From Springdale to Jeannette to Gateway, towns embrace Friday football ritual

Over there is the 93-year-old ticket-taker. Around there is the concession stand staffed by marching-band parents. Up there, the infants and grandparents in matching team jerseys.

Soon you see former star-players-turned-local-celebrities. Yearbook photographers. The cheerleaders. Wide-eyed youngsters awaiting their turn.

And then: The team.

Uniformed high-schoolers sprint onto the field to renew a Western Pennsylvania and American ritual unlike any other.

It's a tradition that has survived the loss of major industries and population and the evolution of communities, the coming and going of entire generations. It supplants last year's stars with new ones. It keeps going.

The people who make up the Springdale, Jeannette and Gateway school communities say high school football is about life and relationships, pride and tradition.

THE SPRINGDALE DYNAMOS

Follow the gridiron north toward the goal post, take a left up to Pittsburgh Street, and you'll find a local pizza and hoagies joint.

That's where a group of lifelong Springdale High School football fans — they call themselves the "Dynamob" — gather for dinner before most games at Veterans Memorial Field.

"We don't miss any games. Home, away, snow, sleet, rain," said Kenny Winwood, Springdale Class of 1970.

"It's just something you love, and you love the kids," said Hazel Fritz, a former Springdale English and Spanish teacher of about 35 years who never assigned tests on Fridays. Fridays were for football, she said.

On this Friday night, the Dynamos played tough but lost 66-16 to Imani Christian.

Springdale is part of the Allegheny Valley School District, formed in 1965 to serve Harmar and Springdale townships and Cheswick and Springdale boroughs.

The Dynamos— a nod to the generators housed at what used to be the area's largest employers, West Penn Power and Duquesne Light Company — are represented by the light bulb mascot Redi Kilowatt, a character developed by an Alabama-based electricity company in the 1920s .

These days, education and health care services are the top employers.

Like many districts in Western Pennsylvania, the student population at Allegheny Valley is shrinking. Enrollment dipped below 1,000 students in 2013, according to state Department of Education data. Last year's senior class was about 80 students — a fraction of the 1967 senior class of about 260, said Larry Pollick, who graduated that year. Then, he was the captain of the football team. Today, he's president of the school board.

"For a little kid growing up in Springdale, when they turned on those lights on Friday night, you just had to be there," Pollick said, recalling the days before construction of the Veterans Memorial Field complex.

"We're not unique, you know," Pollick said. "People from various communities have strong pride in their schools, in the programs that they have."

Unlike many of the old "river rival" high schools that decades ago lined the Allegheny but merged to form larger schools, Springdale has hung on since it opened in the late 1920s. A significant commercial tax base helps support the district.

Declining enrollment hasn't affected the school's ability to field a team, said Athletic Director Ray Davis, a 1977 Springdale grad. His class had about 220 students. Davis went on to teach at Highlands High School and returned to Springdale in 1999.

In the 1980s, basketball reigned, Davis said. The football program started to decline in the 1970s — the "lean years" or the "dark days," as some fans say — until the late Coach Chuck Wagner, the winningest coach in the 119-year history of Alle-Kiski Valley high school football and fifth overall in the WPIAL, took over the program in the 1990s. Coach Don "Pappy" Boulton worked alongside Wagner, his childhood friend from Oakmont. Boulton still attends games with the Dynamob.

"They acknowledge us, they make us one of their own," Mike Radovich, Class of 2000, said of the coaches and players. He started coming to games in 1994 and still attends with his wife, Bobbie, and elementary school-age daughters, Emma and Milana.

When the team won a WPIAL title in 2003 in an upset against Sto-Rox at Heinz Field, the Dynamos were back.

"When they started winning football, that seemed to rally the community," said Mike Werries, a 1969 Springdale graduate who has been photographing the sports teams since he was a student. He's still on the sidelines at most games, carrying an orange tote and sporting a white Springdale High School Class of 1943 cap. Werries is an honorary member of that class for his work with the alumni association, he said.

The title win in 2003 wasn't the first time the Dynamos rallied around their athletes, Werries said. He recalls lively support for the winning baseball team in the 1970s, as well as the historically strong soccer teams.

"At a place like this, and all these small schools around here, there's always something to play for," said first-year head coach Seth Napierkowski, a 2008 graduate of Burrell High School. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and now works as an engineer when he's not coaching with his father.

Even after Friday's tough loss, player Josh Harman's face lit up when he recalled the moment he fell in love with football. He remembers watching a game on television as a toddler and pointing at the screen. He knew he wanted to play.

"That's the one thing I remember," said Harman, a senior who hopes to play college ball.

– Jamie Martines

THE JEANNETTE JAYHAWKS

Paul Gaudi has been in the same place on fall Friday nights for the past 60 years — McKee Stadium.

He is perched on a small stool — clad in blue-and-red Jeannette Jayhawk gear — greeting fans and taking their tickets as the main attraction begins behind him.

The 93-year-old retired physical education and health teacher has the same catchphrase when former students ask how he's doing: "Hanging loose."

Gaudi is as much a fixture as the generations of families who have helped shaped the tradition of Jayhawk football into a community way of life.

"The families passed on to their kids and everybody wants to be a Jayhawk," said Gaudi, a 1943 graduate who coached several Jeannette teams. "We lost a lot of industry here. We lost a lot of tax base. We're struggling now. It didn't hurt the football team."

In a town in which population has declined for decades, the bright stadium lights on Fridays have been a constant. In the 1940s and 1950s, about 16,000 people lived in Jeannette, but an exodus began after the "Glass City" began losing its trademark glass factories and other industries. By 2000, 6,000 people were gone. Today, an estimated 9,200 remain in a town dotted with dilapidated properties and empty storefronts.

The school district's enrollment has been shrinking since the late 1990s when there were about 1,700 students, according to state data. It's closer to 1,000 now.

"I think it's because we are such a small city that everybody invests in all the kids here, and they really look out for them and take pride in the fact our kids work so hard," said Nicole Reott, cheerleader coach and 1999 graduate.

The town's storied, century-old football program has not felt the same blows.

The Jayhawks have amassed more than 700 wins, eight WPIAL titles and one state championship.

"Jeannette has always had a great football tradition," said legendary coach Joe Mucci, who finished with 149 victories and WPIAL titles in 1971, 1981 and 1983. "It's amazing they still keep turning out winning football teams."

And while the community is smaller, the pride in the team hasn't shrunk.

"That's one of the brightest things about Jeannette," said head coach Roy Hall, a former player who has been coaching for 32 years. "It's a family thing. A lot of the kids I'm coaching now, I coached their dad or their brother."

Football has been Jalen Jones' life since he was a midget Jayhawk. Now the senior nose guard is hoping it can be a ticket to college.

"It's our only way out," he said.

A playoff-bound team, Jeannette topped Mapletown, 47-0, on Friday. They are unbeaten heading into the final game of the season against rival Clairton.

Dick Hoak remembers sold-out crowds when he played there. Now that the school is smaller, it's different. But the talent hasn't waned, said the former Steelers player and coach who regularly attends the games.

Savannah Berry, a senior, went to games as a little girl.

"I would not watch the game whatsoever," she said. "I stared at the cheerleaders."

Now the cheer captain flies through the air for her favorite stunt — the scissor — and little girls want to take pictures with her.

The band, consisting of seventh-graders through seniors, tunes up at the neighboring elementary school before the game under the direction of Maria Brecht, a third-generation Jeannette graduate. They provide a very specific soundtrack to the night and a rendition of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" for halftime.

"They have to do things in a certain order," Brecht said. "And people notice. The people in the stands will say, 'You didn't do THAT song.'"

In the midget leagues, players learn to emulate the high school players. It motivates the high-schoolers to see former Jayhawks go to college and the NFL. The program has produced stars from Hoak to Terrelle Pryor, a Washington Redskins wide receiver, with dozens in between.

Jeannette graduate Demetrious Cox, now with the Carolina Panthers, gave the senior Jayhawks a shout-out on Twitter on Friday afternoon.

S/o to all them Jayhawks seniors on sr night tonight. Enjoy the moment and take advantage of today.

" Demetrious Cox (@i_AM_SEVEN7) October 20, 2017

"They try to live up to the standard of what has been set for them, the bar," said Scott Cline, a city native and president of the football and cheerleader parents' group.

– Renatta Signorini

THE GATEWAY GATORS

Coach Don Holl ensures his players know the importance of "repping the G."

He's referring to the large, stylized letter "G" emblazoned all over the Gateway Gators' Antimarino Stadium, a reminder of decades of history and seasons of football dominance.

The Gators "repped the G" on Friday: The bleachers were nearly full with fans young and old, and face-painted students charged the field in a game that was perhaps a glimpse at the team's glory days in the 1960s and 1970s. The Gators eked out a 21-18 win in a game decided in the final seconds.

These days, a full house is unusual, but for many years the bleachers were packed every week and the Gators were the heroes of their sprawling suburban school district.

"Back in my day, football and basketball were the only games in town, so attendance-wise, every Friday night you could expect the place to be packed," said Randy Rovesti, who played linebacker and guard in the late '60s; now he's the Gateway Senior High School athletic director.

In 1955, the scrappy railroad borough of Pitcairn united with the burgeoning commercial hub of Monroeville to form what would be named the Gateway School District.

A new district needed a new football team, so the Gators were born in 1958. They were coached by Pete Antimarino , who took over where he left off as head coach of the Pitcairn Railroaders.

"It was a nice combination of kids with different backgrounds kind of blending together to create a new school and a new tradition," said Pete Antimarino Jr. "His approach kind of united the schools."

Antimarino coached for 32 years, leading the team to five WPIAL championships.

Meanwhile, the community was changing. Like much of Western Pennsylvania, Monroeville residents relied on jobs with steel mills and the Westinghouse Electric Corp. The city was a trendy place to live, remembers Kevin McFadden, who was a Gator in the early 1970s and now owns the Gateway Grill , a few minutes from the high school.

"When I was a kid, I had a paper route. We had four Pittsburgh Pirates living in the neighborhood where I grew up," he said.

When the steel and electric jobs started disappearing, longtime residents started going with them, McFadden said.

"A lot of my friends left and felt bad that they had to leave," he said.

The district shrunk over the decades. In the past 10 years, enrollment dropped from 4,294 to 3,333.

Back in the early 1970s, when Baby Boomers filled the classrooms, the Gateway Senior High School graduating classes would often approach 1,000.

Monroeville adapted, becoming a commercial outcropping of Pittsburgh with busy highways lined with shopping centers and office parks.

It was that transformation that prompted McFadden to open the Gateway Grill in 1999. Dozens of pictures, news articles and memorabilia from the Gators' past adorn the walls.

McFadden said the grill is a refuge for area natives, a deliberate counterpoint to the encroachment of the chain restaurants that now dot Monroeville's busy corridors.

"They're kind of faceless. They're everywhere. They're all the same. And I didn't see a lot of places that were Monroeville places," he said.

Many of the slogans the team used when Rovesti and McFadden were students are still in vogue:

• "Nobody beats a Gator."

• "Once a Gator, always a Gator."

Antimarino died in May, but his presence is still felt, Holl said.

"Our stadium is named after him, so every day we take the field and talk about defending Antimarino."

Current players are well aware of the team's historic status, said Courtney Jackson, who was MVP of Friday's game with two touchdown passes.

"I think the legacy is very important. They were nationally ranked at one point, very high. And they had a little downfall, but now we're on our way back up," he said.

– Jacob Tierney