In 1949, 20th Century Fox released a fictional baseball movie, entitled “It Happens Every Spring,” starring Ray Milland as professor Vernon Simpson, who becomes “King Kelly” and throws an unbelievable season of major league baseball with St. Louis (it could have either been the Cardinals or the Browns). His secret is a chemical substance (he discovered while working in his lab) which repels wood and allows him to strike out an amazing number of batters in a whirlwind summer leading to the World Series.
Ten years later, Jerry Keller had a hit record on the 1959 music charts with his classic, “Here Comes Summer.”
Now, here we are — the week before Labor Day of 2018 and the unusually late spring and a wet, sometimes hot, summer are in the past. Ready or not, here comes fall.
Teachers are back at work this week and school starts next week, as summer suddenly becomes fall. Practices for high school sports started more than two weeks ago (August 13) and cross country meets, volleyball matches and football games are part of the new excitement. Yes, “It Happens Every Fall.”
As I mentioned in last week’s “Bleacher Views,” there has been a lot of success among high school teams from the wide area covered by the newspapers of Johnson Publishing. I will strive to highlight some of those memorable seasons as the current school year unfolds.
For starters, I am going to list some of the undefeated football seasons which I know about.
Heron Lake had undefeated seasons in 1938, 1958, 1959, 1969 and 1970. The teams of both ’59 and ’69 were especially impressive, outscoring opponents in one-sided fashion in victory after victory. Okabena was undefeated in 1948 and 1967 and lost just once in both 1960 and 1966. Brewster ran the table with an undefeated season in the fall of 1962. Round Lake never lost a game in 1961.
All of those seasons, happened before there were high school football playoffs in Minnesota.
In its first year of consolidation, the Chandler-Lake Wilson Mustangs were undefeated in 1972.
Brewster rolled through an undefeated regular-season in 1977, including an epic 28-18 home-field victory over perennial power Welcome, and won a playoff game before losing to eventual state champion Deer Creek in the state-tournament quarterfinals.
Fulda, which had dominating teams during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, reached the state-tournament quarterfinals in both 1989 (losing to eventual state champion Waterville-Elysian-Morristown) and in 1994 (losing to eventual state champion Chatfield).
As Southwestern United (pairing of Heron Lake-Okabena and Round Lake-Brewster), the Wildcats were a perfect 9-0, including an 11-Man playoff victory over Martin County West before being sidelined by Class AA Luverne in the fall of 2006. Three years earlier, the Wildcats capped their first-season as a pairing with an impressive run through the Nine-Man playoffs and played a 2003 state-tournament game at Spring Grove.
Murray County Central had a great season two years ago, advancing to state-tournament with a thrilling overtime victory (27-26) over rival Adrian in the Section 3A finals at Marshall.
I need to find out more about some of Slayton’s earlier teams, but I know that the Wildcats gave Windom its only Southwest Conference loss in 1971.
Adrian had earlier undefeated teams (maybe in both 1966 and 1967?) before starting its dominating run of high-powered teams in late 1990s (mentioned in last week’s column).
So, again, I am open to phone calls (507-822-2053) or emails (lknutson5169@gmail.com) with information about past teams.
The following six players are listed as making the Minneapolis Tribune’s All-State football teams, 1940-2004, by Joel Rippel’s Minnesota Sports Almanac (which was published in 2006):
Allen Woitaszewski, Slayton, 1961, defensive end; Bill Bunkers, Fulda, 1971, defensive linebacker; Brian Bunkers, Fulda, 1976, punter; Jason Brouwer, Chandler-Lake Wilson, 1985, defensive linebacker; Matt Wieneke, Adrian; 1997, offensive lineman; Matt Konz, Adrian, 1998, punter.
Interesting that two of the area guys (Brian Bunkers and Matt Konz), who were exceptional all-around players, made the teams as punters. “Konz was a terrific punter,” remembers HL-O athletic director Jason Fisher, who was a two-way lineman for the Worthington Trojans in 1998. “He could really boom it a long ways.”
The Tribune’s team has almost exclusively 11-Man players, but Brouwer excelled in Nine-Man football for C-LW.
I know that Heron Lake’s Kenny Freking (1959) and Tom Pribyl (1969) made the Tribune’s All-State Eight-Man football teams. I am quite sure that Brewster’s Gary McNab (1962) and Steve McNab (1977) did the same, as did Okabena’s Mike Gade (1967) and Reed Scheppman (1972). Later, both Don Wolff (1983) and Tyler Leopold (2002) made All-State Eight-Man football teams, while playing for HL-O.
Several others made WCCO Radio All-State teams or Coaches Association teams.
I know this list is far from complete. Again I welcome feedback — let me know, what you know!
