Best Team You Never Heard Of

Marchetti had quit high school in the northern California industrial town of Antioch in 1944, his senior year, to join the Army. As it turned out, he enlisted in time to see action in the Battle of the Bulge. He was discharged in 1946 and spent the next year "just bumming around" and playing some sandlot football. He then joined his brother, Angelo, at Modesto Junior College in the San Joaquin Valley. It was there that, for the first time, he found he actually enjoyed playing football, and at 225 pounds he was getting to be pretty good at it. In the off-season Lynn, Kuharich's bird dog, tracked Marchetti down in Antioch with a scholarship offer. Marchetti was tending bar in his father's tavern, he recalls, "a cigarette dangling from my lips," when Lynn approached him. But he was enthusiastic enough to ride his motorcycle west to San Francisco for an interview with the head coach. He was dressed to the nines, he thought, in greasy jeans and a black leather jacket "with 17 zippers." Kuharich took one look at this biker and inquired of Lynn, "Where on earth did you find this big hillbilly?"

Ollie Matson had moved to San Francisco from Texas with his mother, Gertrude, and twin sister, Ocie, when he was 13. Gertrude Matson, a schoolteacher, had made up her mind that her son should become a dentist. She was convinced he had a better chance of achieving that goal on the West Coast. But Ollie had his own ambition: "I wanted to be the best football player who ever lived." He never did become a dentist, but he didn't miss that other goal by much. In his senior year at San Francisco's Washington High he scored a record 17 touchdowns in seven games, and in track he set the national interscholastic record for the quarter mile (47.8) that same year. At City College of San Francisco in 1948 he set a national junior college record by scoring 19 touchdowns in 11 games. The next season, as a sophomore at USF, he had scoring runs of 92, 80, 62, 60, 42, 40 and 15 yards. He was injured much of his junior year but still gained 747 yards. All of this was preparation for what would come in '51.

Toler hadn't played a down of competitive football when he entered college in '48. He had been a water boy at Manassas High in his native Memphis. But playing center and linebacker at City College of San Francisco, Toler became a junior college All-America. What Matson was to the Dons' offense, the 6'2", 210-pound Toler was to the defense. "I still think the best football player we had was Burl Toler," Marchetti says today.

Ed Brown came to USF with a reputation as a playboy. He had been a sensational high school athlete in San Luis Obispo, and as a quarterback at Hartnell Junior College in 1948, he threw 22 touchdown passes and joined Matson and Toler on the J.C. All-America team. "He could throw the length of the field," says a USF teammate, end Ralph Thomas. "He could stand flat-footed and fire it 70 yards. He'd break your fingers on the short throws." In his junior year at USF, Brown averaged more than 20 yards a completion, and he had only one genuine deep threat as a receiver, end Merrill Peacock. But Brown, movie-star handsome, liked the nightlife; San Francisco was the perfect outlet for his adventurous spirit, and Kuharich despaired of bringing him into line.

Scudero and St. Clair were tough kids who were playing in their hometown. Scudero had been an all-city halfback at Mission High, but he weighed only 155 pounds, and his reputation for pugnacity—"I averaged two fights a day in high school," he says—and insolence (some of those fights were with teachers) made him suspect as a college prospect. At USF he fell under the benign influence of the Reverend Raymond T. Feeley, S.J., the vice-president for academics, and became a serious student of philosophy and theology. When LoSchiavo had the temerity to give him a C in a philosophy course, Scudero sharply rebuked him: "I am not a C student. But I know you're young [the university's future president was then in his mid-20's] and you're learning, and I'm sure you won't make that mistake again." As a sophomore scatback, kick returner and demon safety, Scudero was selected as a future All-America by the legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice.

St. Clair started playing football at Polytechnic High as a 5'9", 160-pound scrub and finished as a 6'5", 215-pound tackle-end who exhibited an appalling gustatory preference for raw meat. His teammates called him Geek. As a junior at USF in 1951, he was 6'7" and 235 pounds, still growing and already showing the blocking skills that would make him an All-Pro tackle for the 49ers.

Kuharich and Rozelle saw the All-America potential in several players, but they also knew that there was seldom room on All-America squads of those days for more than one player from the Pacific Coast, and that the field in 1951 already included halfback Hugh McElhenny of Washington, halfback Frank Gifford of USC and linebacker Les Richter of Cal. So they decided to put all of USF's publicity eggs in Matson's basket. Kuharich called in the other stars to advise them of this public relations strategy. He got no argument. Matson was not only the Dons' most conspicuous talent, but he was also one of the most popular players on the team. "None of us really gave a damn about All-America anyway," says Scudero. "Neither did Ollie." Matson was also indisputably one of the best running backs in football, a big man for (he time at 205 to 210 pounds, and with a world-class sprinter's speed (he had also run a 9.6 100-yard dash). And he was as tough on defense as any of the Dons. When opponents taunted him with racial epithets, Matson replied only with bruising tackles. Through Mat-son, Rozelle hoped to reap the national publicity that would, with luck, lead to the lucrative bowl invitation that could save football at USF. Hadn't nearby Santa Clara prolonged its program by beating Kentucky in the Orange Bowl two years earlier? Maybe it was not too late for the Dons.

The inconsequential schedule aside, Kuharich worked his charges as if they were playing Notre Dame every week, which, as a matter of fact, they devoutly wished they were. "If I put together all the miles I ran that year," says Marchetti now, "I could have gone from San Francisco to New York and back again."

"Everything I've done since I played for that man has been easy," says guard Vince Tringali. By the opening game the Dons were mean and ready.

San Jose went down twice, 39-2 at Kezar and 42-7 in San Jose. Matson gained 232 yards in the 28-7 win over Idaho, and Camp Pendleton fell 26-0. Fordham was next, on Oct. 20, at Downing Stadium on Randalls Island in New York City. Rozelle dropped in on Matson before leaving early for the East Coast and some advance work with the New York press. Sitting on the edge of the player's bed, he said nervously, "Ollie, if you don't do well in New York, you can forget about being an All-America. Now is the time to show people back there we've got some football players out here."