When I started the blog in March, I spoke with my father-in-law about subjects to write about. I told him that he could be a guest blogger and write some of the story ideas. He said, “Can you do that?”
I said, “I own it. I can do whatever I want.”
But that got me thinking. My husband was the editor-in-chief of the sports section of the PRHS Rampage. In college he became of the editor-in-chief of Pitt-Bradford’s The Source. He is an avid sports news reader and often makes comments about how he wishes he could write.
So I told him to write about the football team in time for the first game. I hope you enjoy
The sixty-first season of Pine-Richland football begins today to great fanfare.
Major college recruits will take the field for one of Pennsylvania’s finest football teams before thousands of fans and a national, ESPN television audience. The stage and scene at Pine-Richland Stadium will be much different than the one that played out for the first Rams who took the field in 1956, who fielded a team devoid of juniors and seniors on a borrowed field for a fledgling school district.
When the doors of then-Richland High School opened in 1956, upperclassmen who lived in the district were permitted to complete their high-school education at Mars High School. Accordingly, the 1956 Rams were comprised entirely of freshmen and sophomores with limited experience in organized football. It was appropriate, then, that those original Rams did not even have a field to call their own, instead playing their home games at nearby Hampton High School.
Befitting a new team from a new school district, the early Pine-Richland football teams experienced growing pains, suffering losing seasons as often as they put together winning campaigns. Only under the guidance of Head Coach Gene Sullivan in the 1960s did the Rams become consistent winners. Averaging more than seven wins per season during Coach Sullivan’s twelve year tenure and winning the program’s first two WPIAL Championships during undefeated campaigns in 1968 and 1969.
After Coach Sullivan’s success lead him to the college coaching ranks at Geneva College in the mid-1970s, the football teams of the late 70s, 1980s and 1990s consistently put forth a strong effort at Ozzie Santacroce Field but often earned indifferent results. That changed when Head Coach Clair Altemus took the helm in 1997. Altemus quicky turned the Rams into consistent contenders.
In the early 2000s, the Rams moved into Pine-Richland Stadium; widely considered the finest high school field in Western Pennsylvania.
The team also made a move during this period, entering the upper echelon of area teams. The Rams made it to the 2002 WPIAL championship game before winning the program’s third WPIAL championship in 2003. The Rams’ have maintained their elite level under Head Coach Eric Kasperowicz, winning the Rams’ fourth WPIAL championship in 2014 and having the program poised for more success this year.
A number of notable players and coaches have built the Rams program over the decades.
NFL Quarterback Frank Rocco was the team’s Head Coach for a period of time in the 1980s. Current Head Coach Eric Kasperowicz was named to the WPIAL Hall of Fame for his exploits as a player at North Hills High School and starred as a linebacker at Pitt. Star lineman Jason Capizzi won a Super Bowl as a member of his hometown 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers and Neil Walker, the star wide receiver and defensive back on Pine-Richland’s 2003 championship team, is now a star second baseman who has played for the Pirates, Mets, and Brewers.
While the fanfare of the Rams’ 2017 season opener will highlight the team’s present day success, it also reflects the efforts and talents of the dozens of coaches and thousands of players who have suited up for the Rams and built this program for more than six decades.
Pine History Blog 