Players on the 1962 St. Helena High football team were, bottom row from left, Chris Schuh, Bill Johnston, John Beyer, Barry Hoyt, Dennis Hardin, Steve Reed, Wilkes Morgan, Jim Sculatti, Dennis Conrey, second row, Roger True, Charles Bettinelli, Miles Milat, Dennis Rutherford, Bill Vanderschoot, Terry Vulcani, Roger Trinchero, Andy Vanderschoot, Greg Lines, Jim Ingols, Greg Hunt, third row, Tim White, Joe Rodrigues, Louis Moore, Richard Black, Nick Nagy, Ronald Branch, Bruce Kingsbury, Larry Pina, Gary Rodrigues and Bob Fellion.
Every dynastic run has a vulnerability stage that can define the quality of one's leadership. For the George Davis era of St. Helena High School football, that time was 1962.
Like they did every season from 19601964, the Saints went 9-0. But to appreciate the destination, one must understand the journey.
The five teams will be inducted into the SHHS Athletic Hall of Fame in the Greatest Teams category on Nov. 1 at Native Sons Hall in St. Helena.
Going 9-0 for five consecutive seasons has the look of shampoo cycle -- rinse and repeat. The 1962 Saints, however, revealed that nothing could be further from the truth.
Davis' first two teams featured star-studded rosters. The 1961 team had 18 returning starters and, except for a 1912 win over Willits, was never in danger of losing a game.
In 1962, the lone returning starters were Nick Nagy, Terry Vulcani, Ron Branch, and many unknown commodities in terms of varsity experience as starters.
Vulcani -- who now lives in the state of Washington, about 25 miles north of Portland, Ore. -- played guard on the offensive line and inside linebacker on defense, and handled the place-kicking duties.
"We were supposed to be the team to lose," he recalled. "We kind of had a chip on our shoulder. We had no Walt Raymond, Tom Blanchfield, Ray Myers and Jim Hunt."
Ron Arata played receiver and defensive back for the Saints. Arata graduated in 1962, thus making 1961 his senior year, but he believes that Davis' best coaching came in Years 3-5.
"With 18 returning starters from the 1960 team, any coach would expect to have a good next season," Arata said. "He had those same 18 starters and several quality role players who had moved up to varsity (in 1961) who had been first-team players on the junior varsity for the 1960 season, and graduated after the 1961 season.
"Since the 1962 season was also undefeated, the question is what Coach Davis did to account for the graduation of almost the entire starting offensive and defensive players? That is, in my mind, a better reflection on Coach Davis, his ability to motivate and get maximum effort from his players. I mean no disrespect to the team players on the 1962 team. However, it is easier to transition from one football season to the next when almost the entire team returns than to lose your entire team of starting players."
To Arata's point, the 1962 success revealed that Davis built a program instead of a team. The 1962 team was like a ship navigating choppy waters at sea, but its impenetrable defense, along with Davis's leadership, served as the captain who steered the vessel to shore.
Vulcani remembered the team bonding before high school.
"The majority of the players all belonged to a gang at one time," Vulcani quipped. "You've got the bloods, the crips, and then you get the Carpy Gang."
The Carpy Gang has been St. Helena's youth football organization since Al Carpy founded it in 1936. Vulcani recalled attending Saints games with his teammates before high school.
"You could walk the sidelines, and there was a lot of grass behind us," Vulcani said. "As kids, we'd play touch football during the games.
St. Helena was a small town, and the only things that connected people in the fall were football and the Harvest Festival. They were either harvesting grapes or going to football games. On Friday, we used to have a saying, "If the game was out of town, all of the stores closed at about 3 o'clock because everybody went to the football game -- especially the outof-town games."
The Saints went into the 1962 campaign believing they would have a strong defense. The team lived up to that billing by allowing a microscopic 25 points the entire season, including six shutout victories -- five in a row from Games 2-6. That figure has opponents averaging 2.7 points per game -- not even a field goal.
That dominant defense saved St. Helena's bacon because the Saints scored a mere 57 points in their first five games: 13-6 over Dixon, 14-0 over San Lorenzo, 11-0 over San Rafael Military Academy, 6-0 over Healdsburg, and 13-0 over Tomales.
Though it did not result in St. Helena rediscovering its dominant ways, Vulcani recalled the San Lorenzo game as a galvanizing moment.
"Nobody seemed fired up," he said. "Somebody, and I'm not sure who it was, wrote on the chalkboard in our locker room, 'St. Helena is a bunch of p -- --s.'
That got the team fired up." The win over Dixon involved multiple failed scoring opportunities, with Louis Moore's rushing touchdown breaking a 6-6 tie.
Both touchdowns against San Lorenzo were set up by turnovers and Steve Reed's punting, which gave St. Helena advantageous field position.
The victory over San Rafael Military Academy featured more of Reed's punting heroics and the Saints' dominant defensive line.
Gary Rodrigues scored the game's lone touchdown against Healdsburg, set up by Bill Vanderschoot's interception and a tenacious goal-line stand.
Davis felt the win over Tomales was the team's worst performance of the season, but the standout defensive play of Bob Fellion, Roger Trinchero, Nick Nagy and Chris Schuh kept St. Helena unbeaten.
Davis also occasionally employed a tactic in practice that would not be received well in today's culture.
"He realized our strengths, which is why I think we became the defensive team that we had," Vulcani said. "Our offense was very weak, but we had a dynamite defense. We ran the gap-eight on the goal line. One day, Coach Davis came out dressed in pads without a face mask. He went down the line against each one of us to see how we performed. We won most of the games before they ever started."
In the final five games of the season, the Saints rediscovered the complementary football that was on display the previous two years. St. Helena won its last four games by a combined score of 120-19. Vulcani credited Davis's college-like preparation, along with the presence of Raymond as a student assistant who scouted St. Helena's opponents.
"Walt did the scouting reports, and they were mimeographed," Vulcani said. "It would show how to cover kickoffs and where the weak spot was. It would show their best players, their tendencies. We had a leg up. When I went to college, a tackle from Cloverdale became my best friend. I showed him the scouting report on Cloverdale. He couldn't believe it."
Another interesting subplot was that Davis added principal to his titles of English teacher and football coach.
"He said if it came to anything, he'd give up being the principal," Vulcani said. "He knew that if he gave that up, we'd have to give up something, too. He also said he was not going to drink beer during the season. He also expected us not to drink during the season; everybody abided by that except for one fellow. We voted on starting lineups, and this person was a starter at linebacker. We voted him out of starting the next game. He tried that at college as well, and that didn't work.
"He treated us like men. He told us that when talking to the official, you call him 'Sir.' Practices were very organized. He had the schedule put up on the board. You knew exactly what you were going to do. If you dogged it, he would send you into the locker room. He did that to me because one day he didn't think I was running sprints hard enough. He would use peer pressure."
Vulcani added that the Saints did not beat opponents because their athletes were so much better, but more because of their preparation during the week. "Since we had no starters, we all trained for our senior year," Vulcani said. "Coach Davis gave us a master class in coaching and what was expected of us. We followed through and didn't want to let anybody down. We had two quarterbacks, Rich Black and Ron Branch. At noon, he'd have them eat lunch together with black and red checkers. One guy put together a defense, and the other guy would put together what play they were going to run. They did that every day."
That preparation kept the Saints' unbeaten run going when some thought it would come to a screeching halt.
Tickets on sale The 12th annual St. Helena High School Athletic Hall of fame induction ceremony is on Saturday, Nov. 1, at Native Sons Hall in St. Helena.
There will be a cocktail hour beginning at 5:30 p.m. and dinner at 6:30 p.m., followed by speeches from the inductees and those who nominated them.
Cost is $80 per person. Checks should be made payable to SHHS Hall of Fame and sent to P.O. Box 670, St. Helena, CA 94574. Included should be the ticket buyer's name, telephone number and email address, and the names of everyone attending in their reservation. They should also note which team they would like to sit with.
For more information about reserving tickets, contact Lisa Whitham at [email protected] or 707-968-5860. For all other questions, contact Jim Gamble at [email protected] or 707-6967141, or Tom Hoppe at [email protected] or 707-815-5535. ■