High school football has rich history in region
Athletic and sports history is a significant part of Southwestern Pennsylvania's past, and nothing more so than high school football. With the start of scholastic practice, it is even more evident with the others also involved, such as the bands and cheerleaders.
Since its start in this region in the early 1890s, the sport has been of increasing interest, although the mergers of the 1950s and 1960s reduced the number of high schools somewhat.
Many of the regional teams compete in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Conference (WPIAL), including those in Pittsburgh until 1917, when the city league was formed. One team, Carrick, was not a part of the city until the borough was merged in 1927, when it switched.
The WPIAL was organized in 1906 by the headmasters of two prep schools, Allegheny and Shadyside, and the director of Pittsburgh schools. The purpose was to provide direction and control to athletic programs, including eligibility.
The 13 original members of the WPIAL were Beaver Falls, Butler, Homestead, Johnstown, Shadyside Academy, Washington, Wilkinsburg and six Pittsburgh public high schools.
Originally, there was no championship competition. As the membership gradually increased, the Pittsburgh chapter of the Syracuse University Alumni Association in 1914 established the Syracuse Cup, to be awarded to the best football team based on total record.
Wilkinsburg High was declared the 1914 champion. The first playoff was in 1915, when Wilkinsburg defeated Pittsburgh Fifth Avenue. Wilkinsburg won its third consecutive title in 1916, but its string was ended when Johnstown and Washington played a scoreless tie in the 1917 playoff.
No cup was awarded in 1918, because so many games were canceled by the flu epidemic of that fall.
Membership picked up with 19 new members in 1919, Pittsburgh Allegheny winning that year. Washington triumphed in the 1920 playoff with Fifth Avenue.
However, the 1920s brought problems. In 1921, Johnstown was passed up in the playoff selection despite a perfect season within the WPIAL. The Johnnies' losses were to non-WPIAL member Greensburg and national power Toledo (Ohio) Scott.
Johnstown fans were so enraged that they pulled out of the WPIAL and helped start the Western Conference of the then Central Pennsylvania Athletic League in 1922.
The Syracuse Cup committee of the WPIAL was in trouble in 1923, when there were four undefeated contenders: Allegheny, New Castle, Turtle Creek and Washington. A four-team playoff was set up, with New Castle and Turtle Creek matched in one semifinal. They played a 14-14 tie. In the other, Washington demolished Allegheny, 60-0. The committee took the easy way out and awarded the trophy to Washington.
The year 1924 was one of chaos. There were six teams undefeated with two weeks left in the season -- Braddock, Charleroi, Norwin, Pittsburgh Schenley, Turtle Creek and Washington.
Schenley lost a game outside the league. Turtle Creek defeated Washington. Norwin forfeited all its games because of its use of ineligible nonresident players. Jeannette also had to forfeit most of its games because of an ineligible over-age player, including a victory over New Castle that brought that team back into contention. Braddock defeated Turtle Creek but was found to have used an ineligible player.
Many thought New Castle and Turtle Creek would play for the title, but the committee gave up and awarded the cup to New Castle. This caused a major Pittsburgh newspaper to say the committee was "steeped to its neck in the most disgraceful and disgusting mess of circumstances of any school affair."
The 1926 season was another mass of confusion, with more forfeits among the problems, which indicated that a better method of selecting champions was needed. That year also marked the entry of state power Greensburg into the WPIAL, last of the then-prominent teams to join.
The Westmoreland county seaters promptly won the 1927 title, the last year the WPIAL was but one class. The Gardner point system was introduced that year, developed by a New Castle High School mathematics instructor. After that year, the Syracuse Cup awards ceased, and the cup still occupies the Greensburg Salem trophy case.
In 1928, the schools in the WPIAL were divided for the first time into classes A and B. While ineligible player forfeits continued to cause problems, by 1929 the league had increased its membership to 113 football-playing schools.
Classes based on enrollment were further changed in 1932 with the addition of the AA class.
Catholic schools were not members in those years. The first Pittsburgh-area Catholic League operated from 1922 until 1926. Another league functioned for 19 years, from 1933 through 1951, as well as a third, larger one covering a wide area from 1959 through 1967.
The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) began operating with 50 members from throughout the state in 1914, and in steps began instituting state champions in various sports (except football, until recently).
The Pittsburgh City League started to function in 1917, and split into two divisions beginning in 1926. The original members were Allegheny, Fifth Avenue, Peabody, Schenley, South and Westinghouse. South Hills joined in 1918, Langley in 1923, Oliver in 1925, Carrick and Perry in 1927, and Allderdice in 1930.
Outside the WPIAL, the Western Conference of the Central Pennsylvania Athletic League was started in 1922, as noted earlier. It became a league of its own in 1940, and continues today although it has undergone a constant rotation of members. Various other leagues have operated in the same area and to the north of the WPIAL area, usually small groups.
THIS DATE IN HISTORY
The first newspaper in Washington County and probably the second in Southwestern Pennsylvania, the Western Telegraph and Washington Advertiser, was first published Aug. 17, 1795, 208 years ago today.
The Youghiogheny Blues, the first militia unit in Connellsville, was organized in 1823.
In 1848, the Allegheny County Medical Society was formed as a branch of the state society.
The first message over the Atlantic Ocean cable, received by U.S. President James Buchanan at the summer White House at the Bedford Springs Hotel, came on this date in 1858 from England's Queen Victoria.
Pittsburgh's firefighters struck for higher wages in 1918.
Communist leader Steve Nelson, already having been charged, was arrested by the FBI on additional charges in Pittsburgh in 1951.
PIONEERED COAL TOWING
A North Huntingdon Township native pioneered coal towing on the Monongahela River when it became navigable regularly, making a significant contribution to Pittsburgh and regional economy.
Born in 1815, William Hughey Brown became the most prominent Southwestern Pennsylvania coal operator in the mid- to late 19th century after his humble start in digging and delivering coal to homes.
About 1846, faced with bad roads for hauling it, Brown conceived the idea on the newly improved Monongahela. Brown started floating coal to Cincinnati and Louisville, then in 1858 came up with the idea of tying a number of barges or keelboats together and towing them with steamboats to New Orleans.
Considered quite radical for such an idea, he went ahead nonetheless. He hired the General Larimer and Grampus (which he later purchased), and took 12 keelboats of coal to New Orleans. The venture was quite a success, the keelboats were sold there, and his steamboats brought back a lucrative cargo of sugar and molasses.
During the Civil War, Brown's fleet ran coal to Union forces along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. One venture, however, nearly became a tragedy. He took a tow of coal arranged by government supply sources to Vicksburg for Gen. Ulysses Grant's forces. He was arrested by Union troops as a suspected Confederate spy, and only Gen. Buell's intervention saved him from execution.
Brown followed his innovative coal shipping by developing a number of coal properties along the Mon with his sons. Among these were large operations near Port Perry in North Versailles and Old Eagle in Forward.
He not only became the largest coal operator and transporter in the area before his death in 1875, but expanded into other industrial enterprises as well.
SLOTS PROBLEM IN 1927
Slot machines were a problem in Greensburg in the late summer of 1927, at a time when the borough was being changed to a third-class city.
While the county sheriff and the district attorney were battling over the issue, the sheriff was saying that the DA was responsible for enforcing the law. The DA said local police and constables in third-class cities could help the sheriff conduct raids against the unlawful (and plentiful) slots.
By the time such action could be taken, no slot machines could be found in Greensburg, not surprisingly.
EIGHTH REGIMENT MARCH
One of the most heroic marches in military history was that of Southwestern Pennsylvania's Eighth Regiment in January 1777.
Raised for garrison duty in the west, which then included a large part of extreme Western Pennsylvania, the regiment was mustered in July 1776 at Kittanning.
In the midst of an extremely severe winter, the regiment was ordered that January to join the Continental Army in New Jersey. A great deal of sickness and suffering was endured on that march across Pennsylvania. Many men died, including its top two officers, Col. Aeneas Mackay and Lt. Col. George Wilson.
Later commanded by Daniel Brodhead and Stephen Bayard, the regiment returned to Western Pennsylvania in March 1778 and served in that garrison duty until the end of the Revolutionary War.
HOGS LOOSE IN PITTSBURGH
One of the first acts of Pittsburgh when it became a borough in 1794 was to post an ordinance prohibiting hogs from running at large.
However, as noted historian-author Leland D. Baldwin wrote, "Inasmuch as the hogs could not read, they continued to wallow luxuriantly in the rich mire that was everywhere on Pittsburgh's streets."
It wasn't until the middle 1800s, when the city placed a bounty on hogs running loose, which was quite a moneymaker for youths, that the hazard was contained.
GUYASUTA HAD TWO WIVES
Guyasuta, a well-known Indian chief involved in area activities including the fire in Hanna's Town, then county seat, in 1782, apparently had two wives.
One, history records, was "well stricken in years who paid great attention to his food and his clothes." The other was "a handsome young squaw."
MINI-VIGNETTES
