December 29, 2024
Over the last 20 years, Medfield High School’s football record stands at 113-119-1. This season ended with a 35-0 shutout win over their traditional Thanksgiving rival, Dover-Sherborn.
Football was established in Medfield in 1897, with high school principal Walter Van Kleek serving as coach. Town historian Richard DeSorgher is continuing to research the early football years. He notes that in one game around the turn of the 20th century, Millis defeated Medfield by a score of 108-0! And in the 1930s, some years there were not enough boys to form a team, and other years they played in a six-man-per-team football league.
In the 21st century, the Mike Slason-coached teams from 2006 and 2007 stand out, as Medfield went 9-0 in Tri-Valley League (TVL) competition.
Overall, 2006 was a 12-1 season, capped by winning the Division 3 super bowl over Haverhill’s Whittier Tech. The team was ranked 12th in Massachusetts. Two-way player Alex Lines was the TVL MVP, and Mike Lane scored 27 touchdowns to win the TVL offensive MVP.
The 2007 team was nearly as good, going 10-3 overall and ranked 36th in the state, but it lost to Swampscott in the super bowl.
The year 2006 was a banner year in Medfield High School sports history. In 2005 and 2006, the girls’ volleyball team won state titles, with Molly Barrett TVL MVP in 2005 and sister Lauren Barrett the MVP in 2006! The 2006 field hockey team won the TVL, thanks in part to MVP Heather Quadir. The 2006 golf team went 15-3. And the boys’ cross-country team had its fourth consecutive unbeaten season.
A football oddity: thanks to some league realignments, in 1956 and 1957 Medfield’s Thanksgiving game was against Nantucket! Medfield won at home, 25-6, then the next year lost on the island. The football teams were terrible in the late 1950s.
Other miscellany over the last 20 years:
- Medfield has played Sharon three times and lost by a total score of 97-0.
- Medfield has played Seekonk twice and won by a combined score of 72-0.
- Medfield’s best record is 12-3 against Norton; worst is 3-18 against Holliston.
But of all the Medfield High teams, the one from 1964 stands out above all the others, in the telling of that story by a member of that team, Tim Flaherty.
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Richard Davidson, John Roskilly, Donald Clive, Craig Magnussen, Robert Curry, Wayne Lemmler, Joseph Sabbag, Richard Stuart, Larry Moore, Robert Emmel. Top Row, L. to R: Coach Keyes, William White, William Catenacci, Daniel Nye, Kenneth Clive, Graeme Justice, Rodney Cook, James Moran, Frank Rogers, Bruce Loader, Michael Norelli, Robert Anderson, James McNickle, Ass’t Coach Abel. Absent when picture was taken: Ronnie Kerr, Lee DeSorgher, and Craig MacIntosh.
Playing football for Medfield High School 60 years ago felt like attending a military academy for four years. It was so demanding it could have qualified as an extra subject added to an already full high school curriculum. It remained that way for the three months of September, October and November.
If a player hadn’t shown up in shape, then he surely was after the final few days of double sessions in August, 1964. In the heat, those practice sessions consisted of calisthenics, wind sprints, tackling practice, blocking on the seven-man sled – followed by scrimmaging. We couldn’t drink any water until the morning and afternoon practices were over. It was all hard work that gave the players resilience and discipline up to the end of the season with our Thanksgiving Day game against Holliston High School.
During those practice days, Coach Ed Keyes and assistants Burt Able and Harry Kreshpane would be shouting out instructions, correcting on the field mistakes, sometimes praising, and sometimes yelling at players with encouragement. They wanted to instill a winning tradition and were very demanding of all of us. Their passionate words reached all of us, and their knowledge helped to prepare us not just for football but for our lives ahead of us.
Many kids went out for the football team. The best became starters. The second-string players were praised and valued, and they could go into any of the games and perform well. We were all very goal-oriented, and our coaches reached us emotionally. Some people would say that football builds character, as everyone would take the criticism and learn from it. Those words and experiences would serve as valuable life lessons.
All season long, every Monday through Friday afternoon, we practiced in heat, in cold, and sometimes in frigid rain. We continued up until 5 pm when the sun was disappearing on the horizon as the days grew shorter.
In the championship season of 1964, we all played hard all the time. When we got to the central Massachusetts town of Leicester, we had to contend with their halfback Ron Leno, who was very fast and shifty, with water-bug moves. He was difficult to catch and easily slipped out of our hands on defense.
At half time, we were behind by a touchdown. Coach Keyes looked at all of us while we sat on the ground at the far end of the field. He inspired us and told us that we had to get back to the basics of blocking, tackling, and running. We knew that we had to do something quickly to stop Leicester and Ron Leno.
In the second half we took command over the game and eventually found a way to stop Ron Leno, but we still had to tolerate the penalty-ridden play of the Leicester team. At one point one of their players on defense pounded himself onto an already huge pile of other Leicester players who had tackled halfback Donnie Clive. As the Leicester player’s action was so blatant and unsportsmanlike-like, the referee threw a flag and marked off a 15-yard penalty.
All in all, it was a hard-fought game that we won by a score of 13 to 12. Winning by just one point served as a warning that we had to take one game at a time and not get ahead of ourselves. That loss of focus nearly cost us during the Leicester game: we had been thinking ahead to the following week when we were to play Millis High, our rival team that was also undefeated.
The week before we played Millis High School the coaching staff gave all of us sticker decals with the initials RMA, for Right Mental Attitude. We were supposed to put them on the door of our football lockers to remind us of the upcoming Millis game. But offensive guard Dick Stuart came up with the idea of putting them on the front of our helmets, thus reminding each of us to remain motivated and enthusiastic with the Right Mental Attitude. That was the coaching staff’s way of making us think about winning and concentrating on nothing else but the game being played on Saturday.
Coach Keyes also inspired all of us with his mantra, “Don’t stop and think – react at once!” Stay alert and ever vigilant to make a tackle, block an opponent, make an interception, or recover a fumble.
Most everyone wants to know how a high school football team goes from last place to an undefeated championship season within four years. All of us who played on the 1964 team would say it began in the 1961 season. The Warrior team in that season lost the first five games – but then came game six, when we played East Bridgewater at the football field at the old Medfield High School on Dale Street.
Both teams seemed evenly matched and played like desperados on the field. The only difference was Medfield’s final power surge was that much faster and valiant, where at the end, only the Warriors were standing victorious, fighting their way into winning.
With the score at 14 to 12, Medfield triumphed when the referee held the football aloft and said the words, “game over.”
There was pandemonium and jubilation waiting for the team gathering in the Dale Street parking lot. The fans and the townspeople all came over from the sidelines to congratulate everyone on the team. The Medfield cheerleaders were all hugging and kissing the players. We must have all been standing out there for at least a half hour while waiting for the bus ride back to Pound Street. Newspaper reporters from the Milford Daily News and The Patriot Ledger interviewed the Medfield coaching staff.
The Medfield Fire Department was so excited by the win that they decided to have one of their fire engines come down from the station, which was then in the basement of town hall, to the Dale Street School.
With the Medfield High School Band playing out in front of them, the majorettes twirled their batons and escorted the team bus back to Pound Street. The fire engine kept blasting the sirens along the return route down North Street, through Medfield center and left onto Main Street, then passing in front of Lord’s Department Store and then right onto South Street.
Remarkably, we never had to stop for a traffic light –because back in 1961, Medfield didn’t have any traffic lights! All the way people kept waving to congratulate all of us on the team bus. When we finally got to the then-new high school on Pound Street, we all headed to the locker room to shower and change into our street clothes.
We finally won! In 1961, we broke the curse that had lasted four long years. The players who won the victory on the field all looked at the freshmen on the team and thanked them for helping to make them into the players who they were. Could heaven be any better? For all the players and their fans, this victory brought us glory, with all our hearts and minds both thinking and beating as one.
It was just three years later that the Medfield Warriors went on to celebrate our undefeated season with nine straight wins without any losses. We won the Tri-Valley League championship! We had the state’s second-highest scorer for that year, senior Donnie Clive. Four players were named to The Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Team: Donnie Clive, Joey Sabbagg, and co-captains Bobby Curry and Kraig Magnussen.
It is a record that stands to this very day and one that we are very proud of. All the Warriors who contributed and played on that team knew that deep down inside, we had an agenda and something to prove not just to the fans of Medfield but also to ourselves.