Every week before they suit up for their Friday night game, the South Hadley football team enjoys a spaghetti supper cooked by some of their parents.
Last week, the Tigers were joined by some other football players, albeit not ones from their generation — they ate alongside some of the members of South Hadley’s 1963 football team, who were in town for their 60th reunion to celebrate a perfect 8-0 season.
That 1963 team was the first football team to put together an unbeaten season, firmly cementing South Hadley as a football town and beginning a legacy of competitive football programs that continues to this day.
A core group of the team who still live nearby typically get together every year at one South Hadley football game to watch the current generation play and reminisce about the times they lined up on the field. But for special occasions, they like to organize a bigger reunion — they held one in 2003 for their 40th anniversary, and decided to do so again to commemorate the 60th.
“We’ve been doing a reunion because of — excuse me — our advanced age,” one of the original members of the team and reunion organizer Bernie Whalen Jr. said wryly. “This will obviously be the last big one, but I think that a small town accomplishment, unique accomplishment for us, we really as a group bonded and we kind of all stayed in touch.”
Whalen and teammate Dick Mongeau are two of the main organizers, but a group of nine people were on the official organizing committee for this year’s reunion. It’s a big task — the committee sets up outings, a celebratory banquet and accommodations for everyone, and also put together a commemorative book for attendees featuring highlights and articles from their 1963 season. But it’s a labor of love for the tight-knit group, who forged a special connection during that unforgettable year. It’s an accomplishment they wanted to pay homage to.
“(Former player Don Abbey), he called me up and said ‘Mong, we’ve got to have a celebration of our team,’” Mongeau said. “Don loves the town of South Hadley … he says it’s the best memories of his life. That’s really something when somebody’s done so much like he has … he says ‘That’s where it all started, I’ll never forget it.’”
While the unbeaten season is an important one to the team and the core reason to host the celebratory get-togethers, what stands out about the 1963 team is how close they all are to each other. Even 60 years later, with some of them living as far away as California, Maine and Tennessee, the team has a bond that has stayed strong to this day.
That closeness is something that stands out to current South Hadley football coach Brian Couture, who also has a personal connection to the ’63 team — his cousin Bill Benoit was one of the players on that squad. Though he’s a Chicopee native, Couture has been involved with the South Hadley football team for 11 seasons now and has grown close with the members of the ’63 squad. The bond they have with each other is something he regularly talks to his players about trying to emulate.
“We preach family here, and that’s the epitome of family right there,” Couture said. “You know, 1963 … those guys play together. They’re not all the same age, they’re not all the same grade … here it is 60 years later, and they’re still together. It was a very tight group and that’s what we preach here. And for these guys to see that atmosphere with a group from 1963 is phenomenal.”
Two of South Hadley’s current players, Owen Dawson and Marty Loughrey, went to the reunion banquet on Saturday night to help out. Once they got there, they found that they weren’t really needed as helpers, but stuck around to listen to the speeches given by the people there, soaking everything in.
“The conversations always started on football, but it would work its way back to family and connection and just how close they are,” Loughrey said on the banquet.
For the current South Hadley players, that team serves as a benchmark, both for how they want to perform on the field and how they want to interact with each other on a daily basis. This year’s team is reminded of the ’63 team every time they step on the field — South Hadley created a commemorative “1963” patch that the team wears whenever they don their uniforms. Even though this current group of players wasn’t around during that historic season, they hope they can carry forward the attitude that group of Tigers had 60 years ago.
“It was nice to see because it was ultimately for a football team, but in the end, it wasn’t all just about football,” Dawson said. “It was about the guys there, what they did, and how they came together and their experiences.”
That’s what Whalen takes away from that season too — the friendship, the memories and the people he’s stayed in touch with all these years later. But of course, the perfect season is something that he’ll always remember too. After all, it’s what brought them together in the first place.
“It’s like, you can’t take that away. Life throws you all sorts of curves, ups and downs, people you care about dying, but you did one thing in your life that was perfect,” Whalen said. “No matter who you are, where you went, you can look back and say ‘My god, we did something together.’”
Hannah Bevis can be reached at hbevis@gazettenet.com. Follow her on Twitter @Hannah_Bevis1.