Week 4
September 13, 1963
Benedictine hands Padua its first
football loss, 56-0
Scheduling to play Benedictine on Friday the 13th was not a
good omen for Padua Franciscan.
While most of the area teams opened play on the weekend of September 6-7,
Benedictine opened its season on September 13 against the new all-boys
parochial high school in Parma, Padua Franciscan.
Padua opened its doors in 1961 and would be fielding its first varsity
football team in 1963.
After winning the first varsity
football game in school history over St. John Cantius 12-8 at Cloverleaf
Speedway Stadium, Padua then lost its first football game in school history to
Benedictine a week later.
Benedictine would be short-handed for a few
weeks as fullback and co-captain Bob Zelina suffered a broken hand in a
scrimmage against Shaw and would be out of action for about one month.
It didn’t matter, as the Bengals
pounded Padua, 56-0, at John Adams Field. The Bruins never had a chance.
Scoring once in the first
period, the Bengals added two in the second to take a 22-0 halftime lead. They
added that many points in the third and scored 12 in the final quarter to win
easily, 56-0.
While adding up 412 rushing
yards, Benedictine was led by Greg Betts and Joe Palagyi, who each scored
twice.
Betts scored on runs of seven and 40 yards, while Palagyi hit paydirt on
a pair of one-yard runs.
Other Bengal scores were by John
Sanders on a 3-yard pass from Palagyi, Greg Marn on a 14-yard dash, Glenn Novak
on a six-yard jaunt, and Chuck Braschwitz on an 11-yard run.
The Bengals got two-point
conversions from Frank Fink on a run, Betts on a run and Len Rychlik on a pass
from Palagyi. The team also scored on a
safety when the Padua center snapped the ball out of the end zone.
NOTES:
Long-time Bengals fans may
remember John Adams Field as the home of Benedictine and the other East Senate
schools. It was at the start of the 1963 season that the new stands were built
on the visitors side of the field with a seating capacity for that section of
3,000. Earl Ocker, manager of John Adams
Field, also announced to the Plain
Dealer before the season began that a new ticket booth at the northeastern
corner of the field will be open for the Benedictine-Padua football game.
The 1963 Bengals team finished
with a 7-2-1 record securing a spot in the Charity Game for the Cleveland City Championship.
It was there that Benedictine
earned one of its most cherished victories in school history on Thanksgiving
morning November 28, when the Bengals defeated St. Ignatius 30-16 to stop the
Wildcats from successfully defending their crown and ending their 19-game
winning streak.
Benedictine Hall of Fame class of
2006 inductee, Jim Yacknow (Class of 1964), earned the game’s Most Valuable Player
award for his performance. Sadly, Yacknow died in January 2012.
Because of the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963, the National Football
League did not play any of its games on the weekend of November 23-24th. But the Charity Game went on as scheduled a
few days later on Thanksgiving morning.
by Wally Mieskoski ’71
Benedictine Football Historian
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