, interceptions and punt returns. The Terrier line averaged 203 pounds per man, about 9 pounds more than SU’s. They played their games in Braves Field, the former home of the Boston Braves, which the University had recently purchased and re-named “University Field“. There was actually a trophy for this game, called the “Bean Pot“, which SU had possessed since 1950.

Ben Schwartzwalder was able to personally score BU’s 55-20 win over Fordham and came back with a sense of awe. “ We will have to show the best game this gang has ever played to win.” Ben was also worried because starting guard Joe Cappadonna fractured a thumb in practice and would miss about three weeks. Also the predictions that Bill Wetzel would finally be back were premature. He was found to have a fractured rib. Jack Slattery noted that “The blond fullback probably has put in more splint and plaster time than any Orange athlete in recent years.

An article in the October 8th paper told about Ithaca’s Tommy Nugent, “the inventor of the ‘I’ formation, double quarterbacking and the typewriter huddle”, who was trying to turn Florida State, who had been an all-girls school nine years before, into a major football power. “Some profits are gloomy about Nugent’s long range chances for making a major classification school out of FSU…They point out he has no substantial backlog of male alumni to pay the costs of beefing up the squad.” Nugent had worked his way through Ithaca College and a big band singer and had once been an MC for Gypsy Rose Lee’s act, so he at least knew how to put on a show. (I wonder what “double quarterbacking” is.)

Another Hurricane entered the picture at this point. Perhaps you’ve heard of it- Hurricane Hazel, which actually came up through New York State and retained it’s status as a hurricane. My mother remembers when one wall of it passed over and suddenly the sun was shining- in the eye of it. It was still a tropical storm when it hit Toronto. 95 people died in the US and 81 more in Canada, most of them drowning victims. It closed airports all over the northeast. The Orange had to go by train and were not able to arrive in Boston until 8:11PM the night before the game, thus severely limiting practice time. “Coach Ben Schwartzwalder was an unhappy man as he watched his bedraggled gridders check into the Hotel Kenmore just in time for bed check late tonight. Naturally, the final limbering up workout was cancelled and the Orangemen will get their first look at University Field, formerly Braves Field, when they step on the gridiron at 1PM, (Syracuse time) Saturday.” I wonder what time it was in Boston?

 

[SWC75]

The Game

The Orangemen never knew what hit them. Whether it was the train ride, the box lunch on the train that was their only meal the day before or just the high-powered BU offense, the visitors were out of the game early and never quite got back into it.

Syracuse kicked off and on the first play from scrimmage Sam Pino “burst through the center of the line, cut slightly to his left and raced 61 yards to the one yard line where he was caught from behind by Sam Alexander“. Pino was allowed to finish off the drive by “bumping” into the end zone and the conversion put SU down 0-7 in just two plays from scrimmage.

A holding penalty, the first of 10 accessed against the Orange, stalled SU’s first possession. After an exchange of kicks, SU tried a trick play that turned out to be a treat for the Terriers. On fourth and 2, with Don Laacksonen back to punt, the ball was snapped directly to Mickey Rich- who promptly dropped it. He recovered but it didn’t matter. Boston drove in for their second score, aided by an interference call vs. Jimmy Brown that gave BU the ball on the SU 20. From the 18, Tom Gastall floated a pass just over the head of Brown to John Brodice in the end zone. The conversion made it 0-14.

A couple more penalties forced SU to punt again. Eleven seconds into the second quarter, Gastell hit Ken Hagstrom in stride at the SU 45 and he “outlegged Mickey Rich to the goal line”, a 58 yard play that made the deficit 0-21.

The game Orange responded with a 59 yard scoring drive, including another fake punt. This time Rich passed to Tom Richardson for the first down. SU then went to the running attack and Sam Alexander went the final yard. Ray Perkins’ conversion attempt was low but it was no longer a shut-out, 6-21.

On the third play from scrimmage, Gastall again found Hagerstrom behind the SU defense. This time he went 56 yards. The kick was missed but it was 6-27.

A clipping penalty ruined another SU possession and Art Trolio went back to punt. A bad snap forced him to retreat to the end zone to retrieve the ball. He actually managed to get a kick off but it only went to the SU 28, where it was downed. Three plays later Gastall tossed a three yard pass to Bodice for his fourth TD pass of the first half. The teams went in at halftime with BU way ahead 6-34.

Syracuse didn’t give in and kept attacking with a strong running attack. The Orange also managed to fix the pass defense, so much so that Gastall, after going 8 for 12 in the first half, was 0 for 5 in the second half. But the deficit was just too much to overcome.

Paul Slick picked off a Gastall pass early in the third and the Orange scored in three plays. Don Laacksonen ran for 13 and then 15 yards. Ray Perkins then bolted another 15 yards into the end zone, carrying two guys with him. He then kicked the point to make it 13-34.

Then Sam Alexander intercepted another pass at the SU 27. Speedy Art Trolio set up another score with a 51 yard run, taking a pitch-out, and using a block by Pete Schwert to make it all the way to the BU 10. Trolio then ran it to the 7. On the next play, braced for a likely run up the middle, the Terrier defense failed to react to a pitch-out to #44, who walked into the end zone. Jimmy Brown had scored his first touchdown for Syracuse. The newspaper says that “Brown faked a kick and (Eddie) Albright tried to pass for the point after but Hagerstrom intercepted the pass in the end zone.” There was no two point conversion until 1958, so I assume there was a bobbled snap, unless Ben didn‘t have confidence in Jimmy‘s kicking. It was SU 19, BU 34.

Syracuse made one more long drive, starting form their own 23 and going to the Boston 4 yard line, where a fourth down pass was batted down. A couple plays alter, with the Terriers simply trying to run out the clock, Frank Chiera, with 10 seconds left in the game, broke away for an 87 yard touchdown run that capped the day at 19-41 in Boston U’s favor.

That run gave Boston more rushing yards than Syracuse, 251-259. But it was the 184 passing and the four first half touchdown passes by Tom Gastall that decided the day. Syracuse completed only 4 passes for 53 yards.

It was a game full of big plays- five of them for over 50 yards. Pictures in the Post Standard showed Pete Schwert leaping with one hand to try to pull in a Mickey Rich pass in the first quarter. He failed. Art Trolio is shown being tackled for a five yard run, also in the first period. Sam Alexander bulls over for SU’s sole first half score. The same play was in the Herald-American and we see that Sam was upside down as he crossed the goal-line. It still counts. Trolio was shown making an 8 yard run in an adjacent photo. SU was in it’s white jerseys with orange helmets and pants and blue lettering and trim. BU looked like Penn State except their jerseys were scarlet, not blue.

The Terriers went on to have one of the best years, going 7-2, with one-point losses to Holy Cross and Boston College and outscoring their opponents 256-93. They remained a major college team for another ten years but with decreasing success. (28-54-5). They never had another team like their 1954 bunch. SU would never lose to the Terriers again and the series would end in 1960. BU became a small college team and eventually gave up football. Boston College, (a school half the size of Boston U.) would become SU’s Boston rival, in a series that began with a 1958 game and became a permanent part of the schedule in 1961.

SU fell to 1-2 and there was no doubt some grumbling about having such a record in the sixth year of Ben Schwartzwalder’s tenure. Did we have the right guy?