Muehleisen still coaching football after 40 years
Fame is fleeting - The Eagles won the NFL championship in 1960 with a 17-13 win at Franklin Field in Philly over the Green Bay Packers.
The picture of Chuck Bednarik sitting on fullback Jim Taylor at the 8-yard line as the clock runs out is iconic - whatever that means. But the hero of that game was running back Ted Dean. Dean was a 22-year-old rookie out of Radnor High and Wichita State. Dean scored on a five-yard run with five minutes remaining. He had put the Eagles in great field position with a 58-yard kickoff return to the Packers’ 40. Dean was out of the NFL by age 26, teaching at Gladwyne Elementary School. In September 2010, the Eagles opened the season hosting Green Bay.
Chuck Bednarik was there in his No. 60 jersey for the 50-year reunion of the championship team. Ted Dean, a healthy 72-year-old who lives in Arizona, chose not to attend. He reportedly spends most of his spare time playing the piano rather than wading into the waters of past glories like so many other Hall of Famers.
Coach Mule - Bill Muehleisen began coaching at Lake Forest in 1970, then moved to Cape where he coached such notables as Henry White, Henry Brisco, Charlie Smith, Robert Warrington, Gilbert Maull, Jeff Marsh, Mark Steele, and the list goes on. Bill Collick and I coached with Bill our first year in the school district in 1975.
The third game of that season down at Indian River, Bill suffered a serious to severe heart attack at halftime, and he and Collick got into an ambulance and just left without saying goodbye. That spring Muehleisen came out to the track behind Shields school where I was coaching the track team. He showed me a letter from Superintendent Frank Mercer that basically said unless Bill could get a certified letter from his cardiologist stating that he was at no more risk for succumbing to sudden cardiac death on the sidelines than the next person, he could no longer coach.
Even way back then when I looked and sounded like “Welcome Back Kotter” I said to Bill, “You saw your life flash before your eyes and you were on your back. Why not step back and live like the mellow fellow you are not?” Bill, a former Marine and brilliant football mind who was exactly the guy any parent wanted coaching their son, said he would coach football somewhere because that was just who he was.
Bill won a state title for the Christiana Vikings in 1987 and this year is on the staff at Hodgson, his 41st year on the sidelines. Christiana is going to honor Bill at the Saturday, Nov. 5 homecoming game and wherever that field is, some of us from down here need to get there. Back in 1975, directions from Cape to all fields and gyms always included the same two words: liquor store. Now even Mapquest is politically correct.
Snippets - The third annual Delaware’s Strongest Man contest will be held Oct. 1 at Jake's Seafood on Route 1 south. Any sport that talks training tips like “extreme fascia stretching and floor skull crushers and advancing glycogen storage” is OK by me. I just want to see one of those monster truck tires rolled through the restaurant by a big old boy named Magnus. The Phillies are now getting fan mail at the Camden Aquarium for going into the tank after clinching the National League East. Don't overanalyze the meaning of it all; losing repeatedly in front of sellout crowds is never good. I watched the Cape junior varsity football team play St. Georges Monday afternoon and was impressed with safety/quarterback Sean Grogan’s speed and desire for coming up and smacking the ball carrier. Sean is a Friday night lights type of player. Football captains Spencer Brittingham, Jake Dmiterchik and Jerome Johnson presented Mike DeStasio with a signed football Sept. 20, completing the circle of support that Cape offered to Mike and all the local families affected by the disease ALS. Cape field hockey is coming up on a big week, playing down to Delmar Tuesday, Sept. 27, then hosting Sussex Tech Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m., the first night game in the upgraded stadium, and facing Holy Cross of Maryland at home Saturday, Oct. 1, at 2:30. Players play them one at a time; sportswriters play them three at a time. Go on now, git!
