HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
Talent-rich class of 1983 still stands tall
Hollins, Johnston were area’s stars
The Buffalo News is celebrating the 50th anniversary of All-Western New York football with an all-time All-WNY team which will be published later this season. Along the way, The News will look back at the best of various eras with the reporters who helped select the teams. Bob DiCesare covered high school football from 1982 to 1985.
Every sportswriter who has contributed to this series likes to think they covered the era to end all eras in the 50-year history of the All- Western New York football team. I’m here to tell you the rest of them are lying.
There’s no season in this half-century that compares to 1983, my first full season of covering high schools at The Buffalo News.
Orchard Park’s Dave Hollins was one of the two quarterbacks on that All-WNY team, and he’d have been a major college product if he had the height to go with that rifle arm. But it worked out OK for Hollins. He followed in the footsteps of his brother, Paul, and attended South Carolina on a baseball scholarship. He was drafted by the San Diego Padres and went on to a long and productive major league career at third base that included consecutive 93- RBI seasons and a trip to the World Series with the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies.
And yet the strength of that All-WNY team was such that Hollins might not have been its best athlete. Surely there’s room for debate when the offensive backfield includes one Daryl “Moose” Johnston, who would take his diverse talents to Syracuse before ending up with the Dallas Cowboys and throwing many of the blocks that sprang Emmitt Smith to the NFL rushing record.
Show me another All-WNY team with three Super Bowl rings and a World Series appearance. Didn’t think so.
Johnston just may have been the most versatile football player in the history of Western New York high school football. The report of a Lewiston-Porter game phoned into The News might have gone something like this:
“Daryl Johnston ran for 143 yards and three TDs.” “Anything else?” “Yeah, he made 18 tackles at linebacker.” “Nice game. Anything else?”
“And he punted three times for a 43-yard average.” “Wow. Guess that should do it.”
“Don’t you want to know that he kicked four conversions and a 37-yard field goal?”
“Geez, this kid’s everything but the class valedictorian.”
“You’re wrong there. He is the valedictorian.”
And if that all seems too good to be true, there’s more.
Upon conclusion of the season, Johnston sent a letter thanking us for the coverage he received, his inclusion on the All-WNY Team and his Player of the Year honor. Had we known what the future would hold we would have saved it to put up on eBay (Just kidding. I think).
Yes, 1983 was the mother lode as far as talent was concerned. Unbeaten Albion, the small-schools poll champion, was represented by the deadly passing combination of quarterback Ken Burke and wideout Dan Bartlett. Timon’s defensive dominance was reflected in its three All-WNYers: lineman Kevin Akromas, defensive back Anthony Casacci and linebacker Sean Doctor. Is it just me or has Timon had more Doctors than ECMC over the years?
While 1983 was The Year, it wasn’t the only year that distinguished itself in the early-tomid 1980s. Buffalo Bills beat writer Mark Gaughan, who oversaw coverage in 1985 and ’86, remembers Timon following up its largeschool poll championship of 1983 with another in 1985 behind the running of elusive Tom Sheehan, that season’s Player of the Year.
“That was the early stage of the Paul Fitzpatrick era at Timon and the teams were a total reflection of the head coach — tough and relentless,” Gaughan recalled. “Timon did not have great Division I college prospects — they were undersized — but they played great.”
Typically, the running backs are the ones that bring the memories flooding back. Jamestown’s juggernaut produced Connolly Cup winner Roberto Amoroso in 1982, and Williamsville South rode POY Dan Mettica to an unbeaten year in 1984. Those Billies, coached by Chuck Huber, were in the midst of their own dynastic run when Lackawanna knocked them off in 1986 behind two-time All-WNY tailback Ray Braxton, who made lighting look stationary.
Which gets me to thinking. You know what we could have really used back in those days?
YouTube.
Next Saturday: Two newspapers meant two All-WNY teams from 1975-1981.
