Pollock remembers putting together football editions with Hornell legend Johnny Nelson
By CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Sports Columnist
On Thursday, in my mail-delivered editions of the Olean Times Herald and Bradford Era, I received a 48-page mini-tabloid entitled Football Preview which also included a piece from the Salamanca Press.
It took me back a decade or four.
Back then, I was sports editor of the Times Herald and all three papers had their own football previews.
We were gifted at the TH with a large talented staff that included Pete Dougherty, a skilled layout person and writer, Gary Maloney an excellent sports writer whose abilities extended to covering St. Bonaventure men’s basketball, Tom Roof, an expert on Allegany County sports, plus John Tunstall, a brilliant cartoonist, interns Paul Vecchio and Jim Melaro, both destined to be full-timers, and an old friend from the Hornell Tribune, sports editor Johnny Nelson.
The 1985 edition was special to us as it was entered in that year’s Associated Press Sports Editor’s contest but, oddly, in all circulation sizes. It finished in the Top 10 which meant we tied for first.
Part of the hook was Tunstall’s Page 1 cartoon which pictured the nine former area players who had gone on to the NFL, a period that covered six decades.
Dougherty, Maloney, Roof and I divided them up for profile:Hank Goodman, Larry Peace and Stew Barber (Bradford High), Bill Hillman (Kane), Marv Hubbard (Randolph), Chuck Crist (Salamanca), Jeff Lloyd (Cameron Country), Bob Torrey (Bolivar) and Dan Connors (St. Marys Public).
The edition extended 88 pages and contained pro, college and high school profiles and league and team schedules.
Each of us wrote at least 10 stories and made considerable use of Associated Press and United Press International copy.
BUT THE Big 30 high-school football area was due for a major shrink.
There was a time it contained 32 schools, including Pennsylvania’s Warren County.
But Sheffield and Youngsville have closed and Eisenhower left the Big 30 for a county league.
All three Big 30 Catholic schools have also closed — Archbishop Walsh, Bradford Central Christian and Elk County Catholic.
Other than Johnsonburg merging with Ridgway, the Pennsy Big 30 has survived fairly well, partly because of its geographical separation eight programs have endured without merger.
It’s a bit different in New York. Hinsdale ended its program decades ago.
Four other programs have merged including a stunning triple with Cuba-Rushford and Bolivar-Richburg joining Portville, a Cattaraugus County school. The oddity is B-R and C-R, are in Allegany County, leaving Wellsville as its only football school (Wellsville has players from the non-football GVB).
The other three mergers are the long-time affiliation between Cattaraugus and Little Valley and Allegany-Limestone plus the concerning amalgamation of once-powers Franklinville and Ellicottville.
Also out of the Big 30 is Pioneer, whose strong program is now affiliated with the Buffalo area Erie County league.
So New York is left with four single-school programs — Olean, Randolph, Salamanca and Wellsville.
And, if you’re counting, the Big 30 is down 15 football schools from 32 to 17.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
