TED MARCHIBRODA
TERRY MOSHER
A confluence of memories flowed for me over the weekend when two important sports events took place – one of them sad and the other happy. They both go back to my young days, as a kid growing up in New York State (some people will say I have yet to grow up) and then a bit later as a teenager going to high school in Ferndale, WA.
The first one came with the announcement that Ted Marchibroda had died. Marchibroda had an interesting football career, and it all started at St. Bonaventure University that is located about 10 miles from where I had that disputed growing up in Portville, NY.
During the 1940s and ‘50s, St. Bonaventure, a small catholic university with a student enrollment of just over 2,000 that was first established in 1858, became a basketball powerhouse that lasted into the early 1970s when Bob Lanier was prowling the lane and protecting the rim.
I feasted on St. Bonaventure basketball, which back then had the politically incorrect nickname “Brown Indians.” I on occasion in the early 1950s before we moved West in 1954 to Ferndale to help open the new mobile refinery on Cherry PT just west of Ferndale, would attend a Brown Indians’ game at the old Olean Armory where the team played before returning to campus at Butler Gym (now Riley Center). And if I wasn’t attending a game, I was listening on WHDL radio to Don McLean do the broadcasting of Brown Indian games. I lived and died with those games.
St. Bona, by the way, had a 99-game winning streak at the Olean Armory and Sports Illustrated showed up in early March, 1961, to be witness to the Brown Indians winning their 100th straight game, a national record.
Unfortunately, Niagara, a member of what was called the Little Big Three (along with Canisius and St. Bona), was the opponent that night and the Purple Eagles, led by the 33 points from Al Butler shocked the Brown Indians 87-77.
I may be giving you more information than you care to have, but I just wanted to emphasis that as a young kid growing up (there it is again) in an athletic family, St. Bona basketball was on my top sports’ hit list along with the baseball-playing Olean Oilers of the Class D PONY League, and the Cleveland Indians, which I picked up late at night on my upright Zenith Radio and could listen to while tucked safely into my warm bed.
I also listened to all the major fights and when we got TV watched them. Those included those of the Brown Bomber Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Floyd Patterson and Sugar Ray Robinson and the then sensational newcomer to the heavyweight ranks, Rocky Marciano and some of the older lighter weight fighters like Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano and Tony Zale, Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer, Archie Moore, Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler.
Anyway, along the way of being interested in St. Bona basketball, I also developed interest in the school’s football team. The most recognizable player from those teams was Marchibroda. He was a great college quarterback and over the years I would read about him as he made his way into the professional ranks, first as a player with the Steelers and Chicago Cardinals and then as an assistant coach and finally a head coach first with the Baltimore Colts in 1975 and then in the 1990s with the Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens.
Marchibroda was an out-of-the box kind of coach who was the first to go with the Hurry-up-Offense as offensive coordinator with the Buffalo Bills under coach Marv Levy and Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly.
He was the guy who gave us Bill Belichick. Belichick was 22 and just out of college at Wesleyan when a friend of his father’s asked for a favor and that favor turned into Marchibroda hiring the fresh-face Belichick for $25 a week as a gopher with the Baltimore Colts.
The rest, as they say, is history.
After the New England Patriots held off Kansas City and Bremerton-born quarterback Alex Smith Saturday in the AFC playoffs, Belichick, who normally does not reveal anything of substance in his press conferences, noted Marchibroda’s death by telling reporters, “I wouldn’t be here if not for Ted Marchibroda. It is with a real heavy heart that I stand here. It’s a sad day, just a sad day.
“I learned so much from him. A lot of X’s and O’s, but it really wasn’t the X’s and O’s. It was a lot more about just being a football coach, being a professional coach, preparation, work ethic, dependability, what goes into having a good football team.
“Ted’s one of the most positive people I’ve ever been around. He was always confident. Even if it was fourth-and-17, he was always sure we were going to make the play or do what we needed to do.”
There was more to Marchibroda then just football. That was stressed by Baltimore Raven’s president David Modell in a story that appeared about Marchibroda’s death.
“Ted was a good man,” Modell said. “(He was) spiritually intact, kind and full of grace. What an honor to have served with him even for so short a period of time (1996-98).”
I have a friend who grew up in Olean and he told me that he used to go to St. Bona in the early 1950s and throw the football around with Marchibroda. That would fit in with Marchibroda’s humble style.
St. Bona gave up football after the 1951 season and Marchibroda served out his college career at Detroit Mercy where he led the nation in passing his senior year (1,813 yards) and then was drafted in 1953 by the Steelers.
As one old coach departs, another one enters. That would be Doug Pederson, who happens to be the son of guy who was one class ahead of me at Ferndale, Gordy Pederson.
Doug Pederson, who was the offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs, was hired this past weekend by the Philadelphia Eagles to be their head coach, replacing Chip Kelly who just took the head job with the 49ers.
It’s a small world, isn’t it?
Gordy Pederson was a heck of an athlete. He was the fullback on the 1956 Ferndale team that went undefeated and was coached by Pinky Erickson, father of Dennis Erickson. Gordy was also a good basketball player, who I used to guard in the post in pick-up games and would get drenched in sweat by trying to keep him away from the basket.
Gordy would sweat like nobody I have ever known. Rivers of sticky sweat would just cascade down his back in shirt and skin games and I hated to guard him because my hands would slip away from him as I tried to keep him from using his 200-plus pounds of bulk from running over then-skinny me.
I remember one 11-on-11 pickup football game we played (we used to have these games a lot) and I decided to move from my outside linebacker spot and blitz from inside.
Big mistake.
Gordy, playing an offensive guard position, easily rolled into me and knocked me down with the grace of a ballet dancer. I’m still embarrassed to this day about that failure.
It was while I was going to college in the early 1960s that Gordy would pull up across the street in Ferndale in his car and the girl next door would come out and they would drive away. That girl was three years younger than me, but she became Gordy’s wife and in 1968 they had Doug, who became all-state in three sports – football, baseball and basketball – with the Ferndale Golden Eagles.
Gordy eventually moved his family to Monroe, Louisiana in a job transfer and Doug went to college at Northeast Louisiana when a friend of Gordy’s encouraged the coaching staff there to take a look at Doug.
Doug was the school’s quarterback from 1987-90 and holds several school records. He was signed as a free agent by the Miami Dolphins in 1991 and served as a back-up QB with some occasional starts for five NFL teams, including at Green Bay behind Brett Favre, for 12 seasons before diving into the coaching ranks, first at a high school and then in 2009 as offensive quality control coach at Philadelphia for head coach Andy Reid, who he followed to Kansas City in 2013.
I lost track of Gordy once I graduate from Western Washington in 1965 and just this past week was told that he is not in the best of health while still living in Monroe. We all encounter at some point as we age some health issues, and apparently Gordy has his challenges.
It’s been fun for me, though, to go back in time and see how two innocent pieces of my past have morphed into two historical pieces of sports history. Like I said, it’s a small world.
As a side note, I take no satisfaction in saying I was right when I predicted Carolina would beat the Seahawks. I said it would be 24-13, so I didn’t get the score right.
After having a full day to digest the Hawk’s 31-24 loss, I think the best team did not win the game. If they played again today, I think the Hawks would win, and probably by a fair margin.
But it is what it is, and now the real challenge for Pete Carroll and John Schneider begins – trying to keep together the core of the team and build on that to produce another Super Bowl-contending team. It isn’t easy to do that in the NFL where the salary cap looms large over every transaction. But the pair have done it so far, and given their track record I’m assuming they will get it done again.
On that note, I’m outta here.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.