Brebeuf Pride: The Miracle Braves of ’65

By Richard Dick, Jr.

In September of 1962 the new Jesuit high school, Brebeuf College Preparatory School for Boys, opened its doors to its first freshman class. This book tells the remarkable story of that school’s precarious beginnings and the varsity football team that solidified its place as an academic institution on the far north side of Indianapolis and in the history of Indiana high school athletics. It is a story of sacrifice. It is story of faith. But above all it is a story of pride!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483436555

Book preview

footballplayer2.tif

BREBEUF

PRIDE

The Miracle Braves of ’65

Richard Dick, Jr.

Copyright © 2015 Richard Dick, Jr..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3656-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3655-5 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 08/25/2015

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1   Where to Begin?

Chapter 2   Some Players of Memory

Chapter 3   The Season that Had to Be – 1964

Chapter 4   The Season No One Expected – 1965

Chapter 5   The Brebeuf Experiment

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Tim Akins is not a name that will appear anywhere in the annals of St. Jean de Brebeuf College Preparatory School for Boys (and now girls as well), but it is one that stuck in my craw for years after the fall of 1963. Tim played halfback on the 7th and 8th Grade football team at our grade school, Christ the King, which was located just across the street from the newly constructed and fully occupied from the get-go of freshmen through seniors Archdiocesan high school, Chatard. We had a pretty good football team that season which pleased our pastor, Fr. Thomas Carey. He was sent specifically to that parish by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis with the explicit mission to build a new church. In light of that Fr. Carey needed something to serve as a catalyst for bringing together the disparity of personalities that made up his new flock, something that would galvanize them in such a way as to create a positive momentum that would carry over into the capital fund appeal that was already in the workings. He saw this team as that galvanizing force. Games were announced from the pulpit. Prayers for victory found their way into the Sunday’s intercessions. Parishioners were admonished to attend whether they had a boy on the team or not, demonstrating the corporate spirit of the parish. Whether at home at Broad Ripple Park or away at the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) stadium downtown, the presence of Fr. Carey was always seen on the sidelines, rosary in hand.

Whether it was the prayers, the shear presence of Fr. Carey, our new coach, or the emerging talent of these adolescent boys, it worked. We won our division title handily, only to falter in the first game of the championship playoffs. But high school coaches took note of us. At one point in the season we were scouted by the head coach of that neighboring high school, Chatard. It was almost a given that all of us would end up spending our high school years there, but just in case there was any wavering on the part of some, verbal offers were made to the less affluent parents who may not have been able to afford the minimal tuition that the Archdiocese required at each of its high schools. Arrangements could be made to have that fee taken care of. Nothing would prevent all of these talented boys from attending Chatard.

By the end of the season Tim Akins, Jake Jacobi, Jack Thompson, and an assortment of other stars of this team had verbally committed themselves to Chatard. The only exceptions were Tom Lux, our center, and me. I had determined that I would follow in my brother’s footsteps. I was committed to be among the third incoming freshmen class of that new Jesuit school that sat across Hwy 86 from a cow pasture, a lone structure in what at that time was the boonies of Marion County. Not a few viewed it as the male equivalent of Ladywood, a private girls’ boarding school that appeared to cater to the more affluent of the city. Many felt that Brebeuf had that same snooty air about it. They attributed that to the entrance exam that it required and the more expensive tuition it charged. Some saw that as a not-so-subtle means by which the Jesuits sifted out the undesirables from the hoi polloi of Hoosier society while assuring them of the crème de la crème, be that as it was!

I mention this rather obscure character of my juvenile past, Tim Akins, because when I made it publicly known that I was bound for Brebeuf this friend of mine tried to dissuade me from such an errant decision in his mind by humiliating me into the other direction. With other future Chatard Trojans around he would mock my decision by suggesting that what I would be studying out there was cow milking, and he repeatedly referred to me by the nickname he cleverly came up with on his own. Thanks to Tim I became known to them all as the Brebeuf Boner. I am not sure if that was not just another in the long litany of sophomoric references to my last name or he was just fond of coming up with ingenious little alliterations. I suspect the former. Nevertheless, his attempt of humiliating me through the doors of Chatard only heightened my determination to become a member of the third class of freshmen that passed through the portals of Brebeuf. I became even more resolute to shake off the dust of this elementary neighbor to the Trojans and become a Brave. And it was with no small sense of pride that I first passed through its entrance in the waning days of summer in 1964.

I am sure that I am not alone in my experience. For a number of us our road to Brebeuf was not always smooth and easy, both figuratively and geographically. Barriers had to be breached. Obstacles had to be overcome. Distances had to be traversed. The Tim Akinses in our young lives had to be tolerated. But as steel is forged in fire, we were formed in Brebeuf pride even before we passed those miles and miles of pasture and walked through its hallowed halls for that first time. As our school song would say:

Hail Brebeuf forever!

Alma mater we are loyal to you!

We your sons will ever

Show the spirit we have learned from you.

(Fight, Fight, Fight)

Braves are known for courage,

So let us be strong and be bold!

Onward we charge, Braves of Brebeuf!

Let’s win maroon and gold! *

Though it may be said of all of us that that loyalty and spirit were developed and nurtured over the four years most of us spent there, for many its seedlings were already planted in our very souls even before we first donned the maroon and gold. We were so very proud to become sons, and now daughters, of Brebeuf.

This story is about some of those proud ones who first dared to venture out to this cow pasture in the hinterlands of Marion County and become a brave of Brebeuf, especially but not exclusively, those miracle Braves of the 1965 varsity football team. It is to them and their coaches that this brief work is dedicated.

Richard Dick, Jr.

July 9, 2014

Chapter One

Where to Begin?

History in the Making

Most of us perceive ourselves as just passing through history. Rarely do we think of ourselves as making history. In actuality, all of us make history in some way or another. Some may get more notoriety than most, but every single human being, no matter their duration in this life or their success in one’s society or culture, plays a significant role in history, which is to say that no one is dispensable, no one is insignificant, each and every human being has contributed to the whole that makes up human history. No one is incidental to that story, but every once in a while our unique contribution to that narrative becomes evident to us.

I was a Lutheran pastor for twenty-four years. Now I am not going to get into how I went from being a devout Roman Catholic to becoming a Lutheran pastor, but suffice it to say that my time at Brebeuf did have something to do with it in a positive way. Nevertheless, I was a Lutheran pastor for twenty-four years. For most of those years I just saw myself as passing through the history of the parishes I served, a small blip on the full screen of their historical narrative. My first call was to Trinity Lutheran Church in Bedford, Pennsylvania as their associate pastor. The land grant that gave their originating members permission to build their first church was signed by the nephew of William Penn, the founder of that colony! My second call was to a parish that had just celebrated their 125th anniversary. Another minor footnote to their history, if I am noted at all!

In the summer of 1984 I was called by the Lutheran Church in America to be a mission developer for a new congregation that was to be established in Lexington, Kentucky. When I arrived on