Winning, as the saying goes, wasn’t “everything” for the 1958 Johnstown high football team.
Oh, those Trojans knew how to win, of course.
Coach Dave Hart’s team was perfect in all 11 games it played that memorable season 50 years ago. The magical march was capped by a 3-0 victory over Clairton in the WPIAL Class AA title game played before 11,911 fans at Pitt Stadium, a facility that no longer stands.
But there was more to this group that includes men – now retired and far removed from their gridiron playing days – who still consider each other family.
You might say the ’58 Trojans are brothers.
They lived and breathed football while striving to meet standards set by coaches Hart and assistant Blackie Mihalic in the blue-collar city of Johnstown, where steel and coal were king in the 1950s.
On Saturday, 16 members of the 1958 team reassembled at the Pasquerilla Conference Center. The Trojans’ WPIAL champs were honored as part of the Cambria County Sports Hall of Fame ceremony.
“All of Dave Hart’s years at Johnstown the teams were tremendously competitive. We just happened to hit a magic year with our bunch,” said Johnstown resident Jerry Davitch, a starting right guard on the ’58 team who later coached the Trojans to a WPIAL Class AAA crown. “As a result, it was a life-altering experience for many of us. It was the catalyst for the education that many of us received after high school.
“I would not have gone to school for two minutes had it not been for a scholarship, and that was only made possible by playing for Dave Hart and playing with the guys that carried me through that experience,” said Davitch, a former Division I football coach who later was an administrator in the Johnstown, Conemaugh Township and Richland school districts before retiring.
George Azar booted the winning field goal from the Clairton 11-yard line in the fourth quarter of the title game. Bob Bambino was the halfback nicknamed “Rabbit” who scampered for 999 rushing yards that season.
Ed Adamchik was a stellar lineman who went on to star at Pitt and play briefly in the NFL with the New York Giants.
Those familiar with the Golden Age of Johnstown high football know the names: Tom Runyon; Dean Stump; Bernie Solich; Norm Audi; John King; Steve Purich; Woody Barnette; and Craig Michel, among others.
“We were coached very, very well. We listened,” said Bambino, a Johnstown resident. “That’s how we became a great team. We took care of one another. Those guys protected me up front. We just loved each other. We were a great bunch of kids.”
Many of the ’58 Trojans played Division I football and used their time in college as a springboard to successful careers in the real world.
Davitch and Audi went to Arizona, Stump played at Bucknell, Solich attended Miami, and Runyon, West Virginia University.
Azar was a star at Michigan State, and he eventually ascended to a front-office position with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles.
On Saturday, many of those players returned to Johnstown from points throughout the country.
“We were all pretty close while we were in school. We did a lot of things together out of school, going to dances and things like that,” Adamchik said. “We socialized together. After everybody went their separate ways we still kept in touch. We get together every summer with our class at an annual pig roast. A bunch of our players are fairly close and we get together to play golf three or four times a summer every year. We call each other. Everybody keeps in touch.”
A decade ago, Davitch described being part of the Trojans program “an absolute love.”
That opinion hasn’t changed.
Earlier this week, he telephoned King, an underclassman on the ’58 team whom Davitch hadn’t spoken to in about five decades.
“It was as though we had talked every week over the last 50 years from the minute he answered the phone until we hung up 20 minutes later,” Davitch said.
“I don’t have any closer friends throughout my whole life than some of the guys that were part of that team,” he added. “Many of us are in touch either face-to-face, on the telephone or playing golf. It’s an overused reference perhaps that the team is like family. But the real truth is that it is like family.”
Mike Mastovich is a sports writer for The Tribune-Democrat.
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