A
Saturday Afternoon in Steelton
article written by Barry Baumgardner
(Note: Over the years much has been
written about Steel-High’s "fight against the world.”
Many old-timers have said that we get no help from our
local newspaper in our continuing war for recognition.
Perhaps today that is true. Perhaps it was then.
However, an article prepared for publication in “The
National Prep Football Magazine” over a quarter
century ago by a Harrisburg Patriot-News Company
reporter proved beyond a doubt that Steel-High has
always had a loyal friend in that sports department.
True, that reporter wasn’t from our area by birth, but
he did marry a Steelton girl and certainly the
following article proves where his heart always was.
For the record, shortly before his death Sports
Illustrated Magazine called him and said they
were interested in doing a story on football in our
sector of the United States. “Immediately”, he is
reported to have said, “I thought of Steel-High. What
other school could match the rich sports tradition of
Steel-High?” Unfortunately, however, like so many
others that have carried our banner into battle, his
exploits and forays on our behalf were not made known
during his lifetime. But that doesn’t lessen his
contributions. For the record, the idea for the
following article, the very basis for the article and
even the very title of the article is derived from the
work of that sportswriter for the Harrisburg newspaper
over 25 years ago. Though many facts have added and
much changed, much of the following article is just as
the author wrote it. This updated version of his
article is printed solely as a tribute to one of
Steel-High’s staunchest supporters, the late John
Travers. Read on and KNOW that we at Steel-High are
much the poorer for this noble gentleman’s untimely
demise.--Barry Baumgardner)
“A SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN STEELTON”
STEELTON, PA.—The year was 1956 and a
chilly October wind was sweeping the small
Pennsylvania community as another stirring football
chapter was being unfolded in the annals of Steelton
High School. It was Saturday afternoon. The
day for the town’s heroes. The five o’clock shift
whistle had not yet sounded at the nearby Bethlehem
Steel Company plant, the town’s only “bread and
butter” source. But already tired men, garbed in their
work clothes and carrying lunch buckets, stood
shoulder to shoulder on the cinder track circling
Cottage Hill Field, home of the Steamrollers of
Steelton. For today’s opponent was Allentown High
School, one of the largest and most powerful teams in
the Commonwealth!
Tension gripped the crowd, packed
sardine-solid in the stands that surrounded the track.
Steelton was on the short end of the count against the
mammoth school located near the New
Jersey-Pennsylvania line. Today David was again, as in
Biblical times, fighting mighty Goliath—and this time
was paying the price! Allentown had brought well over
four teams to town for the fray while Steelton
was content, as always, to go both ways with a total
of 15 men! The days of two-platoon football would not
hit Steelton for another decade. Today it seemed that
the sheer weight of the numbers were taking it’s toll
of the Steamrollers. The scoreboard lights, cutting
through the smoky pall of the Mill Town flashed for
all to see:
ALLENTOWN 7—STEELTON 6
Head Coach Joe Shevock was the 13th
mentor in the school’s 62-year football history. Today
he was nervously pacing the sidelines and running his
hands through a thatch of silver hair. Time was
running out for the little “David” of Pennsylvania
football. It seemed that the enormous manpower
of the giant opponent surely was beginning to make
cracks in the game but outweighed Steamroller line.
But still amongst the “faithful” surrounding the field
could be heard words like “conditioning” and
“second-half ball club.” A Shevock-coached team was
always supposed to get stronger as the game
progressed. “A team that won’t be beat, can’t be
beat,’ said Shevock.
When a time-out was called, other teams
would drop to the ground to rest, water would be
brought on the field for the tired warriors and
helmets would be taken off by the exhausted players.
But Shevock’s Steelton teams never needed water during
a game and helmets never were removed, even on the
sidelines. While their opponents would be in various
stages of rest on the ground, across the scrimmage
line the superbly conditioned Steamrollers would be
taking the opportunity to do stretching exercises,
jumping jacks or simply jogging in place while waiting
for play to resume.
But today Allentown had already rolled
up 11 first-downs while Steelton had yet to gain their
first one of the second-half! The Rollers had been
able to compile the minute total of 26 yards rushing
for the entire contest. The Steamroller line, led by
All-Staters Joe Yetter, Don Stevenson and Pill Popp,
was bending under the continuous onslaught but would
not snap. The "Three Mules," as they were known
locally, had just helped the Roller line check yet
another deep foray by the huge adversary into Roller
territory. Suddenly, it happened! The break that Dame
Fortune deemed appropriate to the October setting took
place. The clock showed four short minutes remained in
the contest. An Allentown back readied himself to punt
from the Steelton 40 yard-line. The ball was lofted
skyward by the kicker and soared lazily through the
autumn air, heading towards the Roller goal line. It
bounced at the five-yard line and skidded crazily to a
stop at the two, inches from being a perfect
“coffin-corner” boot!
Another Steelton All-State nominee,
fleet-footed halfback Ralph “Buzzy” Reed, was already
at the spot, anxiously waiting to see if the pigskin
was going to roll into the end zone for a touchback.
Now realizing that the ball was “dead” at the two, he
stood over the ball protectively, his legs straddling
the oval as he looked up field. Reed had already
scored once in the contest and now kept his eyes
pealed up field as the behemoth oncharging Allentown
linemen streaked toward him like a runaway freight out
of the night! Reed stood his ground, playing a
cat-and-mouse type of waiting game. He seemed
undecided. Should he fall on the ball, or should he
pick it up? His indecision could he sensed by
the five-rows deep mill workers that stood surrounding
the end zone. They numbered in their midst many
Steelton gladiators of years past. Protruding stomachs
and receding hairlines revealed they were long past
the days of their youth. Now confined to reliving
their own days of glory on this very field, only in
the town’s barrooms on Friday nights, they still
keenly knew their football. And for this very briefest
of moments, they were playing again!
“Pick it up” they cried. “Pick it up”
they screamed again, “Pick it up and run!” Mindful of
the on charging adversaries speeding towards him, Reed
couldn’t help but hear the cries of anguish emitting
from his fellow teammates of yesteryear, only yards
away just outside the two strands of B.S.C.O. wire
that served as a simple barrier between player and
fans. Still standing on the two-yard line he glanced
at the ball, then looked again up field. Quickly he
glanced towards the sidelines, his only possible
avenue of escape. Still apparently undecided.
Suddenly, in the briefest of seconds, he
made his decision. Whether it was made by the
screaming alumni on the sidelines or whether his
judgment was based on the thorough training all of
Coach Shevock’s “charges” were exposed to time and
again may never be known. But suddenly, without any
further hesitation, he lunged down at the ball,
scooped it up like a loaf of bread, tucked it away in
his arm and fairly flew laterally across the field
dashing for the narrow confines of the sideline. Just
as suddenly, like a top, he spun to his right and
aimed his flying feet toward the Allentown goal 98
long yards away. His tired but unbowed teammates
sensed what was happening. Shevock’s intense
drilling and endless hours of coaching began to pay
dividends. Immediately they set up a wall of blockers
down the length of sidelines, and proceeded to cut
down the Allentown defenders like shafts of wheat ripe
for harvest. One after another the Allentowners were
sent plummeting to Earth. Safely tucked away behind
his teammates Reed continued his seemingly impossible
journey towards that far-away goal-line that seemed to
be looming closer and closer. Seconds later he crossed
that last chalk-line untouched to snatch Steelton from
the brink of defeat. Allentown’s defenders were lured
into the trap by Reed’s brilliant actions in the
clutch. One by one they had been mowed down by
Steelton’s scythe-like blocking! Anxious moments later
the game was over with Steelton winning by the count
of 13-7!
But this episode is just a typical
“business as usual” Saturday afternoon in the town’s
football history of excellence. It’s just one of many
thrilling chapters in the most remarkable record of
Steelton High School. There are hundreds more which
have been written into the books by it’s athletes who
have played the game with fierce abandon and
determination. The school historically has always been
against night football for high school students,
opting to play Saturday afternoon games. And even
though at times having to vie against such things as
the World Series, Penn State games and TV’s Game of
the Week for attendance figures, year in and year out,
they remain as one of the mid-state area’s top-drawing
teams. "On any given Saturday” an opposing coach once
said, “You could fire a cannon down the town’s main
street and never hit a soul! All the townspeople will
be up at Cottage Hill Field waiting for us to arrive!”
The school’s long list of gridiron
accomplishments has made it one of Pennsylvania’s
greatest for almost a century now. Through the years
it has carved one of the most startling schoolboy
records for a school of its size anywhere in the
country. They have challenged all who dare offer
combat. In the school's early days, and even up to the
middle thirties, it wasn’t unusual for the school to
schedule trade schools, prep school and even
small-college opponents! The small school, despite
it’s small enrollment and by it’s own volition, always
plays in the largest and most powerful leagues in the
mid-state area of Pennsylvania, the spawning ground
for many of the Keystone State’s finest. In the
school’s 39-year football history, they have played
less than a handful of opponents--perhaps less than
half a handful—that were even remotely close to them
in enrollment! By the Pennsylvania Interscholastic
Athletic Association’s standards, they are placed in
the smallest such enrollment category offered (class
A). By their own choice the school always insists on
ranking among the state’s largest schools (AAA). The
school’s enrollment has remained between 350 and 500
students in the entire high school for the last 30 or
more years. The 1982 enrollment figures for the school
will hover around 325 students in the upper three
grades. Allentown is but one of the big boys the
school has mastered. Some 3,614 pupils file through
Allentown’s high school daily. Some other opponents
are Chambersburg (1,862), Reading (2,390), Cumberland
Valley (2,627), Pennsbury (2,934) and Lancaster with
1,969 students.
Steel-High, as the school has been known
since it’s 1957 merger with neighboring Highspire, has
played 89 different opponents in it’s 87 years of
football splendor. Unbelievably, over half of those
opponents have yet to beat the school for the first
time. The Rollers, over the years, hold an edge over
77 of those 89 foes. It is even in three series, while
two opponents, more than a few of them one-time
rivals, show the upper hand. Going into 1982, the
mighty steamrollers have won 516 games, lost 259 and
tied 54 for a winning percentage just a shade under 70
percent. In 829 games they have averaged 17.7 points
per game while holding their foes to a 9.7 average.
Steel-High is ranked as the number one team of all
time in the mid-state Pennsylvania area and no team is
even close to them in area wins. At another time the
school was rated among the top five schools in a six
state area covering Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, New
York and Pennsylvania. Steel-High is one of a very
select few teams that have managed to win over 500
football games at the high school level in the entire
nation! Little wonder, then, that their fame has even
spread to the southeastern United States, once being
invited to play in a high school bowl game in Dixie.
During that era of our nation’s history however, the
black members of the team would not have been housed
with the rest of the squad, so the offer was declined.
Consider that only four years after the
last Indian uprising was quelled in the mid-west,
Steel-High was starting their first football program.
Since that time, the school has produced 6 collegiate
All-Americans, 2 high school All-Americans, 15 first
team all-staters, fistfuls and fistfuls of second and
third team all-staters, a host of other top-notch
collegiate players, more than a few professional
football players and the number of the school’s
alumnus that went on to become either head coaches or
nationally known athletic officials can never be
totaled.
Even novelists have seen fit to write of
the Steamrollers’ conquests. Author Warren Eyster, a
native son, devoted his novel, No Country For Old
Men, to the rugged, sweating life of the area’s
steelworkers, scores of whom are among the countless
list of Saturday afternoon heroes from the school’s
ranks. And just recently Steel-High’s own John Yetter
further immortalized the school and it’s athletic
history in his book, Steelton, Stop, Look and
Listen. Judges, bankers, physicians, attorneys,
teachers, college professors, prominent businessmen,
chemists and hard-working steel men, the backbone of
the community, have spilled into the world from the
athletic fields of Steel-High. To complete the list
add West Point, Naval and Air Force Academy graduates
as well as Marine majors, Navy commander and Army
generals along with a district attorney, a state
representative and a United States Congressman that
received their first taste of combat on the Cottage
Hill turf of Steel-High.
What are the factors behind the school’s
incredible record? There are many. Perhaps uppermost
is the intense, almost sacred pride of the communities
that make up Steel High. The town at one time numbered
over 20 different nationalities in its melting pot for
success. Four, five, six or more different
nationalities on the field united under one banner and
strove together for one goal: victory for Steel-High.
The roll call of years sounds names like Popp, Yetter,
Stevenson, Dayhoff, Maronic, Cernugal, Gasparovic,
Reich, Intrieri, Settino, Farina, Atanasoff,
Govelovich, Venturo, Mills, McGary, Malinak, Trdenic,
Iskric, Gilinac, Sypniewski, Weuschinski, Stubljar,
Rodriquez, Ellhajj, Venesevich and
Vujasinovich—everyday Steel-High names. Joe Shevock,
the winningest coach in the school's history, once
said that Steel-High is “simply a gathering together
of the ethnic clans that have helped make America
great." "To play winning football you have got
to love the player along side of you” he said, “And
that’s one commodity Steel-High always has an
abundance of--love.” The school’s success can also be
traced back to the time honored, almost sacred
tradition of son following father, and brother
following brother in the steady, relentless and
endless march of generation after generation over the
hallowed turf of Cottage Hill Field, gashed deep by
cleats in stirring victory and unbowed defeat!
OUR THANKS TO STEEL-HlGH'S KEN ROBINSON
FOR HIS ASSISTANCE IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS ARTICLE
BARRY BAUMGARDNER
Editor's note: Please
share your knowledge and memories with us: Interact.
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Sources
Correspondence,
Sheila Green-Stevenson to Afrolumens Project, 15
September 2006.
Notes
The
Afrolumens Project extends its sincere thanks to
Sheila Green-Stevenson for sending this article.
For More Information
For local high school
football memories, see page
two from Sheila Green-Stevenson.
For more Steelton material, see our Midland
Cemetery pages, and the American
Mosaic Project pages about Steelton, from
Dickinson College.
Several readers have added
stories about Steelton's proms, both integrated and
segregated. See letters from Calobe
Jackson Jr., and Kaye
Allen.
Share your memories about African
American community life in Harrisburg--write
to us
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