Cub Football - Loyola's 1975 National Championship squad - a team for the ages will be honored Friday
LOYOLA’S TEAM FOR THE AGES - 1975 CIF SOUTHERN SECTION AAAA CHAMPIONS AND NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
The storied history of the football program at Loyola High School of Los Angeles’s spans over a century.
With countless league titles, thirteen trips to CIF championship games, eleven CIF Players-of-the-Year, multiple All-American/All-State/All-CIF players, and countless graduates who distinguished themselves at the major college level and in the NFL, the program’s legacy is beyond brilliant.
There was the 35-game victory streak (which still stands as a Southern Section Large Schools record) from 1962-1964, which saw the Cubs win two consecutive CIF AAAA titles and play for a third, and the incredible run from 1988-2005 in which Loyola played in the CIF Division I championship game seven times and advanced to the semifinal round of the Division I playoffs 12 times.
But the 1975 squad is the only one to reach the proverbial pinnacle of prep gridiron glory as it completed an undefeated thirteen game slate en route to the CIF Southern Section AAAA Championship before being ultimately crowned National High School Champions by the National Sports News Service.
it has been 50 years since the 1975 Cub team cemented its place as a permanent, powerful monument in the annals of Loyola football, The memories of that record year still shine vividly.
The path to what was the grandest campaign among many great seasons was at once serendipitous and well calculated.
In 1972, Cub Football had hit rock bottom as Loyola finished 0-9. It was the only year in school history that the team completed a season without a win or a tie.
Fortunately, then school president, Rev. Patrick Cahalan, S.J., who played football at Santa Clara University and Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, appreciated that football was a profoundly important part of the rich, indelible fabric of Loyola High.
The Cubs lost a non-league game to St. Bernard, 33-7, during that dismal, winless 1972 campaign, but Father Cahalan observed how disciplined, fundamentally sound, physical and exceptionally well coached the Vikings were. He immediately set about pursuing St. Bernard’s young head coach, MARTIN SHAUGNESSY, and as luck would have it SHAUGNESSY and the members of his talented varsity staff agreed to make the leap up to what had traditionally been a Southern California large schools powerhouse before a short lived downturn.
SHAUGNESSY and two of his staff members had played football at St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs under the tutelage of legendary head coach Marijon Ancich, whose teams were renowned not only for their exceptionally disciplined and fundamentally sound style of play, but also for the incomparable physicality with which they competed.
SHAUGNESSY and his staff immediately took to instilling in their Cub troops the unrelenting work ethic and warrior culture they had been imbued with at St. Paul.
Practices were in a word grueling. Many players described them as tougher than the Friday night games. Conditioning was beyond exhausting. Uncompromising standards were set. A band of brothers was formed.
Loyola went 4-5 in 1973, but the seismic cultural changes and tough new ethos were immediately apparent.
SHAUGNESSY, who also served as a mathematics teacher, realized that his personnel overall did not have great size, but were blessed with uncommon athleticism and speed. He was looking for the best way to utilize his players’ abundant talent.
MARTY decided to take a trip to Texas, to meet with the man who designed the veer offense, University of Houston head coach Bill Yeoman. the highly intelligent SHAUGNESSY spent a week with Yeoman. A quick study, he learned the intracies of the veer and immediately installed the option offensive playbook at Loyola in the spring of 1973. And he had the perfect group of players to run it to perfection.
Meanwhile, legendary defensive coordinator JON DAWSON implemented a brutally physical brand of football on the defensive side of the line of scrimmage that remained of legendary status in California high school football for decades.
In SHAUGNESSY’s second season the Cubs ran the veer to near perfection and the aptly named ‘Wolfpack’ defense smothered opponents with rarely seen violent play.
A 10-7 upset loss to upstart Hawthorne in the second round of the CIF AAAA playoffs on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1974 ended a 10-1 campaign that appeared to be headed to a possible AAAA title.
Resolve might be an understatement in describing the intensity of the determination displayed by the players who would return for the 1975 season. That fighting spirit manifested itself in the locker room after the fateful second round playoff upset.
Nine months after an intense, focused offseason, the Loyola juggernaut would not be denied as the Cubs vanquished thirteen consecutive opponents, including, ironically, the head coach’s alma mater, St. Paul, in the AAAA title game on a cold, fog-shrouded December night at the venerable Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Loyola downed one of the best high school teams of the 1970s, 14-13, in a classic, heavy weight prize fight to complete its undefeated 13-0 run.
A short time after the Cubs brought home the CIF AAAA championship trophy, the National Sports News Service declared that Loyola High School of Los Angeles was the number one prep football team in the United States.
The list of exceptional players who contributed to the magical season which set the Cub Football standard of excellence for decades to come is a long one, but because of the great culture that SHAUGNESSY and his staff established from the moment they arrived on the campus at 1901 Venice Boulevard, it is fair to say that every single team member contributed to the arduous, determined trek to the mountaintop.
Five Cubs earned All-CIF AAAA accolades, senior quarterback KEVIN MUNO (Notre Dame), senior offensive tackle and team captain ROD BUTLER (Colorado), senior wide receiver/defensive back KAZELL PUGH (Colorado), junior linebacker BOB WOOLWAY (Harvard), and senior running back PAT NOMURA.
All-Del Rey League senior defensive end MEL SANDERS was a freshman All-American at Washington State and a four-year starter for the Cougars.
All-Del Rey League running back GORDON BANKS (9.6 100 yd. sprinter), a team captain and three-year starter, was a standout receiver at Stanford and later played for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and Dallas Cowboys as well as the USFL’s Oakland invaders.
No player embodied the warrior ethos better than inside linebacker, three year starter and All-League team captain MATT BOENSEL. He attended the United States Naval Academy (Class of ‘80) before embarking on a distinguished career in the Navy. After graduation, he attended flight school and became a Naval Flight Officer. He had deployments to various sites around the Pacific (Alaska, Japan, Philippines, Australia, Thailand). Other assignments included obtaining a Master's degree in Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, serving as a tactical action officer on the USS INDEPENDENCE (CV-62), and serving on three staffs - the Patrol Wing Ten at Moffett Field, the Chief of Naval Operations (Assessment Division) at the Pentagon, and the Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics, at the US Army, Europe headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. His final assignment was back at the Naval Postgraduate School where he taught and served in administrative posts in the Operations Research and Systems Engineering departments. He retired from active duty in as a Commander, USN but continued to teach at the Postgraduate school. Two of his children are being penned as Navy commanders.
BOENSEL’s academic prowess and leadership skills were honed at his prep alma mater both in the class room and on the football field, as were those of his many accomplished teammates.
Among the other starting standouts for the Big Blue were senior offensive linemen JOHN YONAI, FRANK BRADY, JOHN MAGUIRE and CHRIS HOLMQUIST, senior tight end HENRY WORKMAN, senior center MARC DiBENEDETTI, senior center DJ MERGENTHALER, senior safety AL SANFORD, junior safety DAVID GRIFFIN, senior defensive back PETER DAILEY, senior wide receiver JIM PADDEN and junior nose guard WADE WOOD.
The ‘75 squad outscored its thirteen opponents 397-131 (avg. score 31-10).
SHAUGNESSY moved on to head the Long Beach City College program in 1976, and STEVE GRADY ‘63, who served as the defensive backs coach on the championship squad, took over the head coaching reins in 1976. GRADY (269-77-6) maintained the unparalleled, rock hard warrior culture which the 1975 team had an integral part in building.
The pillars of that culture were dedication, accountability, discipline and unrelenting physicality. Those foundational pieces set the highest of standards for Cub Football until GRADY’s retirement in 2005.
Fifty years is a long time, but for many of the members of Loyola’s National Championship team the incredible ‘75 season still feels like it was yesterday.
The ‘75 squad will be honored at halftime of Loyola’s home game against St. Francis on Friday evening.
