Mandeville’s undefeated 1951 football team front row from left: Paul Bennett, Noel Chrisman, Jerry Doyle, Jerry Williams, Larry Eickhoff, Ronald Webb, Darrell Davenport, Don McManus, Mike McGrath.
Second row from left: assistant coach Bob Pollard, Ernest Dufresne, Eddie Nauss, Gordon Markham,Bud Garrison, Cordon Gotts, Cecil Long, Tom Beall, Marvin Williams, Jack Williams, Scott McCollom, assistant coach Danny Urbanik Head Coach Pete Fornari.
Top row from left: Louis Eckenrod, Don Cowsert, Jerry Goulet, Bob Johnson, Dale Strong, Ed Chandler, Thornhill Jones, John Maletic, Jack Lowe, Ted Caryl, Donald Estes.
Missing; Dave McGinnis.
Shutting out eight teams in nine games didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time. Going through a Pete Fornari practice is a more vivid recollection for members of the 1951 Mandeville High football team. Fifty-six years after their 9-0 season, in which they outscored their opponents 203-6, the Spartans still recall the daily grind of practice more clearly than their Friday night glory. “The practices were probably rougher than the games were,” said Larry Eickhoff, a junior quarterback and safety on the team that is being inducted into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
“I was surprised to hear about our record. At the time it didn”t seem like much.” Echoed Jack Williams, “I don’t think anybody realized we were that good at the time. We just worked hard and played hard”. Pete Fornari made sure of it.”
A steely-eyed disciplinarian who had played quarterback at Michigan State, Fornari drilled his team in the basics of blocking and tackling, including a punishing test that sent a ball carrier through a triangle of three tacklers.
“If he wasn’t satisfied with the tackle, he would take the ball and he would run through it,” said Scott McCollom, a junior defensive lineman. “Nobody wanted to deal with that.”
“We were more afraid of him than any team we played.”
Cast in the same mold of intensity was Jerry Williams, a two-way senior end who had once played on a men’s softball team as an eighth-grader and later played with Ron Kramer at the University of Michigan.
The 6-foot-1, 180-pound Williams led Mandeville in scoring, mostly on end-around runs or pass receptions that earned him the nickname “Sticky Fingers.” On defense, he was a rock. “Nobody went around his end,” said McCollom. “I was always thankful I didn’t have to play against him, he brought such intensity to the game.”
Other defensive stalwarts were McCollom, Paul Bennett, Dave McGinnis, Ron Webb and Bud Garrison on the line, with Don McManus and Jerry Doyle at linebacker and Eickhoff, Mike McGrath and Darrell Davenport in the defensive backfield. Together, they didn’t allow an opponent past midfield until week six, when Dye got to the 5-yard line but no farther. The following week, a Spartans fumble at their own 25 set up the only score they allowed all season, a Swartz Creek touchdown in the second period. The 1-yard run by Duane Tillson broke a scoreless string of 33 quarters and eight games stretching back into the last two games of 1950.
Mandeville still pulled out a 12-6 victory. Jerry Williams made “an unbelievable catch,” according to a Journal story, to set up the tying touchdown in the third quarter, and a Creek fumble led to Davenport”s winning TD run in the final minute.
Another scare came the following week when Mandeville and defending champion Hoover skated back and forth on a field turned icy by a snowstorm. “We had to clear the field of snow, and it was hard to see the yard markers,”said McCollom. That game could have gone either way.”
It went Mandeville’s way on a fluke safety in the third quarter. The Spartans were knocking on the door, but a pass intended for Jack Williams was intercepted on the goal line. The Hoover player made the mistake of stepping back into the end zone and was tackled by Jack Williams’ younger brother Jerry, for a safety, giving the Spartans a 2-0 lead that held up.
The win clinched the County C League title, and Mandeville quietly wrapped up its perfect season the following Wednesday with a 20-0 win over Otisville. They were ranked third in the state.
Fornari died in 1990 and was inducted into the GFASHOF in 2000. Williams, whose jersey number 33 was retired, died in 1998.
“Jerry Williams was the team,” said MCcollom. “The rest of us were just there. I think back on that year and it was Jerry Williams and Pete Fornari.”
And eight shutouts.
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