This Week in Benedictine History

October 7, 1944

Bengals top John Adams 12-6; Win First for Coach Norb Rascher

After starting the season with a pair of 13-0 losses to Holy Name and Mansfield, Benedictine finally got its first victory of the season by defeating neighborhood rival John Adams, 12-6.

It was Benedictine’s East Side Senate opening game.

                Benedictine scored touchdowns by John Furin and Ed Bellovay in the second half as the Bengals rallied to take the victory after John Adams had taken a 6-0 halftime lead.

                It also avenged a 2-0 loss in 1943, when the John Adams scored a safety early in the contest for the only points in the game.

                This win was the first for new coach Norb Rascher who joined the Benedictine staff at the start of the 1944-45 school year.

                Despite his short tenure at Benedictine, Rascher is a legendary coaching figure in the school’s athletic history.

                Rascher came to Benedictine as the football, basketball and baseball coach from Altoona Catholic High School in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1934 with a degree in economics. He earned letters in football and basketball.              

                An Indiana native, he was one of the last players invited to play at Notre Dame by Knute Rockne before the great Notre Dame coach was killed in a plane crash in 1931.

                Near the end of World War II, while at Benedictine in April 1945, Rascher, age 34, was inducted into the U.S. Army and left for Camp Atterbury, Indiana. He returned to Benedictine after the war in December 1945. Rascher continued to coach at Benedictine through the 1946-47 school year.

                The year after the great 1945-46 Bengals basketball season, when the team was ranked third in the nation, he left Benedictine to coach basketball at John Carroll University, which had wanted to play a big-time schedule.

                Joe Rufus was named to replace Rascher in May 1945 after to take over the reins later that fall until Rascher returned from the armed forces.

                Previously, Rufus had coached at Steubenville Catholic Central for two years. He remained at Benedictine until retiring in 1987 as athletic director.

                NOTES: This was only the second time Benedictine had beaten the John Adams Rebels in eight games. The Rebels had outscored Benedictine 165-57 in the previous seven games.

                Although the schools are separated by just a little over two miles, the teams had never met on the football field until Benedictine joined the Cleveland Senate in 1937.

                Benedictine, Cathedral Latin, Holy Name and St. Ignatius, all members of the Catholic League, accepted invitations to join the Cleveland Senate beginning in the fall of 1937. Benedictine and Cathedral Latin were assigned to the East Side Senate and Holy Name and St. Ignatius were assigned to the West Side Senate.

                Norb Rascher was one of a handful of people who were present when Notre Dame Stadium was opened in 1930 and when it was rededicated in 1997.

by Wally Mieskoski ’71

Benedictine Football Historian  

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