1946: DePadua Plays Football

In the summer of 1946 DePadua high school hired John Mason as head coach. When Mason took the reins he vowed three things: 1) beat Ashland; 2) play one game against Ashland in DePadua’s gym; and 3) start a football team. Well, two out of three is not bad. In the first year of his coaching career at DePadua he beat Ashland and put a football team on the field. The program would continue for about 20 years, experience several coaches, until the school closed its doors.

Johnny Mason was an Ashland boy. He played on the 1936 DePadua basketball team that was selected to play in the National Catholic tournament in Chicago. He was a tough kid. If DePadua had fielded a football team then he would have excelled at some position. Mason was a scrapper. Somehow he convinced the Fathers at DePadua to fund a football team. DePadua boosters and local business-men Jim Nemec (insurance) and George Wartman (undertaker) probably contributed monetarily. To outfit a football team was no small piece of change.

In late August Mason put out the call for football players and 34 showed up. That is 34 young lads who wanted to mix it up with other schools. Mason had to arrange a schedule and find out who could run, tackle, throw, catch, and block. They practiced and played their home games at the Ashland high school field.

DePadua that first year played games with powerful Duluth Cathedral, Bessemer, Hurley, Washburn, Chippewa Falls McDonnell, Park Falls, and Wakefield. Coach John Mason had eager boys named Bill Schroeer, John Reed, Bob Sullivan, Tom and Gene Mason, Don Foley. They didn’t win but played hard and aggressive. The likes of Gerald Kontny, Jim Nemec, Dave Wartman, Ed Brown, Don Frankie and Lewandowski came out every day to practice and get better. They didn’t win but young lads like Hulmer, Seaton, Gregoire, Miller and Ronning gave it their all.

It was a bleak season. They lost all their games. But there was promise for the future. I can’t help but think of the boys who attended DePadua before 1946 might have wanted to play football: Ken Oberbrunner, Bill Blake, Joe Taresewicz, Bill Innes, Tony Kucinski, and also Honey Kuzzy, Poozy Sanders, Shelta Kirklewski, and Goose Pufall. The final coach at DePadua, Marv Nevala, told me the number of players continued to dwindle over the years but the enthusiasm remained. It was a 21-year era that is gone but not forgotten.