Remembering a special team: Hoover Vikings will celebrate their 1984 state runner-up team
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Chris Beaven, Canton Repository
NORTH CANTON — .They set out to achieve something special 25 years ago.
They didn’t quite reach their ultimate goal, but they did something else equally important
— they created a lifelong bond and earned a place in Hoover High School history as the first
football team to play in a state final.
That’s why Friday will be special for the men of the 1984 Hoover football team when they
return to North Canton Memorial Stadium to be honored at the season opener.
“It’s going to be great to see some of the guys we haven’t seen in a long time,” said
Steve Schick, an All-Ohio senior receiver in 1984. “We’ll talk about some of things we
all did, and just being around the personalities of all the guys, see how some of the guys
changed, if they all still have the same competitive fire.”
That fire burned within the Vikings in 1984 when they finished as the Division I state
runners-up.
“The whole lot of us were intense competitors,” Schick said.
Only a last-second, 17-14 defeat in the title game to Toledo St. Francis prevented them
from being state champs.
Talk of that game certainly will pop up when the team gathers Friday for the first time in
25 years to be recognized at halftime of the 7:30 season opener against Washington
(D.C.) Coolidge.
The North Canton Sideliners also have put together a private reception for the team after the game at The Fairways at Arrowhead.
The evening is about much more than any one game.
That’s what will make it special to Andy Logan, an All-Ohio senior defensive back in 1984 who has been an assistant coach at Hoover since 1990.
“We’ll be forever linked as that ’84 team,” Logan said. “You weren’t the sophomores or the juniors. You were on the ’84 team. You will have that for life.”
Guys even are coming from Hollywood for the reunion. Actor Eddie McClintock, a senior linebacker in 1984, didn’t hesitate to say he’d be back.
“I wouldn’t miss a chance to come back to see my old buddies and celebrate what we did back then,” said McClintock, who stars in Syfy’s Warehouse 13.
“That’s the kind of camaraderie we still have as teammates,” Logan said.
Their coach, Ed Glass, remembers those Vikings as being “a true team.”
They had stars. Schick, Logan, quarterback Mike Braucher and linebacker Shawn Zimmerman represented them on The Repository’s All-Stark County team. But Glass said no one acted as if they had “star status.”
“That’s what made them good,” said Glass, Hoover’s coach from 1981-95. “No individual was larger than the group. ... They cared about each other and still do.”
Hoover set the tone in 1984 with a 21-19 over GlenOak in Week 2 and a 19-8 win over McKinley in Week 4.
“I think we had to beat McKinley,” Glass said. “Hoover had never done that. We’d come close, but we had not beaten them. That was a big ballgame. Also Bob Comming’s GlenOak team was very good.”
Another defining win came in Week 6 with a 20-16 victory over Perry.
“They were the best team we played,” Schick said. “They came into our place and went up 16-0 before we could blink. ... We all looked at each other and didn’t say anything. We knew we were better and had to win every single down from here on out.”
Hoover regrouped and dominated the rest of the game.
When the playoffs began, the Vikings destroyed Lorain Admiral King and Mayfield by a combined 70-6.
“Once we got out of the Federal League and away from teams that knew what we liked to do ... we ripped into them,” Schick said.
A last-second field goal by Toledo St. Francis, though, ended their season with a loss at Ohio Stadium.
“We were bitter for five years that we didn’t win the state championship and didn’t play very well,” Schick said. “After you get away from it for 10, 12 years, you start to realize it was pretty darn special what we did.”
That’s why it still resonates with them 25 years later where ever life has led them.
“I still think about it, dream about it all the time. It’s funny,” McClintock said. “... We had a pretty special bond back then. It’ll just be good to be by my brothers again.”
Join the celebration
Any members of the 1984 Hoover varsity football team who were not contacted about Friday’s event can contact Randy Santangelo of the North Canton Sideliners or Andy Logan of Logan’s Sports at (330) 499-1700.
1984 Hoover Vikings Squad
Back Row L - R: Scott Neilson, Kevin Wood, Mark Stroia, Scott Yoder, John Hudanick
Fourth Row L - R: Chris Powell, Brett Merritt, John Gimigliano, Rich Rodriguez, Brett Paschke, Mark Braucher, Bob Chufar, Jason Glass,
Marc East, Doug Morris, Matt Murray
Third Row L - R: Mike Stroia, Steve Burch, Jeff Sprout, Derek Degenhard, Bryan Monastra, Mike Whitman, Tim DeMarco, Pat Simmons,
James Mathie, Bob Fiadung, Phil Taylor, Chris Jones
Second Row L - R: Mike DeBenedictis, Eric VanDyke, Heath Ledger, Mark Weber, Steve Neff, Jeff Peters, Ted Betz, George Miller, Jim Zucal,
Daren Miller, Steve Petrack, Shawn Texter, Todd Martz
First Row L - R: Doug Portmann, Jimmy Wood, Eddie McClintock, Steve Schick, Shawn Zimmerman, Randy Berg, Mike Braucher, Tim Kenville,
Jerry Simms, Dave Gozdiff, Mitch Raebel, Mike Breckenridge
Hoover’s 1984 season, game-by-game
Hoover 20, Dover 0Hoover 21, GlenOak 19Hoover 24, Marlington 7Hoover 19, McKinley 8Hoover 27, Youngstown Wilson 0Hoover 20, Perry 16Hoover 19, Canton South 17Hoover 24, Alliance 26Hoover 10, Louisville 0Hoover 21, Jackson 7Division I playoffs
Hoover 40, Lorain Admiral King 6Hoover 30, Mayfield 0Division I state championship game
Hoover 14, Toledo St. Francis 17Looking back at 1984
Hoover’s 1984 football team went 11-2 and finished as the Division I state runners-up. Here’s a look at some other odds and ends from that season:
• The Vikings shared the Federal League title that fall with Perry, both finishing 6-1 in the league.
• Four Vikings earned a spot on the 1984 Repository AAA All-Stark County football team — WR Steve Schick, QB Mike Braucher, LB Shawn Zimmerman and DB Andy Logan.
• Ed Glass was The Repository Coach of the Year.
• Schick was named first-team All-Ohio; Braucher and Logan made second-team All-Ohio.
• Braucher ran for a score and threw TD passes to Jim Wood and Doug Portman in the 30-0 state semifinal win over Mayfield at the Akron Rubber Bowl. Logan added a TD run and a 30-yard field goal.
• In the state finals, St. Francis took a quick 14-0 lead in the first quarter, then Hoover rallied. Short TD runs by Tim Kenville and Braucher combined with two Logan PATs tied the game by the late stages of the fourth quarter.
• Two assistant coaches remain from 1984 in the Hoover program — Dick Gross and Paul Baucum.
• Five days after their football season ended with the loss to St. Francis, a number of Viking football players led the basketball team to a season-opening win over GlenOak, 81-78, in overtime.
• Hoover’s basketball team — featuring a core of football players — went 21-6 that winter under coach Bill Nutt and reached the Division I state tournament.
Almost perfect
Two plays at the end of games prevented Hoover from an unbeaten championship season in 1984. And 25 years later, coach Ed Glass vividly remembers each one.
“When you get older, you try to remember the wins, and we had a ton of them at North Canton,” he said. “But those losses stay with you for awhile. ... And when people point to seasons, they want to go know about the games we lost. It’s human nature.”
A Week 8 loss to Alliance was the result of a tipped pass bouncing into the arms of an Aviator receiver as he walked into the end zone.
“It was the most unbelievable thing ... a fluke thing,” Glass said.
Then came the loss to Toledo St. Francis in the state finals when Bill Burns hit a 26-yard field goal near the end of the game.
“He didn’t hit the ball very well,” said Glass, who already was planning for overtime. “It was a line drive hook ... the doggone ball went over the crossbar by two feet.”
The players remember that kick well, too.
Andy Logan got two fingers on the kick, nearly blocking it. Eddie McClintock was near the middle of the field during the play.
“I still dream about watching that last field goal go up over my head,” said McClintock, who took four stitches in the chin at halftime during the game and later found out he had a concussion. “It was a tough game for all of us.”
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1984 Hoover Vikings
