Leatherneck Nation

Leatherneck57 wrote:I would love to know the stats of some of the great players like Passananti, Tipton, Craig Phalen, Bobby Harding, Huskinson and many others. I'm sure they had great numbers because of their All American status. I would imagine our defense was tough as nails with Passananti and Tipton on the front line! The stats I've got are for the '78 and '79 seasons.

I played with Dave Tipton in an Alumni game in 1982 or '83 and he was preparing for USFL tryouts...the guy was a beast! He was strong as an OX! He threw WIU players around like rag dolls. He played in the USFL for a long time and is now a pastor.

That year the old alumni lost to the team 10-6. We had a really good alumni team as you can imagine. I've got photos of the defense from that game I'll post.

Passananti played on Tackle on the offensive line. The 1973 defense was one tough unit with John Teerlink, Steve Silosky and Dave Tipton on the defensive line and with Steve Mertens and Dickie Vasquez at inside Linebacker. Washington Bush, Tony Cozzi and Thomas Henderson alternated at outside Linebacker. The secondary featured Charlie Boston, Ken Kennedy, John Wrenn and Gary Birch.

Bob

BobLovely wrote:Passananti played on Tackle on the offensive line. The 1973 defense was one tough unit with John Teerlink, Steve Silosky and Dave Tipton on the defensive line and with Steve Mertens and Dickie Vasquez at inside Linebacker. Washington Bush, Tony Cozzi and Thomas Henderson alternated at outside Linebacker. The secondary featured Charlie Boston, Ken Kennedy, John Wrenn and Gary Birch.

Bob

Something about those names just "sounds" tough....like old-school, smash-mouth football tough. Like..."you may hang on to the ball, but you're going to lose an arm" kinda tough.

BobLovely wrote:

Leatherneck57 wrote:I would love to know the stats of some of the great players like Passananti, Tipton, Craig Phalen, Bobby Harding, Huskinson and many others. I'm sure they had great numbers because of their All American status. I would imagine our defense was tough as nails with Passananti and Tipton on the front line! The stats I've got are for the '78 and '79 seasons.

I played with Dave Tipton in an Alumni game in 1982 or '83 and he was preparing for USFL tryouts...the guy was a beast! He was strong as an OX! He threw WIU players around like rag dolls. He played in the USFL for a long time and is now a pastor.

That year the old alumni lost to the team 10-6. We had a really good alumni team as you can imagine. I've got photos of the defense from that game I'll post.

Passananti played on Tackle on the offensive line. The 1973 defense was one tough unit with John Teerlink, Steve Silosky and Dave Tipton on the defensive line and with Steve Mertens and Dickie Vasquez at inside Linebacker. Washington Bush, Tony Cozzi and Thomas Henderson alternated at outside Linebacker. The secondary featured Charlie Boston, Ken Kennedy, John Wrenn and Gary Birch.

Bob

Your right Bob...thanks for clarifying that. I'm good friends with Gary Birch...he lives in Quincy.

LN57 sent me another photo from "back in the day". This one is from 1978:

Request for LN57 or anyone else on the board. I am working on mini helments for our current helmet. Does anyone have a good color pix of helmets from LN57 era? My decal supplier gave me some color options and I noted in these pix we sported the purple W on a gold helmet in the 70s? Thought I would create a couple "throwbacks" while I am at it.


Tom

yokedneck wrote:Request for LN57 or anyone else on the board. I am working on mini helments for our current helmet. Does anyone have a good color pix of helmets from LN57 era? My decal supplier gave me some color options and I noted in these pix we sported the purple W on a gold helmet in the 70s? Thought I would create a couple "throwbacks" while I am at it.


Tom

Tom, LN57 texted me some photos to pass along to you, so hopefully there's something here you can work with:

1976 Helmet decal, white football-shaped with purple W (doesn't help with the color, but I think it's the same color scheme as the later photos):


1977 and 1978, same color helmet, decals said WESTERN and had two stripes down the middle. I noticed that one year had purple letters with white outline and the other had white letters with purple outline. Also, the year with the purple letters, both stripes over the top are purple on white and the one with white letters has a purple stripe over white on the left side and a white stripe over purple on the right side:






Then in 1979, same color helmets, decals were a purple block W with no stripe (as near as I can tell):

Thank you!

Tom

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Tom

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

yokedneck wrote:

Tom

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

yokedneck wrote:

Tom

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

This is great!!!!!