Lilly Raiders 1967: The start of the grade-school football small-town dynasty, Part 1

The first undefeated team, 1967

… three straight undefeated seasons, four titles in six years

To say that the 1967 season of the Lilly Raiders Grade School Football Team started inauspiciously would be an understatement. 

The preseason was filled with question marks — big time. The talent was good, but the coaching was questionable. 

The reason was that the founder of the Raiders, Jack Inman, had indicated that he would not be able to coach during the early season. That meant that he had to look for some people to coach the team during those two weeks. 

That was where Paul (Butch) Erzal and I entered the picture. 

Here is the recollection of that start. 

Jack’s call

From a previous blog post, I recalled what had happened,

Jack called me about the end of July and said that he was having some health issues. He asked if I would be willing to coach the Raiders for two weeks, and then he would return. That was good with me. 

He said that Butch Erzal would be willing if I was. He had cleared it with Bill Salony, the president of the youth organization. 

I was starting my freshman year at PSU-Altoona at the end of September, and Ertz was working at Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown. We figured that we could work it out so that at least one of us was there, and he would be coaching the line and me the backs and receivers. 

Still Crazy After All These Years, blogspot

Ertz and I had been high school teammates, so I knew that he knew some football and I did too. However, neither one of us had coached before 1967. That placed a little pressure on the coaches.  

First challenges

As coaches, we had to organize practices and try to give the players some fundamentals. Ertz had played the line, and he became a very good line coach, one of the best with whom I had ever been associated. He knew basic fundamentals for his playing for five years, four in high school and one in grade school. 

I was a quarterback for most of my high school career, and I remember what Art Martynuska told me my junior year: You are calling the plays. Don’t ask us for advice. 

Okay, that is a paraphrase, but it is close. 

So, I knew a little about play-calling and about offense.

As time quickly passed, we prepared the best we could for the first practice. 

The infamous weight limits

The league had a weight limit of 125 pounds. At the first league meeting, we raised the limit for linemen to 130 pounds, and instead of having a weigh-in before each game, which is not good for the health of the players, I suggested a one-time weigh-in at the beginning of the season. 

The negative of that is that the players could put on weight during the season, but that was only six weeks long. 

The limit was raised to 140 pounds for linemen from tackle-to-tackle the following year. 

However, the weight limit caused some problems for us early. 

The weight limit cost us a player

At the first practice, Bobby Funari, who passed away a few years ago, told me that Jack had promised him a chance to try out for running back. I took one look at Bob and asked about whether he was close to 125 pounds.

The short version of the story is that when we put Bobby on the scale, he tipped off at 149. I told him that it would be virtually impossible to get down to 125. He tried and lost maybe five or six pounds, but then realized that he would have to play with the 7th-8th graders at Penn Cambria since he could not even make it down to 130.

Had the line limit been 140 that year, he could have made it. Losing 19 pounds, though, was too difficult. 

That was our first disappointment, but not because of lack of a running back. We found one who turned out to be an outstanding one. 

Jack withdraws

After two weeks of practice, and after we had a rather unimpressive scrimmage with a team from Altoona, Jack called and told me that he was not returning. He said to have the players return their equipment. 

I called Bill Salony and met with the Lilly Youth Organization, which ran the team. Ertz and I had talked and said that we could manage coaching the team for this year. 

The Youth Organization agreed to allow us to continue, and that was the start of an interesting odyssey.

Part Two: The exciting season when Joe Sweeney became the “go-to guy”