CHAMPIONS SPEAK - 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee Wetaskiwin High School 1956 Sabres Football Team
by Sandra Kirstein Wright
Special Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure this
evening to introduce you to the 1956 Wetaskiwin High
School Sabres Football Team. But, before I tell you
about the team and their accomplishments, let’s “Set the
Scene”.
1956- Fifty-three years
ago. For those of us who can remember, it was a
“special time”: Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, Elvis’s
first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, James Dean,
white bobby socks, saddle shoes, white bucks, blue suede
shoes, jeans with turned up cuffs, poodle skirts and
crinolines, duck tail haircuts, sideburns, sock hops,
drive-in movies, Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, the
Cold War as well as going steady, “hanging out” at the
Stanley Café and driving up and down main street on the
week-end.
Wetaskiwin’s population in
1956 was 4476. High school classes at the start of the
1956-57 term were still held in the former army camp
that was situated east of the present high school. It
was during the 56-57 school term that the students moved
from the army camp into the new composite high school.
There were 206 students enrolled in the school, 97 of
them were male and 27 of the males played football, most
of them playing both offence and defense. Football was
one of the three choices of school teams for guys that
year, the others being basketball and curling. Today,
Wetaskiwin High School has over 800 students and for
males a choice of 12 different school teams and in 2009
there were 49 guys on the senior football team.
The
1956 Sabres were the middle team in a five year string
of undefeated championship seasons, so all of the
members of the team being inducted tonight that played
in their grade 10, 11 and 12 year NEVER LOST A FOOTBALL
GAME! WOW! A pretty amazing achievement. Players
were never cut from the football team by coach Brown -
he needed all the bodies he could get. If any cuts
occurred it was because the players cut themselves.
Unlike the football team the “Pep Squad” or cheerleaders
had tryouts and cuts were made.
These football Sabres
played in the Northern conference of the Central Alberta
High School League that included teams from Camrose High
School, Camrose Luthern College and Sedgewick. The
southern conference included Lacombe, Ponoka and two
teams from Red Deer. In six league games, one play-off
game and one exhibition game the 1956 Sabres were so
dominant that NO points were scored against them - hard
to believe! In the league finals the Sabres were
victorious, defeating the Lacombe Rams 45-34. In the 10
games played and won, that made the total points scored
for the season by the Sabres 404 and, by the opposition:
34. What a Record!
In those days there was no
“trash talk” and no celebratory dances in the end zone
after a touchdown. Besides being outstanding
competitors, these Sabres always displayed good
sportsmanship, certainly a credit to Coaches Brown and
Durnovo. Because of their win, a football rally was
organized by the teachers to honor the players. The
gathering took place in the Queen Elizabeth School
auditorium. After introducing the players, captain Bill
Gust fulfilled the traditional requirement of downing a
bottle of coke in the big trophy. A favorite memory of
the pep rally was the “Football Cake” that was shared by
all of the students to celebrate the Sabres
championship.
I was in grade nine at
Queen Elizabeth in 1956 and did attend high school with
many of the team members. Ladies, using today’s
terms……the football players were “HOT”. They were good
looking, athletic and fit (even though many of them
smoked cigarettes). In the school the Sabres were
easily identified in their team jackets that they wore
with pride. No wonder the girls fought for a spot on
the cheerleading squad!
I did ask Larry Lee and
Bill Gust if there were any stories that I could relate
to you tonight. After fifty years neither could
remember any tidbits, at least none they felt that could
be mentioned. However, Bill did say that the
cheerleaders were cute. They must have been more than
cute as Jerry Green and Wayne Lyken both married girls
from the “Pep Squad”. Larry said: “I was just a quiet
guy who sat at the back of the bus”….a likely story! I
did hear about how Wayne Lyken would pull the leg hair
of the opponents in the tackle pile ups on the field.
Perhaps some stories surfaced at their gathering last
night and we’ll finally hear about their escapades!
Sabres of 1956-57: You
established a record that will probably never be
broken. You were our high school heroes and the whole
community was and still is proud of your
accomplishments. BRAVO to all of you!!!
I will now introduce the
team members and as they are introduced I would ask them
to come up to the front to be recognized.
Congratulations Sabres on
your induction into the Wetaskiwin and County Sports
Hall of Fame.
