The Build-Up
The Boston University article, (about 10% of the way down), has a picture, (not on the SI website) of “Jim Dean, who “powers BU backfield. Jim, #45 is in a relaxed pose with a football under his arm but a determined look on his face, his jaw jutting forward and his gaze on the horizon. The Terriers were coming off a 1-5-2 record, (including a 21-7 loss to SU), but they had a “strong bench to back up nine returning starters” and may come to life and repay some old debts this year”.
The ends were Jack Regan who “weighs more than 200 pounds but he can really move after catching a pass”, Jim Kenney, Sal Schiazza and Phil Kearny. Sinko was “especially high on slender quarterback Len Hill, a steady passer and cunning field general. Versatile Jimmy Dean is at fullback, (no he didn’t drive porches or make sausages). Backfield depth comes at halfback where four players won letters last season. Add to these Paul Canero, a promising sophomore prospect. It appears that, with a little bit of lucky, the Terriers could win four games, (of 8). “
Street and Smith’s quoted Sinko: The picture is brighter than it has been the last two years. For the first time in several years, we think we can field two elevens.” The halfbacks were Jim Courville, John Maio and Larry Fennessey. “Dean, Hill and Regan are the boys to watch. The fullback rates as the strongest defensive back, solid and quick: he punts, he passes and receives. Hill is a good passer, covers well on enemy aerials and runs the option. Regan, a married man with two children is equally powerful on offense and defense.” The magazine doesn’t say if it’s an advantage to be married with two children or a disadvantage. “Sophomores with talent are halfback Paul Canero billed as a 5-8 tank from Bayonne, New Jersey who scored 12 touchdowns in four freshman games and could muscle his way into the starting line-up in short order, Phil Kearney, an end with Regan, and guard Len Pare…..The end and backfield except quarterback, are also strong. Sinko is eliminating Split-T variations and will go with Winged-T, plus a new sweep series. A stronger running game is indicated.
The NCAA Guide simply says that Buff Donelli “hated to leave the squad, because it has the makings” but the Terriers “have far to go.” Arnie Burdick interviewed Donelli, now the coach at Columbia, about the chances his former team at Boston U. had against Syracuse. “I don’t like to put Steve Sinko, the new coach into a jam, but I can honestly say that THIS is one year that I was looking forward at Boston to playing Syracuse.” Arnie reported that Buff “also had a lot of nice things to say about a sophomore halfback, Paul Cancro, whom he thinks has got a brilliant future.”
Burdick devoted a column to quarterback Len Hill. At age 12, Len the youngest of 5 children was put in foster care as his mother died and his father had abandoned the family. His older siblings were adults. “Two interests, religion and football, seemed to keep the future BU quarterback on the straight-and-narrow. His mother had sharpened his religious bent at an early age. He became a choir boy at eight years of age. Later, when a lot of his friends were quitting school in Watertown, Mass., the lure of playing football forced Len to stay with the books when it might have easier to forget them. He went on to become a first class quarterback in high school, making the all-scholastic team his senior year. Len gravitated to Boston U. and immediately became a sensation on the Terrier frosh eleven, tossing 13 touchdown passes, which is still a record. Book learning came hard that year but Len wrestled with them late, sometimes until three in the morning, until he made the Dean’s list.”
He won the starting positon as a sophomore until he separated his shoulder against Syracuse, then alternated with two others as a junior. “He showed his passing ability by clicking on 31 of 80 throws for a gain of 474 yards, including two touchdowns.” When Sinko took over as coach, “he immediately stated “Hill is my quarterback.” Taking the pressure off Len seems to have loosened him up considerably, made him a better passer.” BU’s Sid, Larry Strumwasser, said “He’s a natural leader. Hill’s got a considerable amount of class, perhaps not as much as (Harry) Agganis but in a class with (Tommy) Gastall. Agganis had been a BU All-American in the early 50’s and Gastall had passed SU crazy, 19-41, in 1954. Both became baseball players and both were dead, Agganis of leukemia in 1955 and Gastall in a 1956 plane crash.
“Linking Hill with Gastall left a squeamish feeling in the pit of an Orange rooter. For in 1954, Gastall threw four touchdown passes against a porous Orange pass defense to help the Terriers to a handsome 41-19 victory, the last one that BU has scored over an SU eleven. And this year’s Syracuse pass defense looked no stronger than shaky last weekend when the favored Orange tied Iowa State.
The Terriers opened very impressively, nipping Massachusetts 66-6, “with a crushing display of solid, on the ground football”. They’d beaten the Redmen by only 19-6 in 1956.The 1957 team rushed for 341 yards and passed for 147 more. “The Terriers showed they will be a big test for Syracuse this week. The score was the largest and the biggest margin of victory for Boston U. in its history. Dean, Cancro and Maio scored the first three touchdowns. Hill threw to Kenney for the fourth score Fennessey caught a couple more scores, one from reserve quarterback Amelio DiNeto. Reserves Hugo Bolin and Tom O’Connell accounted for the other three scores, two by O’Connell. Half the points, 33, came in the third quarter. Sinko said that his players like the 3:30PM start time because that’s when they normally practiced. They felt “comfortable”. Of course, the Minutemen, (actually they were the’ Redmen’ back then), also practiced at that time and I doubt they were very comfortable.
The Syracuse coaching staff was disappointed with the work of Dick Aloise at left end, where Iowa State had had their greatest success. They decided to give Glenn Preising, a 6-0 195 senior from Cleveland, Ohio, “considerably smaller than the giant Aloise”, a shot in his place. There was a picture of the baby-faced Preising reaching for a pass, (helmetless) in practice. Tom Stephens was getting over his charley horse and might get the starting nod over Dave Baker. Sophomore Johnny Burgos was expected to get some playing time, as well. “Injury-wise, the Hill troops came through their opener with nothing more hurt than their pride, aside from the usual game bruises.” A couple of casualties were Dick Lasse’s two front teeth, the result of his failing to wear his mouthpiece on one play.
On Tuesday the Herald had an intimidating picture of five BU players, all with footballs in their gut and arms tightly wrapped around them, jumping into the air and shouting with the title “THESE BARKING TERRIERS MAY BITE”. Fortunately the rules, even in 1957, allowed for teams to use only one football at a time. They were Hugo Bolin, Larry Fennessy, Jimmy Dean, Paul Cancro and Johnny Maio.
New coach Steve Sinko said he hadn’t wanted to beat Massachusetts by a score like 66-6, (very rare in those days if you weren’t Oklahoma), but he’d run out of subs. Ironically such a one-sided defeat underscored Sinko’s concerns about his depth. “That game was good only in that it might give my kids confidence.” He also said he’d have preferred it if Ben Schwartzwalder’s team had won over Iowa State because, “I know they’ll be ready for us now….Syracuse is THE team on our schedule. I don’t know who else our boys would be saving ourselves for.” Sinko was an assistant promoted to the head coaching job after Buff Donelli left for Columbia in part because of a petition the players presented to the university president to have Sinko named their new coach.
“Although BU stayed basically on the ground against UMASS Sinko & Co. are expected to use an aerial attack to overcome Syracuse’s strong line. The late-game success of Iowa State in the air has encouraged the Terrier thinking along those lines.” Like the Cyclones, BU had a big target to throw to. Jim “Kenney is a 6-4 215 pound junior who was injured in the opening game last year and missed the rest of the season. He is regarded as the bets end prospect in BU history. Three passes were thrown to Kenney in the UMASS opener. He caught all, two for 32 and 46 yard gains. A punter, too, he kicked a 56 yarder which died on UMASS’s 4.“
Wednesday’s Post had another ‘action’ shot form the practice field of “Glen Stefano, speedy sophomore back from Utica”, who was expected to see “lots of action”. Glen looks as if he’s just caught a pass and is, for some reason turning back at the quarterback to shout at him. But the article next to it declared the upcoming contest to be “a duel between the boys who could be the East’s two best fullbacks, Bill Orange’s Ed Coffin and Jimmy Dean of BU…Coffin, the 195 pound ex-GI was the teeth of the Syracuse offense against Iowa State…A hard-hitting performer with good bucking-back speed, Coffin seems to have come into his own now that the shadows of Jim Brown and Jim Ridlon, the 1956 ball-toting stars, have bene removed. Against Iowa State, the 25 year old senior romped 61 yards in 12 carries, for an average of a shade over five yards per try. As a linebacker, Ed teamed with Mike Bill to do a fine job in helping to throttle the Cyclone ground attack….Dean…Is being touted as a 1958 All-American. A 185 pound junior from Lowell, Mass., Jim has fine speed and good power for man his size.” Rocky Pirro: “He’s a real fine full back and will give us lots of trouble.” Dean, like Chuck Zimmerman, started his career at Fordham and left when the Rams gave up football in 1954, so they were briefly teammates.
Pirro told Bill Reddy “Boston University is a hellava lot better club than Iowa State. This is the best team I’ve seen at BU since I’ve been watching them during the past five or six years.” Reddy: “There’s a real need for all-around belt tightening on the Orange squad. It will have to play its best to stay in the game with the Terriers and even its best may not be good enough to win.”
Meanwhile Chuck Zimmerman seemed to be tightening his grip on the quarterback situation. Satisfied with him but not with his halfback situation, Ben was considering switching his back-up Dan Fogarty “a 170 pound pepperbox” to halfback. Ernie Jackson, “top punter and defensive ace, had difficulty getting untracked offensively” and Dean DeAngelis “cracked up slightly.” A young speedster, Ed Bowers, was getting some attention as well. Jim Anderson, “a 181 pound Oneonta boy”, who gained 32 yards in 3 carries against Iowa State, was moved over from fullback. On Friday it was reported that Tom Stephens would also miss this game and DeAngleis was doubtful so the starting halfbacks would be Fogarty and Dave Baker.
Bill Reddy noted that SU was favored by 13 points. “On reason that the Syracuse-BU game is attracting little attention around the country is that Boston University is one of the few major elevens for which a national ‘line’ isn’t quoted. The 13 point quotation favoring Syracuse is strictly a local affair…One thing is certain: Syracuse not only won’t make the 13 point spot but it won’t escape unbeaten if there’s repletion of last week’s lethargy by the home squad… Both coaches have stated that their plans are to alternate 2 teams. Today the Orangemen who will be meeting a foe who has been particularly pesky over the years will probably offer a firm ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether or not the current Hill entry has a fighting chance to defend its 1956 Lambert Trophy laurels.”
Arnie Burdick predicted a “touchdown parade”, noting that “both teams have always scored against each other” and “Syracuse-Boston games have always produced a lot of thrills”. He said it was “a toss-up because with the Orange a slight choice because it’s at home. They regard Syracuse at “The Game” of the season- the contest that will give them Eastern and National prestige if they can win.” This was a trophy game in those days: the winner got the “Beanpot”. (You would think that would go to BU-BC, not BU-Syracuse). A crowd of 18-20,000 fans were expected at Archbold.
“While there has been some mumbling and grumbling among downtown alumni over the showing of the Syracuse University football team in it’s opening game against Iowa State, interest in the squad as reflected in season ticket sales continues to mount….for the first time in history, 5,000 season ducats have been sold.”
