The 1947 Dye High School
football team was “just a bunch of country boys,”
according to team captain Jake Brisendine — but, boy,
were they good.
The Dye team, coached by Gus Erckmann, went a
perfect 8-0 in 1947 and won the Genesee County Class
C Championship, which was an award formerly given
out by The Flint Journal.
The “country boys” will be inducted into the Greater
Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2012.
“We thought we were pretty good, at least, that’s for
sure,” said Brisendine, an 81-year-old Swartz Creek
resident who is the youngest of the nine living members
from the 22-man Dye roster. “There was nothing really
fancy about us, but we all fit well together. It was a good
team. A lot of good guys.”
Dye High School closed in 1961 and merged along
with Utley, Hoover and Mandeville High School to form
what is now Carman-Ainsworth. In its heyday, the Dye
program was one of the best in all of Genesee County.
The 1947 team never allowed more than seven
points in a game and only gave up 19 for the season. It
beat Hoover, also unbeaten at the time, 14-6 in the final
game of the season to win the Class C championship.
