Rivalry

This is (or was) Holleder Stadium. It's now an industrial park, but when I was a kid in Rochester, New York, this is where you went to play the big game.

I played high school football at a place called McQuaid Jesuit, and for us, the games didn't get any bigger than the annual game against our rival, Aquinas Institute.

Aquinas was the other all-boys high school in town, and this was their home field. Aquinas was once known as the "Little Notre Dame of the East," and had a storied tradition of football glory going back to the 1940s. In fact, Holleder Stadium was named after their greatest football player, a true American hero named Don Holleder. (If you've got the time, click on Don Holleder's name and read his story, because he deserves it). McQuaid was the new kid on the block, but by the mid-1970s, we had established ourselves as a force to be reckoned with on the gridiron, posting a 24 game winning streak that ran from 1974 through 1977. We also were basking in the reflected glory of one of our recent alums, Bob Thomas, who kicked the winning field goal against Alabama in the 1973 Sugar Bowl, thus helping to lift Notre Dame to its 9th national championship.

McQuaid and Aquinas went at each ferociously back in the 1970s, and I'm pleased to say, they still do. But back then, we often came into the game ranked #1 and #2 in the area, and the McQ-AQ game usually lived up to expectations. For example, in 1974 and 1975, we won the game by identical 7-6 scores. 1975 was my freshman year, and one of my classmates was actually the field goal kicker for the varsity team (a freshman on the varsity was unheard of, so that ought to tell you something about his talent). He was a very good placekicker, but wasn't the best student in the world, which sets up the story I'm about to tell you.

The Aquinas game was being played at our home field that year, not at Holleder Stadium, in front of a crowd of about 3,000 people. Aquinas scored a touchdown in the second quarter, but missed the PAT. McQuaid scored in the third, and our 14-year old kicker ran onto the field for an extra point attempt. He hit the ball cleanly, and it sailed through the uprights. Unfortunately, McQuaid was hit with a false start penalty and he had to do it again, still 14, still playing in front of 3,000 people, only now, five yards further back. Once again, he split the uprights. Once again, a penalty flag was dropped--this time, for holding. So, now, having already hit two extra points, he needed to hit the equivalent of a 35 yard field goal for McQuaid to take the lead. Without batting an eye, he split the uprights for the third time. This time, it counted. McQuaid held Aquinas scoreless the rest of the game, and took home the win.

The next day was Monday (we usually played the other Catholic schools on Sunday), and we received back a social studies test that we had taken on Friday. The class was taught by a priest who was also Athletics Moderator. Like all of the other priests at the school, he had been at the game, and had witnessed our classmate's heroics. Now, when we got back our tests, the placekicker was sitting in the back of class. Passing at our school was 70%, and when he got back his test, it had 69% written in red ink on it, but right next to that grade, in blue ink, was written "+ 1 for the extra point = 70%."

We beat Aquinas our freshman and sophmore years, but our winning streak came to an end in my junior year, which was the first AQ game I played in. They beat us 19-0 that year. We met them at Holleder Stadium my senior year, but they had our number again, 9-0. But, we got lucky--we won the rest of our games, and ended up facing them again in the Section V Championship Game (also at Holleder). We took a 19-0 lead in that game, and they mounted a furious comeback, that ended only when one of our linebackers preserved a 19-17 victory by intercepting their attempt at a two-point conversion on the last play from scrimmage that would have sent the game into overtime.

Since that time, our two schools' football fortunes have diverged. McQuaid floundered from about the mid-1980s until just recently, realizing much more glory on the basketball court and in hockey arenas than on the gridiron, while Aquinas went on to win several sectional championships and, after New York finally established a state championship playoff, a couple of state championships (they are no longer in the large schools division). They've even been seen out here testing their mettle against Ohio teams, losing to Canton McKinley and Youngstown Mooney a few years back. Fortunately, the McQ v. AQ rivalry has remained a heated one. But I'm sorry to say that it's no longer played at Holleder Stadium, which was torn down in 1985.

It's been almost 30 years, but I can still tell you the names of the guys who played across the ball from me in those games. Nobody ever hit me harder, and I never hit anybody harder. There's nothing like a rivalry.

2005 McQuaid Jesuit Knights

McQuaid 21, Aquinas 7