JOHNSTOWN — As the man who literally built the Holy Name football program, David Rugh truly can appreciate the Blue Jays’ first district title and ensuing trip to the PIAA Class A quarterfinals tonight in Altoona.

A 1962 Greater Johnstown High School graduate, Rugh was Holy Name’s first coach in 1966-67, right out of Slippery Rock University.

With no previous coaching experience, Rugh became a one-man coaching staff. There was no field, so he had to clear weeds, fill in groundhog holes and clean up trash to create a playing surface. He drew up a plan to rotate uniforms throughout four different practices involving two groups of players each day because the program mistakenly was issued only 33 uniforms – not enough for the entire squad.

Back in those early days before Woodstock or the Apollo 11 moon landing, Rugh might not have envisioned Holy Name (11-1) winning a District 3 title and facing District 6-A champion Bishop Carroll in a 7 p.m. game on the artificial surface at Mansion Park.

“I had just graduated from college. I had never been an assistant to anybody. They hired me to be the head football coach,” said Rugh, a 2010 inductee into the Holy Name High School Hall of Fame. “They didn’t have a football field. I came out in early August, got a hold of a custodian. I asked him about clearing a field. He said he was busy getting ready for school. He said he didn’t have time to go out and cut down the tall weeds and move the junk.

“I said, ‘That’s OK. I’ll do it.’ I later introduced myself to the football team. I said, ‘Bring your shovels, trash bags and rakes. We’re going to clean this up.’ We filled up all the groundhog holes.”

These days, Holy Name, based in Reading, is doing just fine.

Coach Rick Keeley’s team advanced to the district semifinals eight times in the past 11 years, but ended a frustrating streak by claiming the Jays’ first championship.

Rugh said Keeley was an assistant on the Holy Name team when Rugh moved to Blue Mountain High in 1978.

Current Blue Jays assistant coach Jack Causa was a quarterback, and assistant coach John Marabella played offensive guard and linebacker under Rugh at Holy Name.

“I know they play in Altoona, and my wife and I are probably going out to the game,” said Rugh, who still follows the Blue Jays.

Rugh started the Holy Name program at the junior varsity level in 1966 and 1967, producing 19 wins in 20 games.

The first varsity team in 1968 won an Inter-County League title. Rugh’s hall of fame bio states he’s “the only coach in Pennsylvania to win a championship in the school’s first varsity season of football.”

“The first year we went varsity we won the championship,” Rugh said.

“We lost only one game, the first game to York Catholic.”

That started a string of success. Holy Name won league crowns in 1968, 1969, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977 under Rugh, who had six titles in 10 years with the Jays. He was named Berks County Coach of the Year in 1968, 1974 and 1975.

Rugh coached four players who earned Division I scholarships, including Scott Hettinger (Penn State), Joe Caruso (Syracuse), David DeBeck (Temple) and David Korczykowski (Temple).

He started the track team at Holy Name, had six league titles and reached the pinnacle by claiming the Pennsylvania Catholic Interscholastic Athletic Association state title four straight years (1970-73).

Rugh told of how he had to obtain a special license in order to drive the team bus during the first season.

He also coached junior varsity basketball and was the head girls coach at Holy Name in 1975, when his 18-4 team reached the state semifinals.

His resume made Rugh a natural selection for the Holy Name Hall of Fame.

“It was a great honor,” he said. “A lot of the kids, even those who were out of state, came back to be there that night. That made it special.”

At Johnstown, Rugh played from 1958 through 1961 under coach Dave Hart, who was inducted into the Cambria County and Pennsylvania Football Coaches halls of fame.

“I have nothing but good memories of Johnstown,” Rugh said. “The kids were very competitive. Our rivalry was Altoona. My worst week was the week that we practiced for our game against Altoona. We had George Azar and all those guys when they won the WPIAL championship. I’m the jayvee quarterback. That week in practice, they made me the Altoona quarterback, who was a kid named Jim Curry, an all-state guy who went to the University of Cincinnati on a basketball scholarship. Since the kid was so big and ran a bootleg around the end, Dave Hart had the defensive ends smack me each play. They beat the crap out of me that week.”

Rugh remembered playing basketball with Paul Litwalk, another 1962 graduate who went on to coach the Trojans, and was a football teammate of former Johnstown coach Bob Arcurio.

“I’ll never forget some of those times,” Rugh said.

When asked if the work ethic he learned at Johnstown helped him improvise while building a fledgling program at Holy Name, Rugh said, “You always had to do what you had to do. Whether I learned that from David Hart and that staff, I didn’t give it much thought. It was a situation where you had to do what you had to do.”