Art Gabor initiated bantam football to give young athletes a chance – BayToday.ca

In 1958, when Chippewa Secondary School opened and many NBCI & VS students transferred to the new high school a bitter rivalry was born. NBCI & VS became ACS – Algonquin Composite School.

The official reason they called it Composite is because the school offered arts and science, commercial and technical disciplines. The down-low chatter was that A.S.S. would be misinterpreted on banners, signs, and school uniforms and jackets. Anyway, shortly thereafter Mr. Art Gabor, formerly of NBCI &VS and now the head physical education teacher at the new school, came up with the brilliant idea to create a new level of football. The ‘bantam’ level was created but only three high schools initially participated for the Art Gabor Trophy. Chippewa, ACS, and Mattawa were the teams.

See related: Art Gabor obituary

Of course, with a new school, the team had new equipment and uniforms and a beautiful practice field at the rear of the school. Our old school, ACS had old equipment, from the 40s I am sure, and not a regulation field to the side of the school bordered by the railway tracks, Bourke Playground, and houses on Jane Street.

If the junior or senior boys football teams were practicing on the school field the bantam team was relegated to the Bourke Playground.

I remember one practice where our full back, Brian Wiggins, came sweeping around the left end and I was playing defensive halfback. He went between me and the boards for the playground rink, so instead of tackling him, I body checked him into the boards. Both Frenchy Kennedy and Moe Drolet, who were the coaches for our team, started to laugh and asked me why I did that. I told them I figured that was the only way to stop Brian without me possibly getting slivers in my hands.

Maurice ‘Moe’ Drolet and Laurence ‘Frenchy’ Kennedy were senior football players in the technical program at ACS who took time out to coach us young and very inexperienced football wannabees.

There was no organized football until you got to high school and junior football went up to 16 years of age so you could be 13 and 5 foot 2 and 98 pounds, as I was in Grade 9, and be up against players 90 pounds heavier than you. So, by starting the bantam program, that increased the number of possible future junior and senior players who now knew the fundamentals of the game. Art Gabor was very forward-thinking in this respect.

Anyway, the 1961 ACS Bantam Football Team played two memorable games that I would appreciate you bearing with me for my remembrances of these two games.

The first game was against the Mattawa High School and the game was played in Mattawa. Mr. Norm Grant was the assigned teacher to accompany the team on the rented bus as Moe and Frenchy were students and could not be officially assigned the duty of responsibility for all team members.

We arrived in Mattawa and were not permitted to go into the school to dress. We changed on the bus and the game got underway. Algonquin ran up 56 points and Mattawa had not had a sniff at our goal line.

A lot of our players were playing both ways so I approached the two captains, Roger Bowness and Brian Wiggins, and suggested we let Mattawa score a touchdown. I do not believe they had scored any points that year to that point.

Everyone was in agreement except for my defensive secondary partner, who we shall call player X. He was one of our offensive half backs and he stated that the Mattawa players were trying to gouge his eyes, pulling the hair on his legs and the centre for Mattawa, who had a ‘steel’ helmet was trying to pile drive player X into the ground every time there was a pile-up.

Anyway, on the next play, we let the Mattawa ball carrier go through the line and as he made for the goal line, player X tackled him. On the next play, we had to tackle player X so Mattawa could score. They did and the game ended up 56-6.

After the game, the high school facilities were opened to us and there was even a small food and drink offering made available. This was a good life lesson in sportsmanship that team sports teach young players.

We could not beat Chippewa in the two regular-season games we played them. They had big Dusty Marshall at fullback, Gordie McGuinty was their quarterback and Bill Johnson was their swift back fielder.

We got into the final game for the Gabor Trophy, which we had won the year before, and we were bound and determined to beat Chippewa that day. We did not have a home field but Chippewa had won all of their games so the game was played at Chippewa on a very cold and windy afternoon in late October.

No one could score in that game and there was very little time left on the clock. The Chippewa team had the ball on our 20-yard line. Their kicker, Alan Gray, booted the ball past our goal line about 10 yards deep. Our player, Sid Price, caught the football and booted it back out into the playing field. I believe Alan Gray retrieved the ball and booted it back into the scoring area. Again, Sid Price fielded the ball and tried to run out of our end zone. He was tackled about two yards deep in the end zone and we lost the game 1-0.

Those were two very memorable games that went different ways but were enjoyable just the same.

The player for Mattawa with the steel helmet was well known in sporting circles in and around North Bay. His name was Corky Lessard and he played with only one arm – both football and fastball.

Player X will not be named but I will give you a big hint of who he is: He was a very fast-skating right winger for the North Bay Trappers Junior teams in the mid-60s and he scored eight goals on Espanola Eagles goalie, Paul Menard, one Sunday afternoon I believe in 1965.

Sadly, our two coaches, Maurice ‘Moe’ Drolet and Laurence ‘Frenchy’ Kennedy both passed away in vehicle accidents in their very young years. I will never forget them for their generosity of time and expertise in mentoring some young football players.

Our Captain in 1961 – a more than wonderful guy – also passed away at 16 years of age. Brian Wiggins was not with us too long but he was a joy to know and a very good guy in all respects.

Story originally posted in the A Bit of the Bay nostalgia Facebook Group, republished with permission from author Brian Darling.

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