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 basketball 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.

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.

Hugh Brolly

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.

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.

Bill Dick

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

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 Franklin Field 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

reasons:

All-Catholic MVP Bill

Brooks blocks a

Germantown punt during

the Thanksgiving Day

game.

Gallagher and Brolly

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 Philadelphia 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

#21 - C

Al Solecki

#22 - B

Bill Henry

#23 - E

John Herrera

#24 - B

Hugh Sheridan

#25 - B

Lou Greco

#26 - B

Tom Garoppo

#27 - E

Mike Fonte

#28 - E Vince Tague

#29 - C

Paul Aita

#30 - B

Bob Franiak

#32 - E

Ed Dever

#33 - B

Tom Yannessa

#34 - G

Bill Brooks

#35 - G

Joe Malizia

#36 - B

Vince Higgins

#37 - G

Tom Heron

#38 - E

Bill Dick

#39 - B

Jim Osborne

#40 - T

Brian Monaghan

#41 - E

1955 Game Roster

Clark Hodgson

#42 - G

Ray Frankson

#44 - B

Mike Boland

#46 - G

Chuck Murray

#47 - E

Rich DeLuca

#48 - G

Carmen Rodia

#49 - T

Hugh Brolly

#50 - B

John Sharp

#51 - T Tom Hopkins

#52 - B

John Osborne

#53 - C

John Madden

#54 - G

Harry Eustace

#55 - T

Bill Clements

#56 - T

Jim Goodyear

#58 - T

John Lavelle

#59 - C

Bill Gibbons

Manager

John Schmidt

Manager

Hugh Ward

Manager

Jim Marks

Manager

Jim Crowley

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

explorerfb@gmail.com

June 27, 2011, revised May 26, 2013