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FOOTBALL
The football team at Mendel was as young as the school; one year old. The young team played games, but always against the Freshmen/sophomore teams in the Catholic league. Football in the Catholic league was a huge sport. Since most of the Catholic schools were boys only or girls only, the teams meant a lot to a school. The dominant footballs teams were from Carmel, Leo, Fenwick, Saint Rita, and De LaSalle. There were others, too, but these schools dominated the league.
I remember reading about “Red” Gleason, the coach from Leo High School. Leo played in the championships often. Winning the Catholic school championship meant playing at Soldier Field against the public school champions for the All City Title. My brother Bill went to St. Leo when Red Gleason coached the Leo team to a championship.
I secretly dreamed of joining the football team. My limited association with the game came from playing “tackle” on the lawn next to the rectory. Tackle games were few because we had to wait for an evening when Father Horvath was out. I didn’t know about shoulder pads, hip pads, padded pants, jerseys, or helmets. None of my friends did either. Most of the time we played “tag” games in the schoolyard, or on the street in front of the house.
One day, during the spring of my first year, an announcement came: “Anyone wishing to try out for the football team should come to the gym at 3:30 to meet Red Gleason the new head coach.”
Wow! I thought, Red Gleason, a chance to meet ‘the man’ himself. I couldn’t wait for the day to end so I could rush to the gym to sign up. Finally, the last bell rang and we rushed to our lockers to put away our books. There was plenty of time to get to the gym, it was only 3 p.m. I got there early to stand in line with what seemed like at least two hundred boys. All of them were anxious to try out for football.
At three-thirty, Fr. McNabb walked into the gym with a short dumpy man, rather portly, with thinning reddish hair. I recognized him from the pictures I had seen in the newspapers. Red Gleason is really here.
Father directed us to line up single file and shoulder to shoulder. The coach and Father McNabb passed by the line for inspection. Coach stopped in front of each boy and looked him over head to toe. Sometimes he asked for a name, or some other question, and occasionally, he even shook a boy’s hand.
It took forever but he finally got to me. He stopped, looked at me hard and asked, “How much do you weigh, boy?”
I really didn’t know my weight so I answered, “about 90 lbs.”
“Be sure to come to tryout in summer.”
I was in heaven. Red Gleason asked me to try out for the team!
Of course, the largest obstacle I faced was not the team tryout, but it would be talking Mom and Dad into letting me do it. Neither of them knew much about the game except that you could get hurt. I had all summer to do it; now I just wanted to celebrate.
Ideas flooded my mind for how to convince them. After a days of deliberation I decided to work hard all summer to earn my tuition so they would have to let me do it. The summer of 1953 became the longest summer of my life, and was also the one that changed my course in a way that tested me beyond all of my dreams.
Filed under: Biography, Characters I knew, family, Jun-e-or, Memories, Sports | Tagged: Burnside, Carmel HS, Catholic school, Catholicism, Chicago, Christianity, DeLaSalle HS, Denominations, education, Football, Head coach, Mendel CHS, Red Gleason, Religion and Spirituality, Roseland, Saint Leo, Soldier Field, St. Rita HS | 4 Comments »
