Laurel honoring WPIAL championship team from 1980

By JOE SIMON

New Castle News

It is forever etched in the memory of George Miles.

The thought is a strange but telling one for the coach who led Laurel High to its first and only WPIAL football title.

It’s not the final score, the celebration, not even the game-winning touchdown. Miles remembers the boring part: Preparing.

“Certain things stick in your mind,” said Miles about his recollection of the game. “I remember Clairton had 22 different (offensive) sets. And in two days, those kids learned an adjustment for every set. We learned adjustments for every one of them, and defensively, we only gave them about 160 yards. That’s just determination, because, athletically, we were so far inferior (to Clairton). We didn’t have that kind of speed, size or anything.

“It was just average kids giving a way above-average performance.”

While Miles’ remembrance may seem strange, it was that attention to detail that led the 1980 Spartans to a 14-12 victory over Clairton, an achievement people still are celebrating 30 years later. Laurel High will honor that team prior to tonight’s home game against Riverside. The 1980 Spartans will be feted at a reception at 5 p.m. at the high school and commended on the field at 6:30 p.m.

Each team member will receive a keepsake from Wendell August Forge.

There are many reasons to pay tribute to that team. Laurel came into the contest as huge underdogs — picked to lose by 30 points by some media outlets. Clairton had been the No. 1-ranked team in the WPIAL all season. The Bears were coming off a dominant victory over Shenango, which had beaten Laurel earlier in the season.

Oh, and the Spartans were without their starting quarterback and team leader, Sam Greenwood.

None of that mattered on this day.

“If we played them 10 times, we would have lost nine out of 10,” said Rich Kunselman, the sophomore quarterback who took over for Greenwood in the title game after not starting all season. “It was one of those moments in sports where the talent and skill was on their side, but the desire to win and not give up was on our side.”

The Spartans relied on a mistake-free, run-oriented offense and a well-prepared, fired-up defense to shock Clairton. Running back Jon Horrell ran for 129 yards on a bruising 35 carries. He scored the eventual game-winner, racing in from 36 yards out with 4 minutes and 30 seconds remaining to give Laurel a 14-12 lead.

“When I hit the hole, there was nothing there,” said Horrell, now 47 and retired from the Navy. “I was getting what (yards) I could. But when I went into the hole, I kind of disappeared. I don’t know what happened, but the next thing I know, I popped out and I’m running with everything I had to the end zone.

“The state championship quarter-mile sprint team came from Clairton that year, but once I hit the opening, I was gone. There was no one going to catch me.”

The running of Horrell and an amazing performance by the Spartans’ offensive line led to the win, but those attributes never would have surfaced if not for the grit and determination of the coaching staff and the team. Miles gushed about the will and mettle of the Spartans, and he still shakes his head in awe when he remembers that game.

“I remember kids like Danny Bales, Eugene McMullen, Joe Perry and a few other guys — they were just very determined, tough kids,” said Miles, 63, who remains the head boys track and field coach at Laurel after retiring as football coach in 2003. “We didn’t think about (being underdogs) so much because we were so busy preparing. Your confidence comes from great preparation. When you go on the field and you know you’re really prepared, and you know they have 22 sets and you can adjust to any of them, that’s when your confidence comes. They were ready to play, even though we were pretty much outmanned.”

The Bears had all the talent — speed at the skill position, size up front and a scheme no one had been able to solve. That’s where Miles’ smarts came into play. Greenwood, who led the Spartans to a 9-3 record before the title game, said the coaching staff was one of the best he’s ever been a part of — including his years at Westminster College.

“Coach Miles and his staff, and (current coach) Jerry Holzhauser was a part of it, they did such a tremendous job of preparing us for the other team,” Greenwood said. “Even when I went on to play at Westminster, I felt like I was just as well prepared in high school with coach Miles as I was in college. So that’s really where it started. He always stressed it was a team game and everyone had a responsibility on every play.

“We worked on it and we always had a pretty good chance of being successful because of the way he prepared us.”

Horrell, who was the star of the game after busting through for both scores, also adopted that team-first mentality. He went on about the play of his offensive line and the fullback whose shirt he held onto every time he ran through a hole.

“Everything was a team effort,” he said. “The offensive line was all great. And my fullback, Bryan DeHart, was awesome. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have done a lot of the things I did.

“But that was a Laurel victory. The community and the alumni rose up around us. We had so much support. It was just an awesome experience.”

The celebration that ensued wasn’t all that wild and jubilant, partly because the Spartans were physically exhausted and also because exulting in victory wasn’t Laurel’s style. A team that had just shocked everyone at Mount Lebanon High Stadium came together as a team, much like it did during the game, for one common goal.

“At the end of the game, I remember us gathering around, doing what coach Miles had us do after every game, saying the Lord’s Prayer,” said Kunselman, who went to star in basketball and baseball at Laurel and Westminster College. “It was a surreal moment because it was then we realized we just did something really special.”

The moment was somewhat bittersweet for Greenwood, the quarterback who took Laurel to the title game but suffered a broken collarbone late in a semifinal victory over Carmichaels. Miles and Kunselman lauded the senior quarterback, now a 47-year-old insurance broker, for the way he handled the situation. He spent all week grooming the inexperienced Kunselman, and then pulled him aside after every offensive series during the game to talk about how to exploit the defense.

“The natural thing is for that person to be very disappointed and feeling a little bit cheated because here we are in the championship game, and he’s not going to be on the field,” Kunselman said. “That never came through in how he focused on instructing me and guiding me and showing me different reads and things I had to look for. That was a big comfort.”

Greenwood remembers the week leading up to the game quite well. As a captain and team leader, he spoke during a pep rally prior to the championship game, telling the fans how despite being underdogs, the Spartans were ready to lay it all on the line. Laurel did just that to claim the victory, and while Greenwood may not have thrown any touchdown passes or make any tackles, he said winning a title wasn’t what Laurel football was all about — that’s not how Miles coached them.

“You don’t have to be handed a trophy to be a champion,” Greenwood said. “That’s a lot of what Laurel and coach Miles were about. He taught us all to be champions whether we had a trophy or not. It just so happened, that year, it went our way and we were handed a trophy.”

Nearly 30 years later, Greenwood was given another chance to win it all at Mount Lebanon High. Again, he walked away with his head held high.

“I live in Mount Lebanon now,” he explained. “It’s interesting, living here (in Mount Lebanon) and not having a chance to play in that game, a game I think about a lot. Well, last year I was able to coach my son’s youth team to a championship on that same field. It felt pretty good to walk off that field as a champion again. It reminded me a lot of being on that field with my friends in high school.”

He’ll receive that opportunity again tonight at the Laurel High Stadium.

*****

The 1980 WPIAL champion Laurel Spartans (see attached photo):

The 1980 Laurel High WPIAL championship football team consisted of, front row, from left: Sam Greenwood, Jon Horrell, Eugene McMullen, John Cassidy, Bryan DeHart, Ted Kerr, Gary Miller, Mike Davis, Bruce Kirkwood, Jeff Sumney and Jerry DeRosa. In the second row are Carl Hahn, William Makarevich, Doug Gardner, Chris Donegan, Joe Perry, John Brown, Kevin Hemphill, BIll Lyskowka, Dan Bales and Ron Diller. In the third row are Dave Snyder, Greg Wallas, John Welther, Dave Kirkwood, Arnold Julian, Ron Sokevitz, Randy Hogue, Jim Wilson and Rob Latess. In the fourth row are Jeff Anderson, Matt Deinert, Todd Booher, Dan Cassidy, Greg Welsh, Robert Dicks, Scott Armagost and B. Reno. In the fifth row are Mike Miller, Roberto Egetoe, Steve Atwell, Rich Kunselman, Dick Michaels, William McKee and John Davis. In the sixth row are assistant coach Mike Tinstman, assistant coach Bill Young, manager L. Boughter, manager Mark Tanner, manager Tibor Egetoe, assistant coach Jerry Holzhauser and head coach George Miles. Missing from the photo are Jeff Hoffman, coach Dennis Stach and assistant coach John Tinstman.