Angelo, Pettine Sr. once ruled in high school football

I WENT to Lincoln High School in the early '70s. So why does that sound like such a long time ago? Anyhow, we were usually pretty good in football. Just not good enough. That's mostly because we played in the same division as Frankford.

In those days, there were only like 18 Public League teams, and I pretty much knew many of the players on almost all of them. Or at least the relevant ones. Frankford always mattered, mainly because of Al Angelo, who went 184-39-5 at his alma mater (1965-84, '87) and won 10 Pub titles. He was Frankford, which meant he was the enemy in a time when rivalries were still very much a neighborhood thing. They were the dreaded Pioneers. Not only did they beat us, they often managed to do so in the most deflating of ways.

One year, when Angelo's son Skip was the quarterback, they beat us, 16-15, by scoring a late touchdown and two-point conversion. That was only because they went for a deuce after their first TD and Skip barely got in on a keeper. It sure didn't look like he crossed the goal line from where we were watching.

Another time they beat us on an inside reverse from 20-some yards out by an all-city running back on what I believe was the last snap. That somehow robbed us of a much-deserved tie, which of course would've felt like a victory. Another year they won by going on a nearly length-of-the-field TD drive in the closing minutes. Naturally, that was after converting a third-and-forever from the shadow of their goal posts on a screen pass. A defender who was in perfect position to make the tackle in the backfield simply fell down for no good reason. I guess it happens. But when you're young, it really stinks. And stays with you.

Hey, the Holmesburg weight-league teams I played for could never beat Frankford Boys Club, either.

So how did Angelo do it? He didn't necessarily have the biggest kids. Or run a bunch of intricate plays. One season, his QB wore No. 56. You can't make that up. But whatever it was, it worked. As a competitor, you could certainly respect that. I was a decent QB. I would've started for the junior varsity, except I was in 11th grade and the coach wanted to go with a sophomore who could maybe help the varsity for two years instead of one. I'd skipped a grade in elementary school, so I was a year younger than my classmates. And at some point I had stopped growing. Some had suggested that I transfer to Frankford, where size might not matter. A friend's brother from around the corner whose father went there did that and wound up as a 5-6 outside linebacker. But I didn't want to go where my friends weren't. Hey, I'll never know.

Ironically, Angelo was responsible for me getting a job at the Daily News. As a Temple sophomore, I wrote a story about him for a class assignment. And it got published in the Inquirer Magazine the following fall. Not long after, DN sports editor Mike Rathet told me that's what convinced him to hire me as a part-time clerk. In 1982, when the Bulletin folded, I became our suburban high-school writer, something this paper had never had before. It was also something I knew nothing about. Yet I probably enjoyed those days as much as anything I've done, short of covering John Chaney for so long.

My best friend's sister wound up marrying one of Angelo's better players from my era. And when Angelo passed away in 2008, he told me that my profile from three decades before was still the one that had captured the man the best. I can't tell you how much that meant, especially coming from the opposing camp. I felt like a convert.

In 1977, the year I followed Angelo around, the Pioneers somehow lost to Lincoln in the Pub final. A month or so after the article finally appeared, they got him his lone City crown. Go figure.

When I started doing the burbs, waiting there was the dynasty known as Central Bucks West. And the legendary Mike Pettine, who would win 326 times in 33 seasons, a run that included four PIAA state titles once playoffs were finally instituted (three in his last three years, when his teams didn't lose once) and a 55-game unbeaten streak before there was a postseason. This, despite the fact that the school had one of the lowest male enrollments competing at the highest-classification (AAA and then AAAA) level.

His namesake son played QB for him, later coached against him (but never beat him in five tries) with North Penn and is now coaching the Cleveland Browns. Yet few of Pettine's players ever went on to bigger things in college. At West, though, they were larger than life, even though the Bucks ran maybe a dozen plays. But they could run them from at least that many formations. Like with Angelo, it was largely about taking care of the details better than anyone else.

It's funny sometimes what you remember. I did a lengthy piece in the midst of the unbeaten streak where Pettine related how he once broke a wooden clipboard over a player's helmet at practice. And how a few days later the kid handed him a replacement clipboard that he'd made. And that's when he said he knew he was dealing with a special kind of DNA. Which might be the one thing Doylestown had in common with the intersection of Large and Dyre Streets.

Maybe that helps explain how West went to unbeaten Abington midway through the 1986 season the week after losing its starting quarterback and handed the Ghosts what would be their only blemish, 14-zip, with a sophomore replacement. Perhaps you had to be there.

Then there was the Thanksgiving tie against C.B. East in 1988, which ended the Bucks' winning streak at 53 and kept them out of the first playoffs. When it was over, the West kids and their East counterparts were both crying on the field, while the players from Neshaminy - which got into the tournament instead of West as a result - were running around in the end zone celebrating. Some image. There was rarely a shortage.

I was at the press conference when Pettine retired. We've occasionally talked since, although we've yet to play golf together as planned. I blame myself for the oversight. Hopefully one of these summers.

Both men were indelible. And I was able to experience much of what made that so. I've been lucky that way. Times have changed. Frankford has won the Pub twice since 2006. Nothing wrong with that, but hardly what it once was. West, meanwhile, has won five or fewer games in eight of the last 10 seasons. Last year, the Bucks were 2-6 before their season was canceled due to a hazing incident.

Still, I have my snapshots. I cherish every one. While the high schools haven't been my area of expertise for awhile now, another season is here. Which can only mean it's time for current junkies to accumulate some lasting memories of their own.

The difference is, they can't possibly be as fortuitous as I was. Because I observed two of the greatest.