The Allegany Gridiron Club and Allegany High School have put together quite a day today for Alco fans and high school football fans from all over the area as the “Reunion of Champions” takes place shortly after the Campers take on the Grand Prairie Composite High School Warriors from Alberta, Canada, 1 p.m., at Greenway Avenue Stadium.
Now the actual “Champions” reunion will take place on the Downtown Cumberland Mall as part of the Friday After Five festivities, but you can be sure that a large portion of the 100-plus former players and coaches who are participating in the after-game event will be in attendance for the game at Greenway.
And hey, the more the merrier. You don’t know who’ll you run into, and what you might remember looking back on the first 83 years of Allegany High School football.
Earle “Lefty” Bruce will be here and he, of course, is one of the most renowned players in Allegany history, along with his 1948 teammate Wes Abrams; and, of course, the Gaffneys. But it’s impossible, and quite frankly pointless to try to determine which player was the best, or which player was the most famous, or the most successful after he left Allegany, because there have been thousands of Alco players who have distinguished their school so proudly during and after their time at Allegany.
As both sides of town are quick to remind me at this time of the year, I grew up on the Fort Hill side of town and attended Fort Hill, so when I was a kid and saw those lights fire up at Greenway, my fanny was parked in that stadium, whether it was Fort Hill, Allegany or Bishop Walsh playing.
Of course I knew of the 1948 Campers. I mean, that season is basically the first briefing a kid in Cumberland receives about this madness that surrounds us here every year at this time. Certainly, I would have loved to see those guys play, but of all the football players I missed seeing because of my age, I think, based on what everybody has told me, Danny Darr would have been the player I would have enjoyed watching the most.
As I wasn’t deemed old enough by my mother to go to the stadium until the mid-to-late 1960s, I missed Danny. But once I did get there, when the Campers weren’t playing Fort Hill, I had no problem getting lost watching Jim Daum and Lester Walker play football for Allegany.
Watching Jim Daum run the football was like trainwreck television. You didn’t know if you had the stomach to watch it, but you felt compelled to peel your eyes to it anyway as Daum would take the ball and start plowing ahead on his way to putting up a pair of 1,000-yard seasons. And for a guy his size, he could move, Jack. And as he moved upfield, would-be opposing tacklers would attach themselves to him the way barnacles might attach to the bottom of a ship.
These poor would-be tacklers would connect to this on-its-way freight train in an attempt to tackle it, but more times than not ended up being forced to hold on for dear life as well as a ride, or be thrown under the moving vehicle when their grip gave out.
As for Lester Walker, who was Daum’s teammate, he was simply a man among boys. There are players today whose positions are listed on their team rosters as “ATH,” for athlete. Lester Walker’s position should have been listed as “FBP” for football player, because there was nothing he could not do on the football field; and when an Alco game was on the line you could count on seeing him in the middle of it all.
Through the history of the Allegany-Fort Hill series, there have been particular games that have been known simply by one player’s name. And while the name of Fort Hill’s Dave Duckworth remains part of the lore of Allegany’s 13-12 win in the 1968 Turkey Day Game, it was first and foremost the Lester Walker Game for the way he dominated both sides of the line of scrimmage.
Not long after this period in my life, the men I had grown up to know as “Allegany football players,” soon were becoming “the Allegany guys,” because the guys who were now playing football for Allegany were the kids I played Midget League and Church League basketball, and little league and Hot Stove baseball with as a kid. We were all friends going to different schools together, and suddenly this so-called “Allegany-Fort Hill” mystique began to wear off for us, because we were all out and about doing things together all of the time.
Now don’t confuse that with indifference, because we still wanted to beat Allegany just as badly has they wanted to beat Fort Hill, because we both knew that would be the best either of us would face all season long.
It’s still that way today, of course, and it’s great. It’s one of the greatest things we have. Which is why today is going to be such a fun and worthwhile day for Alco fans. Not to mention for folks from the other side of town.
Until 7 o’clock, anyway.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
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