Free Press –
Bucks
Dear Friends,
Good
morning. The Spinnerstown Hotel was jumping the night
before the annual Quakertown-Pennridge gridiron classic. It was the 50th
reunion of the QHS football and basketball teams which won the Bucks-Mont
League in the same academic year. That record still stands.
Twenty-four
of the players gathered, one from
John Detweiler, Bob Landgreen, Skip
Link, and Rick Shutters led the committee. Coaches Paul “Moose” Barndt (football) and Don Young (basketball) donned T-shirts
with a silk-screened photo of the team taken from the QHS yearbook. Every man
wore that shirt.
“No
Quakertown team has gone undefeated since 1956 (and only one before that),” Jay
Kirpatrick, a teammate began.
“No team
scored more than one touchdown against us during the season,” Link, the center
and linebacker, added.
Link told a
showstopper. Warren Buck, a QHS faculty member, supervised the filming of the
football games. One of the most spectacular and unexpected plays in the 13-0
defeat of Pennridge came during the last play of the first half. Halfback Jim Hoffert took a reverse and romped 30 yards untouched into
the end zone to take the lead. Alas, it was the only play not captured on film.
Why? Because the cameraman shot a biplane circling Alumni Field towing a sign
instead! Hoffert was not pleased.
Kenneth Biehn, a Bucks County Common Pleas judge, was the only
athlete in the room who did not play football. But he was a star on the
championship basketball squad. His teammate, Ed Becker, reminded us that Biehn racked up 317 points during the season, a record. Biehn is left-handed and had an unstoppable shot. “I
watched them [the football team] play,” he laughed.
Coach Don
Young referred to Biehn by his nickname, “Cage,” and
John Detweiler as “Pepper Pot.” Detweiler
wore the number 12 as quarterback of the football squad and guard of the
basketball team. Young reminded Judge Biehn that one
day, he was surprised to see his basketball star sitting in the principal’s
office for disciplinary reasons. Apparently “his honor” remarked that Miss
Martin, the French and Latin teacher had nice legs.
Biehn was
right. He usually is. (I thought so too.)
All the men had known each other
from childhood. “We knew each other as little kids,” Biehn
said. “That team was the best team. I’m thankful for my years at QHS.”
Most of the 24 had great stories.
“We were one for all and all for one,” Skip Link quipped. “There’s a reason why
there’s no “I” in the word, team. Link reminded the team about Davie Fisher who
lived on a farm and drove the tractor to school each day. Now that’s
dedication.
Bob Landgreen
credited the offensive line for his success at carrying the ball. “I couldn’t
have done it without the guys up front,” he said, adding, “We were more of a
family than a team. We watched over each other on the [football] field and on
the street.”
“We had the best,” Ed Becker said
of both teachers and coaches. He was the captain of the basketball team and one
of the co-captains of the football team. “We’d meet at Skip’s [Link] house and
laugh and pray together. It was one of the highlights of my life. It’s fifty
years later and most of us are still here! I’m proud of who we are and who we
were.”
“Mike “the Mouse” Tirjin led the screaming as we entered Alumni Field,” a
teammate remembered. The name of the game was to intimidate the opponents.
“It was a team effort,” Skip Link
concluded. “I knew we’d win the football championship. I knew it from the
beginning. We all believed it from day one.”
Becker composed “Champions,” a poem
with 16 stanzas. Here are the last four lines: “But more important than those
championships, And more meaningful than all the fame…Are the teammates and
coaches we still love and respect, Fifty years after playing the game.”
And just like old days, the evening
ended with a prayer, courtesy of Bob Landgreen. It
was a night to remember.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith