The 1957 Season
This report attempts to recount events from more than 50 years ago. Coach Dembowski requested reports of “one or two pages” in length. However, for some of us at least, to age is to become garrulous. Of course, to age is also to become less accurate. Please understand that caution has been served.
The fall of 1957. With apologies to Charles Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The world was then substantially at peace, albeit gripped in the tentacles of the Cold War. Viet Nam was beyond the horizon. That year, the Soviets took a commanding lead in the race to space by launching two Sputniks, while the first United States attempt to launch a satellite blew up on the launch pad. That fall, the detested Yankees would lose in the World Series to upstart Milwaukee, Boston’s former Braves, but the Red Sox would subscribe to yet another season of mediocrity. The Celtics’ beloved Kevin McHale was born that year, but so was Osama bin Laden.
But the fall of 1957 was a most special time for the members of the Swampscott High School football team. Those still on this side of the grass may no longer be able to remember what they had for breakfast this very morning, but the memories of that season will not retreat.
The 1956 team had been a good one, but that team was laden with seniors. Their graduation left a number of holes to be filled. The seniors on the 1957 version of the team would offer some answers, but it was readily apparent that the junior class (the class of 1959) would somehow have to step up. [Statistical note: The 1957 team had only five starters from the prior year. And, in addition to inexperience, the 1957 team also offered lack of size. Our biggest player topped out at approximately 215. On a good day.]
In truth, the 1957 season began in the spring of that year in the annual sadistic rite of drudgery called “spring practice.” Of this we may be sure: the names of the team members who cherished spring practice comprised a very, very short list.
And in that particular spring, things were not going well. In an early scrimmage, a very strong and quick team from Marlborough had handed us our lunch. From the beginning, there was no shortage of gloom and doubt in the Big Blue tent.
But if there is one good thing about spring practice to a player, it is the realization that, at some point, it must end. It was that way with us.
The final day of the 1957 spring practice featured another scrimmage on a cold Saturday morning at Blocksidge Field. Snow flurries, heavy at time, swirled about. It was a scene straight from a Wyeth canvas.
Unfortunately, with the tranquilizing beauty of the snow came powerful Waltham High School. (Of all possible teams, some bozo had scheduled us to scrimmage Waltham.) Darth Vader would not be created for another 20 years, but his image would have symbolized our perception of the Waltham club at that time. Throw in John Williams’ pounding score of the villain’s presence, and the picture would be complete.
Waltham was what was then called a Class “A” school, the class of schools with the largest enrollment. It had been a Boston powerhouse in 1956. In contrast, Swampscott High, which had posted a 6-3 record in 1956, was then a Class “C” school, although it would be elevated along with the other Northeast Conference schools over the summer of 1957 to Class “B.” (The latter reassignment seemed unfair to us, but, frankly, we were oblivious to the significance of the distinction at the time.)
What happened that snowy Saturday morning in March at the Waltham scrimmage cannot logically be explained. Plain and simply, David met Goliath. In keeping with the biblical storyline, the good guys in blue dominated the scrimmage, offensively and defensively. At the end, ecstasy reigned. The memories of our earlier spring difficulties lay zapped. They were history.
Spring led into an interminable summer. The high from the Waltham scrimmage did not diminish. Our sometime summer workouts after dinner at Phillips Park were by no means enough. We were anxious to get going.
Our nine-game 1957 schedule included the other five Northeast Conference teams of that day and four others. All of the games were with other newly-elevated Class “B” schools save one. It turns out that same scheduling guru who lined us up with Waltham in the spring had added Class “A” Saugus High School to our fall schedule. Whether it was it a “what the hell!” choice or a shrewd strategic decision, the addition of Saugus to our schedule would later prove to be an important event in this fairytale.
We should digress to observe that this was indeed 1957. This was your father’s game of football. The feats of Gus Dorais and Knute Rockne notwithstanding, the high school game in general looked upon the forward pass as little more than an evil necessity. Most coaches seemingly subscribed to the Woody Hayes’ theory of offense: “…only three things can happen when you put the ball in the air, and two of them are bad.” Coach Stan Bondelevitch was, for the most part, a Hayes’ disciple.
After his arrival in 1953, Coach Bondelevitch had installed the wing-T formation. As a practical matter, most would observe that the wing-T was ideal for teams which, like ours, were “small, but slow, too.” This was a running offense which succeeded only by misdirection and deception. At the point of attack, linemen cross-blocked. Guards pulled. Tackles trapped. Everyone blocked downfield. It mattered not what play was called - - if you weren’t blocking somewhere, you weren’t playing.
This was a “no frills” offense to be sure. Linemen set up with modest splits. Both ends lined up tight and the wing-back lined up behind the tight end on his side. There was no “H-back,” “slot receiver,” “flanker,” or “wide-out.” Any given play looked, if you will, like something on the order of a bumble-bee cluster. This was not the look of Tom Brady with an empty backfield.
Of course, offensive diversity was not exactly a requirement in those days. Generally speaking, defenses lined up in one or two basic sets and remained there, without variation, for an entire game. There were no strong-side, weak-side variations, no stunts or tricks, no blitz schemes. The secondary played in a straight zone. There were no “nickel” or “dime” packages.
A word about the coaches. The head coach was Stan Bondelevitch, who would become a legend in high school football coaching in Massachusetts. Stan was in his fourth year at Swampscott. That year, he was assisted by Dick Stevenson (offensive and defensive lines), Hal Foster (offensive and defensive backs), and Dick Lynch, (junior varsity and what seemed like everything else). In earlier years, we had been tutored by Leon “Doc” Marden and Bob Andersen. The record of the success these men left behind at Swampscott speaks for itself. But only those who played under them could understand how good they really were.
Fall finally arrived, and on a warm September Indian summer day, so did Woburn. Our offense slumbered in the first half. We played haltingly, almost as if we were groping for an identity. But things began to click in the second half. At the final gun, the Blue was on top, 25-6.
In week two, we travelled to Boston to play Cambridge Latin. (Really - - who put this schedule together?) The Blue offense picked up where it left off the week before. The result was encouraging. The Blue prevailed, 44-7.
Game three was a Saturday morning affair with Danvers on our field. Good things were being said about the Danvers squad, but the Blue showed up to play. Billy Carlyn, for one, put on an offensive and defensive athletic display that could not be matched. It was SHS again, 31-6.
Thus, three games into the season, the buzz of excitement had started. We had a few individuals whose play had begun to draw attention, such as Billy, a senior fullback and linebacker, and George Blais, a junior halfback and defensive back. Please understand: these two guys were very, very good. Both would ultimately be elected to the Swampscott High School Hall of Fame. But in that Waltham scrimmage in the spring, we had learned that our strong suit was our play as a team. When all of the parts of the team worked together, we knew we could get things done.
Winthrop lay ahead in game four. Not lost on us was the memory of the previous year. In 1956, a then undefeated and high-scoring Swampscott team had gone into Winthrop in the fourth game with high expectations. The team left bloodied. There was no joy in Mudville that night.
On the following Monday afternoon, the coaching staff oversaw an intra-squad scrimmage which, had we then held a better sense of history, we may have accurately described as the Bataan death march of football practices. The details of that scrimmage need not be recounted here. The point is that, while we survived, the statement made by the coaching staff that day, intentional or not, had been made: if you play like you did at Winthrop, then this is what your following Monday practice will be like.
Now our regular practice schedule in 1957 called for us to watch and discuss the prior Saturday’s game film at the field house on Monday. Field practices for the next three days started with calisthenics. Only the linemen had contact, and that was limited. The emphasis was on non-contact technique drills, scout team walk-throughs, non-contact “dummy” scrimmages, and running. On Fridays, we dressed in our game uniforms and had a relatively short practice. It was our understanding in the fall of 1957 that regimen would continue to be our regular practice schedule, as long as we won. Nobody wanted the Bataan schedule again.
We thus prepared for the 1957 Winthrop game with something of a passion. The prior year’s score from Winthrop’s victory was posted on our field house bulletin board at the start of the week. No other message was needed.
And so, in the fourth week, on a very wet, very soggy Blocksidge Field, we took on Winthrop. In the first quarter, there was a “déjà vu all over again” sinking moment. Winthrop struck first when a fleet halfback took a pitch-out and sprinted some 60 yards untouched. This was the first time we had been behind, and things got tense, but we pushed in a score just before the half, and we began to believe again. In the second half, the Blue machine got back on track, and we ground out a win, 19-12. As some might have said, it wasn’t pretty, but it was a win. [Statistical note: Winthrop scored its second touchdown on the last play of the game, making it the only team to score twice on our defense in one game during the entire season.]
In week five, we travelled north to Amesbury. This game was a solid one by the offense and the defense. The Blue won, 27-0, with the defense pitching its first of three shutouts. After the game, there was an undeniable wave of excitement. It was tempered only by the realization that Saugus loomed immediately ahead.
Class “A” Saugus had a good team that year. The Sachems were 4-1 at that point and had trampled their opponents, including Marblehead, by significant scores. Their only loss had been a narrow upset. The team boasted two all-star defensive tackles, a bruising fullback, and what seemed to be the world’s largest end. It was Waltham all over again.
The practice that week was intense. We started on Monday in full pads on the field. There was no relaxing review of the prior week’s “aren’t we wonderful” game film. We put in a new defense, “eagle,” which was designed to pinch the middle to stop the bruising Saugus running attack. This was to be the game that would define us. The coaches preached that, and we bought it.
Saturday came to Blocksidge Field with more monsoon-like conditions. The field, to include the track around it, had flooded badly. It was flat-out New England nor’easter ugly. After taking some brief warm-ups on the field, we returned to gather in the locker room. We were wet, we were tense, and we were anxious. Some of us were perhaps more than just a little fearful, fearful of what Saugus meant, fearful of losing.
The coaches came in. The locker room grew hush. Coach Bondelevitch began to speak, at first rather quietly and rather controlled. He began by offering his observation that he felt that we were ready, that we had worked hard for this moment, and that he knew we really did not need a “pep talk.” But, after a pause, he went on, and as he did, his voice rose, both in pitch and in fervor. And when he reached his final “…now, get out there and hit and hit hard!” exhortation, there was an absolute explosion of team emotion. Of primary importance is the fact that we never lost that emotional edge during the entire game.
This was not a day for the comfort of spectators or players. The wind, the cold, and the rain made things miserable for all. (The cheerleaders had to stand on our sideline benches to get out of the standing water on the track.) On the field, the players on both teams rapidly became indistinguishable in the mud. The first half was a tedious and grinding one, both teams advancing the ball at a glacial pace, if at all. It was 6-6 at the half.
But the second half was different. The Blue took advantage of a Saugus fumble on the kick-off to start the second half. On a short field, our offense punched in a touchdown to take the lead. Later in the half, the forbidding weather conditions notwithstanding, Coach Bondelevitch surprised with calls for several pass plays with marked success. The final score said it all: Swampscott 19, Saugus 6.
And thus it was that the size of the Saugus High School student body came into play.
The Eastern Massachusetts high school football rankings depended in part on the size of a team’s opponent’s student body. A victory over a Class “A” school was valued at 10 points. A victory over a Class “B” school was valued at 8 points. To set the rankings, the bean-counters then added together the point values of each team’s wins. Swampscott’s state class ranking score after the Saugus game was 50. That is, we had five wins against “8-point” schools and one win against a “10-point” school, Saugus. To our advantage, in that season, every other undefeated team in Class “B” had played only other Class “B” schools, which meant that the highest possible ranking number any other team might have was 48. Thus, by virtue of the talent of that scheduling genius who had guided us from the outset, from Waltham in the spring to Saugus in the fall, the Blue now stood ever so slightly alone at the top of Class “B” in the Eastern Massachusetts rankings.
To digress further, an objective observer at that time might reasonably have concluded that, by this time, we had perhaps begun to feel good, arguably overly good, about ourselves. Some of us had adopted that adolescent swagger we have come in our later years to associate with the unwarranted bravado of clueless youth. As one example, for various reasons, including superstition, many of us had stopped shaving as the season progressed, at least during the week, leading one faculty member to refer to us as “…Big Blue bums.” Retrospect requires us to wonder if perhaps we weren’t then indeed bordering upon being wholly insufferable.
At the same time, our swelling egos aside, we recognized that three games remained to be played. And won.
Game seven was against Revere and was also played at Blocksidge field. Presumably concerned about our running game, Revere lined up and stayed in a seven man defensive front. After we had been stuffed on our first few possessions, Coach Bondelevitch again went to the pass. Our quarterback, junior Eddie Loveday, was up to the task. The final score was 32-0, which was the defensive unit’s second shutout.
For the eighth game, we returned to Boston and took on Rindge Tech. (How did Rindge Tech get on our schedule?) If ever a team was in a position to be upset, it was ours. We were favored, and we did not play well or with intensity. But we got away with one and prevailed, 27-6.
Thus we came to Thanksgiving Day. Our final season game. Before us stood the cold realization that, in the year before, a favored Swampscott club, which had jumped out to a two-touchdown lead in the first two minutes of the game, lost to Marblehead. And that game was in Swampscott.
That lesson was not lost on us. We knew we would again be favored, but this time we were to play at Marblehead. We also knew that Marblehead had a pretty fair team with a number of very good athletes. Common sense led to no conclusion but that the Magicians would show up for the game.
Also before us stood the much ballyhooed realization that no football team in Swampscott High School football history had ever gone undefeated. We stood first in the Eastern Massachusetts Class “B” rankings. We stood atop the Northeast Conference. And while we did not consider that we stood on the threshold of immortality, we did recognize that this game had a level of importance beyond anything that any of us had ever done before.
Thanksgiving Day in November 1957 at Marblehead High School was a beautiful day - - cold, but sunny and clear. The wind was negligible. As bare as the much-used MHS field was, particularly in the middle, it was in excellent condition. We had elected to wear our all-white uniforms - - we wanted that Oklahoma Sooner look - - against Marblehead’s all-black. (For reasons unknown, we also thought the white uniforms made us look bigger.) This was New England Thanksgiving Day morning football at its best, and both teams showed up to play.
But the Big Blue guys also showed up to win. From our pre-game meeting in the visitors’ locker room, we burst on to the field through the cheerleaders’ hoop with a feeling which could perhaps have been described as determined confidence, something far short of arrogance. We knew that we had a game on our hands, and we knew that we had to play our best. But we also knew, going back to Waltham, and later Saugus, that we were capable of playing our best, and that our best could be very good.
In the first half, the offense sustained three steady drives which resulted in two touchdowns. The defense was simply superb and rendered nothing. It was 13-0 at the half.
At half-time in the locker room, we gathered our breath and our wits for the second half. It was all business: there was no merriment. The coaching staff went about the locker room cajoling and encouraging us, stressing that we could not let up, that this game could be lost, that this game was far from over. We were told to play the second half as if it was the start of the game, as if the score was tied. We were buyers.
A critic might observe that the Blue caught a break on an early second-half play. A drive had stalled, and we were in punt formation. The snap went awry, forcing our kicker to scramble, ball in hand. But our kicker was able to weave his way for some 25 yards and a new first down. The drive continued and resulted in a touchdown. The season’s bell had begun to toll. The fourth quarter was all Blue.
Bottom line: the offense had a monster day and the defense pitched its third shut-out. Swampscott won, 27-0. We had done it.
We could speculate ad nauseam as to why this team performed as it did. Perhaps it was because of our naïveté. Perhaps we were too preoccupied with our constant youthful thoughts of girls, drivers’ licenses, cars, acne, school, and all of the other things that weighed heavily on our hormonally charged teenage minds to comprehend what it was we were really doing, not only for ourselves but for others. Perhaps, if we had fully appreciated in September the significance of what we had a chance to accomplish and how that accomplishment would impact us for the rest of our lives, we would never have risen to the challenge as we did. But that is speculation. The fact is that this team did so rise and that this team did meet the challenge. [Statistical note: that season, the Big Blue put 251 points on the board. The defense allowed 43. These were not record numbers by any means, but they weren’t too shabby, either.]
There were no playoffs in those days. Thus, with the exception of the few seniors who played in a season-ending all-star game one week later, the Marblehead game was the last football game any of the seniors played in a uniform anywhere. We could only speculate as to how many of us knew, on that Thanksgiving morning as we walked off the field and got on the bus to return home, that the final curtain had fallen.
(After high school, the seniors from this team scattered. Some stayed around the North Shore, while some left for distant places to seek fame and fortune. Over the years, we pursued careers in business, industry, government service, and a number of different professions. Many of us have not seen each other since our graduation. But, we can report here that not one of us has ever graced the cover of Time, Newsweek, or Sports Illustrated. From that, we might reasonably conclude that our collective karma was that we had our Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame on Thanksgiving Day in 1957. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that bad a fate.) But the 1957 fairytale had not yet come to an end.
For reasons neither rational nor, in today’s economy at least, justifiable, the town of Swampscott, elated by the unprecedented achievement of the local high school eleven, put together sufficient monies to send our team to Miami, Florida to attend the New Year’s Day 1958 Orange Bowl. In our lives, this was a trip to end all trips.
And so it was that, late one night, several days before the end of the year, our team boarded a train at South Station in Boston and rode the rails south to Miami, sequestered in a railroad car of our own. Members of our coaching staff and a number of school administrators, all sans significant others, served as our chaperones. In retrospect, they really deserved a better fate.
(A photograph of the team, with chaperones, taken on the steps of our Miami Beach hotel - - it may have been called the Sorrento - - can be seen on the “team pictures” link at the Big Blue Web site. The hotel apparently no longer exists. We have no reason to believe that our stay had anything to do with its demise.) Now you will not read here that the team or any of its members misbehaved on that trip. Thus, please put aside as unfounded rumor any suggestions that you may have heard that, once our train was south of Charlotte, North Carolina, attempts were made by some of our team members to convince our fellow rail travelers that we were the Duke football team on its way to Miami to play in the Orange Bowl. Please similarly disregard any suggestion that, once the team reach Miami itself, attempts were made by some to affect accents consistent with what we thought the Oklahoma players might sound like. The notion that a beach chair, or perhaps two, may have fallen from the hotel rooftop’s swimming pool deck one night was also never proven, if it happened at all.
Oh, yes, while our team enjoyed the sights and sounds of Miami Beach, Oklahoma and Duke actually had to prepare for and play a game. Oklahoma, which had a 47-game winning streak of its own snapped by Notre Dame earlier in the year, outscored 16th-ranked Duke handily.
But that game, as enjoyable as it was then, and as important as it may have been to the national sport scene and to the players of those teams, pales in significance to our memories of the things that led us to Miami in the first instance. In the end, for the seniors on that 1957 team, only the really important stuff, those memories, remain.
We close this report by noting that, in the fall of 1958, with a combined 12 starters on offense and defense from the 1957 team, the Big Blue ran the table again. Those guys were really good. We must sadly report, however, that there were no more trips to Miami.
The fall of 1957. With apologies to Charles Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The world was then substantially at peace, albeit gripped in the tentacles of the Cold War. Viet Nam was beyond the horizon. That year, the Soviets took a commanding lead in the race to space by launching two Sputniks, while the first United States attempt to launch a satellite blew up on the launch pad. That fall, the detested Yankees would lose in the World Series to upstart Milwaukee, Boston’s former Braves, but the Red Sox would subscribe to yet another season of mediocrity. The Celtics’ beloved Kevin McHale was born that year, but so was Osama bin Laden.
But the fall of 1957 was a most special time for the members of the Swampscott High School football team. Those still on this side of the grass may no longer be able to remember what they had for breakfast this very morning, but the memories of that season will not retreat.
The 1956 team had been a good one, but that team was laden with seniors. Their graduation left a number of holes to be filled. The seniors on the 1957 version of the team would offer some answers, but it was readily apparent that the junior class (the class of 1959) would somehow have to step up. [Statistical note: The 1957 team had only five starters from the prior year. And, in addition to inexperience, the 1957 team also offered lack of size. Our biggest player topped out at approximately 215. On a good day.]
In truth, the 1957 season began in the spring of that year in the annual sadistic rite of drudgery called “spring practice.” Of this we may be sure: the names of the team members who cherished spring practice comprised a very, very short list.
And in that particular spring, things were not going well. In an early scrimmage, a very strong and quick team from Marlborough had handed us our lunch. From the beginning, there was no shortage of gloom and doubt in the Big Blue tent.
But if there is one good thing about spring practice to a player, it is the realization that, at some point, it must end. It was that way with us.
The final day of the 1957 spring practice featured another scrimmage on a cold Saturday morning at Blocksidge Field. Snow flurries, heavy at time, swirled about. It was a scene straight from a Wyeth canvas.
Unfortunately, with the tranquilizing beauty of the snow came powerful Waltham High School. (Of all possible teams, some bozo had scheduled us to scrimmage Waltham.) Darth Vader would not be created for another 20 years, but his image would have symbolized our perception of the Waltham club at that time. Throw in John Williams’ pounding score of the villain’s presence, and the picture would be complete.
Waltham was what was then called a Class “A” school, the class of schools with the largest enrollment. It had been a Boston powerhouse in 1956. In contrast, Swampscott High, which had posted a 6-3 record in 1956, was then a Class “C” school, although it would be elevated along with the other Northeast Conference schools over the summer of 1957 to Class “B.” (The latter reassignment seemed unfair to us, but, frankly, we were oblivious to the significance of the distinction at the time.)
What happened that snowy Saturday morning in March at the Waltham scrimmage cannot logically be explained. Plain and simply, David met Goliath. In keeping with the biblical storyline, the good guys in blue dominated the scrimmage, offensively and defensively. At the end, ecstasy reigned. The memories of our earlier spring difficulties lay zapped. They were history.
Spring led into an interminable summer. The high from the Waltham scrimmage did not diminish. Our sometime summer workouts after dinner at Phillips Park were by no means enough. We were anxious to get going.
Our nine-game 1957 schedule included the other five Northeast Conference teams of that day and four others. All of the games were with other newly-elevated Class “B” schools save one. It turns out that same scheduling guru who lined us up with Waltham in the spring had added Class “A” Saugus High School to our fall schedule. Whether it was it a “what the hell!” choice or a shrewd strategic decision, the addition of Saugus to our schedule would later prove to be an important event in this fairytale.
We should digress to observe that this was indeed 1957. This was your father’s game of football. The feats of Gus Dorais and Knute Rockne notwithstanding, the high school game in general looked upon the forward pass as little more than an evil necessity. Most coaches seemingly subscribed to the Woody Hayes’ theory of offense: “…only three things can happen when you put the ball in the air, and two of them are bad.” Coach Stan Bondelevitch was, for the most part, a Hayes’ disciple.
After his arrival in 1953, Coach Bondelevitch had installed the wing-T formation. As a practical matter, most would observe that the wing-T was ideal for teams which, like ours, were “small, but slow, too.” This was a running offense which succeeded only by misdirection and deception. At the point of attack, linemen cross-blocked. Guards pulled. Tackles trapped. Everyone blocked downfield. It mattered not what play was called - - if you weren’t blocking somewhere, you weren’t playing.
This was a “no frills” offense to be sure. Linemen set up with modest splits. Both ends lined up tight and the wing-back lined up behind the tight end on his side. There was no “H-back,” “slot receiver,” “flanker,” or “wide-out.” Any given play looked, if you will, like something on the order of a bumble-bee cluster. This was not the look of Tom Brady with an empty backfield.
Of course, offensive diversity was not exactly a requirement in those days. Generally speaking, defenses lined up in one or two basic sets and remained there, without variation, for an entire game. There were no strong-side, weak-side variations, no stunts or tricks, no blitz schemes. The secondary played in a straight zone. There were no “nickel” or “dime” packages.
A word about the coaches. The head coach was Stan Bondelevitch, who would become a legend in high school football coaching in Massachusetts. Stan was in his fourth year at Swampscott. That year, he was assisted by Dick Stevenson (offensive and defensive lines), Hal Foster (offensive and defensive backs), and Dick Lynch, (junior varsity and what seemed like everything else). In earlier years, we had been tutored by Leon “Doc” Marden and Bob Andersen. The record of the success these men left behind at Swampscott speaks for itself. But only those who played under them could understand how good they really were.
Fall finally arrived, and on a warm September Indian summer day, so did Woburn. Our offense slumbered in the first half. We played haltingly, almost as if we were groping for an identity. But things began to click in the second half. At the final gun, the Blue was on top, 25-6.
In week two, we travelled to Boston to play Cambridge Latin. (Really - - who put this schedule together?) The Blue offense picked up where it left off the week before. The result was encouraging. The Blue prevailed, 44-7.
Game three was a Saturday morning affair with Danvers on our field. Good things were being said about the Danvers squad, but the Blue showed up to play. Billy Carlyn, for one, put on an offensive and defensive athletic display that could not be matched. It was SHS again, 31-6.
Thus, three games into the season, the buzz of excitement had started. We had a few individuals whose play had begun to draw attention, such as Billy, a senior fullback and linebacker, and George Blais, a junior halfback and defensive back. Please understand: these two guys were very, very good. Both would ultimately be elected to the Swampscott High School Hall of Fame. But in that Waltham scrimmage in the spring, we had learned that our strong suit was our play as a team. When all of the parts of the team worked together, we knew we could get things done.
Winthrop lay ahead in game four. Not lost on us was the memory of the previous year. In 1956, a then undefeated and high-scoring Swampscott team had gone into Winthrop in the fourth game with high expectations. The team left bloodied. There was no joy in Mudville that night.
On the following Monday afternoon, the coaching staff oversaw an intra-squad scrimmage which, had we then held a better sense of history, we may have accurately described as the Bataan death march of football practices. The details of that scrimmage need not be recounted here. The point is that, while we survived, the statement made by the coaching staff that day, intentional or not, had been made: if you play like you did at Winthrop, then this is what your following Monday practice will be like.
Now our regular practice schedule in 1957 called for us to watch and discuss the prior Saturday’s game film at the field house on Monday. Field practices for the next three days started with calisthenics. Only the linemen had contact, and that was limited. The emphasis was on non-contact technique drills, scout team walk-throughs, non-contact “dummy” scrimmages, and running. On Fridays, we dressed in our game uniforms and had a relatively short practice. It was our understanding in the fall of 1957 that regimen would continue to be our regular practice schedule, as long as we won. Nobody wanted the Bataan schedule again.
We thus prepared for the 1957 Winthrop game with something of a passion. The prior year’s score from Winthrop’s victory was posted on our field house bulletin board at the start of the week. No other message was needed.
And so, in the fourth week, on a very wet, very soggy Blocksidge Field, we took on Winthrop. In the first quarter, there was a “déjà vu all over again” sinking moment. Winthrop struck first when a fleet halfback took a pitch-out and sprinted some 60 yards untouched. This was the first time we had been behind, and things got tense, but we pushed in a score just before the half, and we began to believe again. In the second half, the Blue machine got back on track, and we ground out a win, 19-12. As some might have said, it wasn’t pretty, but it was a win. [Statistical note: Winthrop scored its second touchdown on the last play of the game, making it the only team to score twice on our defense in one game during the entire season.]
In week five, we travelled north to Amesbury. This game was a solid one by the offense and the defense. The Blue won, 27-0, with the defense pitching its first of three shutouts. After the game, there was an undeniable wave of excitement. It was tempered only by the realization that Saugus loomed immediately ahead.
Class “A” Saugus had a good team that year. The Sachems were 4-1 at that point and had trampled their opponents, including Marblehead, by significant scores. Their only loss had been a narrow upset. The team boasted two all-star defensive tackles, a bruising fullback, and what seemed to be the world’s largest end. It was Waltham all over again.
The practice that week was intense. We started on Monday in full pads on the field. There was no relaxing review of the prior week’s “aren’t we wonderful” game film. We put in a new defense, “eagle,” which was designed to pinch the middle to stop the bruising Saugus running attack. This was to be the game that would define us. The coaches preached that, and we bought it.
Saturday came to Blocksidge Field with more monsoon-like conditions. The field, to include the track around it, had flooded badly. It was flat-out New England nor’easter ugly. After taking some brief warm-ups on the field, we returned to gather in the locker room. We were wet, we were tense, and we were anxious. Some of us were perhaps more than just a little fearful, fearful of what Saugus meant, fearful of losing.
The coaches came in. The locker room grew hush. Coach Bondelevitch began to speak, at first rather quietly and rather controlled. He began by offering his observation that he felt that we were ready, that we had worked hard for this moment, and that he knew we really did not need a “pep talk.” But, after a pause, he went on, and as he did, his voice rose, both in pitch and in fervor. And when he reached his final “…now, get out there and hit and hit hard!” exhortation, there was an absolute explosion of team emotion. Of primary importance is the fact that we never lost that emotional edge during the entire game.
This was not a day for the comfort of spectators or players. The wind, the cold, and the rain made things miserable for all. (The cheerleaders had to stand on our sideline benches to get out of the standing water on the track.) On the field, the players on both teams rapidly became indistinguishable in the mud. The first half was a tedious and grinding one, both teams advancing the ball at a glacial pace, if at all. It was 6-6 at the half.
But the second half was different. The Blue took advantage of a Saugus fumble on the kick-off to start the second half. On a short field, our offense punched in a touchdown to take the lead. Later in the half, the forbidding weather conditions notwithstanding, Coach Bondelevitch surprised with calls for several pass plays with marked success. The final score said it all: Swampscott 19, Saugus 6.
And thus it was that the size of the Saugus High School student body came into play.
The Eastern Massachusetts high school football rankings depended in part on the size of a team’s opponent’s student body. A victory over a Class “A” school was valued at 10 points. A victory over a Class “B” school was valued at 8 points. To set the rankings, the bean-counters then added together the point values of each team’s wins. Swampscott’s state class ranking score after the Saugus game was 50. That is, we had five wins against “8-point” schools and one win against a “10-point” school, Saugus. To our advantage, in that season, every other undefeated team in Class “B” had played only other Class “B” schools, which meant that the highest possible ranking number any other team might have was 48. Thus, by virtue of the talent of that scheduling genius who had guided us from the outset, from Waltham in the spring to Saugus in the fall, the Blue now stood ever so slightly alone at the top of Class “B” in the Eastern Massachusetts rankings.
To digress further, an objective observer at that time might reasonably have concluded that, by this time, we had perhaps begun to feel good, arguably overly good, about ourselves. Some of us had adopted that adolescent swagger we have come in our later years to associate with the unwarranted bravado of clueless youth. As one example, for various reasons, including superstition, many of us had stopped shaving as the season progressed, at least during the week, leading one faculty member to refer to us as “…Big Blue bums.” Retrospect requires us to wonder if perhaps we weren’t then indeed bordering upon being wholly insufferable.
At the same time, our swelling egos aside, we recognized that three games remained to be played. And won.
Game seven was against Revere and was also played at Blocksidge field. Presumably concerned about our running game, Revere lined up and stayed in a seven man defensive front. After we had been stuffed on our first few possessions, Coach Bondelevitch again went to the pass. Our quarterback, junior Eddie Loveday, was up to the task. The final score was 32-0, which was the defensive unit’s second shutout.
For the eighth game, we returned to Boston and took on Rindge Tech. (How did Rindge Tech get on our schedule?) If ever a team was in a position to be upset, it was ours. We were favored, and we did not play well or with intensity. But we got away with one and prevailed, 27-6.
Thus we came to Thanksgiving Day. Our final season game. Before us stood the cold realization that, in the year before, a favored Swampscott club, which had jumped out to a two-touchdown lead in the first two minutes of the game, lost to Marblehead. And that game was in Swampscott.
That lesson was not lost on us. We knew we would again be favored, but this time we were to play at Marblehead. We also knew that Marblehead had a pretty fair team with a number of very good athletes. Common sense led to no conclusion but that the Magicians would show up for the game.
Also before us stood the much ballyhooed realization that no football team in Swampscott High School football history had ever gone undefeated. We stood first in the Eastern Massachusetts Class “B” rankings. We stood atop the Northeast Conference. And while we did not consider that we stood on the threshold of immortality, we did recognize that this game had a level of importance beyond anything that any of us had ever done before.
Thanksgiving Day in November 1957 at Marblehead High School was a beautiful day - - cold, but sunny and clear. The wind was negligible. As bare as the much-used MHS field was, particularly in the middle, it was in excellent condition. We had elected to wear our all-white uniforms - - we wanted that Oklahoma Sooner look - - against Marblehead’s all-black. (For reasons unknown, we also thought the white uniforms made us look bigger.) This was New England Thanksgiving Day morning football at its best, and both teams showed up to play.
But the Big Blue guys also showed up to win. From our pre-game meeting in the visitors’ locker room, we burst on to the field through the cheerleaders’ hoop with a feeling which could perhaps have been described as determined confidence, something far short of arrogance. We knew that we had a game on our hands, and we knew that we had to play our best. But we also knew, going back to Waltham, and later Saugus, that we were capable of playing our best, and that our best could be very good.
In the first half, the offense sustained three steady drives which resulted in two touchdowns. The defense was simply superb and rendered nothing. It was 13-0 at the half.
At half-time in the locker room, we gathered our breath and our wits for the second half. It was all business: there was no merriment. The coaching staff went about the locker room cajoling and encouraging us, stressing that we could not let up, that this game could be lost, that this game was far from over. We were told to play the second half as if it was the start of the game, as if the score was tied. We were buyers.
A critic might observe that the Blue caught a break on an early second-half play. A drive had stalled, and we were in punt formation. The snap went awry, forcing our kicker to scramble, ball in hand. But our kicker was able to weave his way for some 25 yards and a new first down. The drive continued and resulted in a touchdown. The season’s bell had begun to toll. The fourth quarter was all Blue.
Bottom line: the offense had a monster day and the defense pitched its third shut-out. Swampscott won, 27-0. We had done it.
We could speculate ad nauseam as to why this team performed as it did. Perhaps it was because of our naïveté. Perhaps we were too preoccupied with our constant youthful thoughts of girls, drivers’ licenses, cars, acne, school, and all of the other things that weighed heavily on our hormonally charged teenage minds to comprehend what it was we were really doing, not only for ourselves but for others. Perhaps, if we had fully appreciated in September the significance of what we had a chance to accomplish and how that accomplishment would impact us for the rest of our lives, we would never have risen to the challenge as we did. But that is speculation. The fact is that this team did so rise and that this team did meet the challenge. [Statistical note: that season, the Big Blue put 251 points on the board. The defense allowed 43. These were not record numbers by any means, but they weren’t too shabby, either.]
There were no playoffs in those days. Thus, with the exception of the few seniors who played in a season-ending all-star game one week later, the Marblehead game was the last football game any of the seniors played in a uniform anywhere. We could only speculate as to how many of us knew, on that Thanksgiving morning as we walked off the field and got on the bus to return home, that the final curtain had fallen.
(After high school, the seniors from this team scattered. Some stayed around the North Shore, while some left for distant places to seek fame and fortune. Over the years, we pursued careers in business, industry, government service, and a number of different professions. Many of us have not seen each other since our graduation. But, we can report here that not one of us has ever graced the cover of Time, Newsweek, or Sports Illustrated. From that, we might reasonably conclude that our collective karma was that we had our Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame on Thanksgiving Day in 1957. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that bad a fate.) But the 1957 fairytale had not yet come to an end.
For reasons neither rational nor, in today’s economy at least, justifiable, the town of Swampscott, elated by the unprecedented achievement of the local high school eleven, put together sufficient monies to send our team to Miami, Florida to attend the New Year’s Day 1958 Orange Bowl. In our lives, this was a trip to end all trips.
And so it was that, late one night, several days before the end of the year, our team boarded a train at South Station in Boston and rode the rails south to Miami, sequestered in a railroad car of our own. Members of our coaching staff and a number of school administrators, all sans significant others, served as our chaperones. In retrospect, they really deserved a better fate.
(A photograph of the team, with chaperones, taken on the steps of our Miami Beach hotel - - it may have been called the Sorrento - - can be seen on the “team pictures” link at the Big Blue Web site. The hotel apparently no longer exists. We have no reason to believe that our stay had anything to do with its demise.) Now you will not read here that the team or any of its members misbehaved on that trip. Thus, please put aside as unfounded rumor any suggestions that you may have heard that, once our train was south of Charlotte, North Carolina, attempts were made by some of our team members to convince our fellow rail travelers that we were the Duke football team on its way to Miami to play in the Orange Bowl. Please similarly disregard any suggestion that, once the team reach Miami itself, attempts were made by some to affect accents consistent with what we thought the Oklahoma players might sound like. The notion that a beach chair, or perhaps two, may have fallen from the hotel rooftop’s swimming pool deck one night was also never proven, if it happened at all.
Oh, yes, while our team enjoyed the sights and sounds of Miami Beach, Oklahoma and Duke actually had to prepare for and play a game. Oklahoma, which had a 47-game winning streak of its own snapped by Notre Dame earlier in the year, outscored 16th-ranked Duke handily.
But that game, as enjoyable as it was then, and as important as it may have been to the national sport scene and to the players of those teams, pales in significance to our memories of the things that led us to Miami in the first instance. In the end, for the seniors on that 1957 team, only the really important stuff, those memories, remain.
We close this report by noting that, in the fall of 1958, with a combined 12 starters on offense and defense from the 1957 team, the Big Blue ran the table again. Those guys were really good. We must sadly report, however, that there were no more trips to Miami.