Screen, Tigers, Knights big stories of the 1960's

Reprinted from the Clarion Herald, November 13, 1997

Copyright © 1997, The Clarion Herald

By RON BROCATO

It was revenge night, Dec. 16, 1960, as 6,000 high school football fans watched the host LaGrange Gators take a two-touchdown lead over Jesuit in the state championship game.

Unlike the semifinal game a year earlier won by the Jays 12-0, Jesuit was struggling and fell behind the Lake Charles school 13-0 in the third period.

Coach Ken Tarzetti's team managed 27 yards in the first half, four by air, while LaGrange piled up 232 yards, behind the passing of quarterback Richard Guillory and the hard charges of all-state fullback Butch Bryan, including a 43-yarder for the first touchdown, and Bryan scored the second from three yards out.

LaGrange had the momentum.

But Jesuit had Pat Screen.

The senior quarterback-tailback led a furious rally that culminated in a 21-20 Jesuit victory.  It was one of Louisiana's greatest comeback stories.

Screen, one of the most decorated athletes of the 101-year history of New Orleans prep sports, participated in every score.  He ran for three touchdowns, passed for one conversion to Bob Weiss and ran for the other two, including the winning points with 1:48 left in the game.  He single-handedly led three long second half drives - two in the final period - to give the Jays their seventh title.

The South's most sought-after athlete of 1960 penned the name James Patrick Screen, Jr. to a football scholarship to LSU the next morning at Antoine's Restaurant before a smiling LSU coach Paul Dietzel.

During his three years at Jesuit, Screen lettered in the four major sports.  As a freshman, he received the G. Gernon Brown Award as the outstanding JV player.  That summer he captained the Babe Ruth All-Stars that went to the regionals at Tulsa, Okla.

At age 15, Screen was selected to the Biddy basketball All-American team at the national tournament in Jersey City, N. J.  He was voted the Outstanding American Legion baseball player in the city series and was mainly responsible for his team winning the state championship.

He concluded his career with two of the city's highest honors, the New Orleans Athletic Club's Athlete of the Year and the VFW Athlete of the Year.  Screen, who scored 146 points on 21 touchdowns and 20 PATs, was named the All-State most valuable player as a senior.

A T-formation quarterback and single-wing tailback, Screen ran, threw and caught passes for more than 2,000 yards in 1960.

* * *

WHEN Holy Cross played Jesuit for the 1963 state championship, it marked the first of three occasions that two New Orleans schools would meet for the highest class trophy.  The reason the event had not previously occurred is because 1963 was the first year the playoffs included both district champion and runner-up.

To this day, no other schools from the same city have met for the large school crown.

As fate would have it, the rival coaches in 1963 were brothers-in-law.

Before replacing Eddie Toribio as head coach at Jesuit, Tarzetti recommended is former employer, Holy Cross, give his vacant post to assistant coach, John Kahlbacher, who had married his sister Carmen.  Headmaster Brother Reinald Duran did and the Tigers became the team of the Sixties.

A no-nonsense ex-Marine, Kahlbacher was a taskmaster.  He knew how to get the most from every athlete, but, mainly, he knew how to keep the Holy Cross tradition alive by getting the majority of sons of alumni.  Athletes came from three civil parishes to play for Holy Cross.

The 1963 team was his finest.  It featured an array of standouts, including fullback Glenn Smith and center Barry Wilson, who played well at LSU and guard Vic Eumont, who starred at Tulane.

Tarzetti's '62 Blue Jays had swept the regular season, outscoring 10 opponents, 180-24.  Jesuit shut out six straight opponents and did not allow more than six points to any one team.  But in the first round of the playoffs, the unthinkable happened.  In the first playoff game, Jesuit lost to LaGrange on first downs by a 9-2 count in a game that ended in a 7-7 tie.

Holy Cross, which beat Jesuit 7-0 in the 1963 regular-season finale, defeated Istrouma and LaGrange to get to the finals.  Jesuit, behind all-district quarterback Pete Schweigert, knocked off Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

Before a Tulane Stadium crowd of 27,500, Holy Cross won the grueling rematch, 14-6, for the Class 3A title, the Tigers' first since 1945.  Smith and quarterback Ray Culotta scored for the Tigers.  Dennis Donnelly caught a 25-yard pass for the Jays' score.  Holy Cross finished with a 12-0-1 mark with a 7-7 tie against East Jefferson on the second Friday of the regular season.

Holy Cross fielded outstanding teams in 1966 and 1967 as well.

The '66 team, stocked with talented juniors, had a great senior leader in quarterback Butch Duhe.  But the Tigers fell to Broadmoor in the semis and the Bucs easily beat South Lafourche, 24-0 for the title.

In '67, coach Bill Chiments's Redemptorist took some of the Tigers' luster away by turning a 1-8-1 1966 campaign into a 9-2-1 mark a year later.  Chimento was named district coach of the year, but JVK led the Tigers into the finals with a 13-1 record.

But on a brutally cold night in Shreveport, Airline tailback Eric Kilpatrick scored twice and the Vikings' defense held the Tigers to a touchdown in a 20-7 win.  Kahlbacher's teams finished the decade with a 85-24-2 record.

* * *

ST. AUGUSTINE principal Father Robert Grant applied for membership in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association in 1964, specifically requesting that his school be added to the predominately Catholic District 5AAA.

The LHSAA wanted to have large districts, but because fledging Catholic Archbishop Rummel and Shaw were a few years away from seasoning and growth to play against major competition, LHSAA Commissioner Muddy Waters transplanted Terrebonne, South Terrebonne and Thibodaux into the parochial league for two years.

This was Waters way of keeping a "Negro" school from breaking ranks.  Waters told Father Grant he would need 60 percent of the district members' positive votes.  When the votes were counted, the three public schools, which would exit the district in 1966 voted "no," as did one unnamed Catholic school.

After winning three Louisiana Interscholastic and Literary Organization state titles and amassing a 49-6-4 record under coach Eddie Flint, St. Augustine applied for entry again in 1966.  Waters was still not interested.

Bolstered by attorney John "Jack" Nelson, now a Loyola University law professor, Father Gant sued the LHSAA for admittance.  In 1966 a judge (Ainsworth) permitted the school to participate in Catholic B baseball, NORD Babe Ruth baseball and the NORD Meet of Champions.  In January, after receiving a favorable vote by the Catholic schools for admission, the general assembly of the LHSAA voted against admitting the Purple Knights by a vote of 184-11.

In the spring of 1967, U. S. District Court Judge Fred Heebe publicly berated Waters and his LHSAA for discriminating against St. Augustine and demanded the school be admitted.

The Knights won their opener against St. Aloysius, 26-7, then, before a packed crowd of 24,500 at Tad Gormley Stadium, Holy Cross won the game of the year, 29-21.

One week later, Waters and his staff visited St. Augustine for two days, investigating the school's academic requirements, then declared 19 athletes ineligible.  St. Augustine's victories were negated.  Depleted of several talented players, the Knights did not win another game (that year).

* * *

"COR JESU has no plans to participate in sports, said principal Brother Roland on February 19, 1964.  He said the cost of introducing athletics and building facilities would be too expensive and that eh would rather stress studies over athletics.  A year later, Brother Roland reversed his decision and spent a half-million dollars as a start-up.  This would include a new gymnasium.

Meanwhile, St. Aloysius' enrollment was rapidly decreasing, and another tuition increase would be the death blow to the proud school that New Orleans Archbishop Jean Marie Odin invited the Brothers of the Sacred Heart to open in 1869.

St. Aloysius was 85 years old when Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel requested the Brothers  of the Sacred Heat to open Cor Jesu to meet the needs of an expanding Catholic community in the lakefront and New Orleans East areas.  The school's first enrollment was 700.

After 13 graduating classes, Cor Jesu consolidated into with St. Aloysius in the fall of 1969.

Cor Jesu enjoyed one year (1968) in the Catholic district and went 3-5-1 under coach Andy Bourgeois, a St. Aloysius grad.

St. Aloysius demanded the new school retain the name.  The affluent people of the Cor Jesu neighborhood, which would stock most of the 1,400 students to make the school one of the largest in the South, argued against keeping the name.

As a compromise, the school was named after former St. Aloysius principal Brother Martin.  Athletic teams would be called Crusaders in honor of St. Aloysius and wear the Cor Jesu colors of crimson and gold.

To this day, St. Aloysius football alums from the 1940s through their final days of 1968 have often stated their resentment for the brothers' decision to bury the St. Aloysius name.  Brother Martin was also unhappy, saying, "Why is the school named for me?  I'm not dead yet and I don't plan to be for a long while."

* * *

IN A BATTLE of future NFL quarterbacks, Woodlawn's Joe Ferguson (Buffalo Bills) and Chalmette's Norris Weese (Denver Broncos) dueled in the mud in a 1968 state semifinal round game won by the Shreveport team, 14-0.  Chalmette was coached by Bobby Nuss.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS'

BEST OF THE SIXTIES