DETROIT — You never know what you’re going to find when delving into the history of a high school golf team that played a century ago.
An inquiry about the University of Detroit Jesuit’s 1927 state champions found its way to Tom O’Keefe, a 1964 U of D grad, who has been the school’s archivist for the last six years and who has all the answers. O'Keefe is also the source of pertinent data about the school’s founding 150 years ago, which the community will observe next year.
Regarding golf, O’Keefe’s research indicates that U of D played an essential role in the sport being sanctioned by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
In 1925, the U of D High School Athletic Board and the Detroit District Golf Association organized the first Michigan high school golf tournament. 88 golfers from 12 cities around the state participated at St. Clair Country Club. U of D finished as the runner-up to Redford.
Under the direction of U of D athletic director C. H. Chamberlain, U of D hosted — and won — the 1927 state finals at Clinton Valley golf course located in the Clinton Twp./Utica area. Some 20 schools with four players had qualified in regional meets a week earlier.
U of D’s quartet shot 357 — Louis Fisher 41-43 84, Bud Commiskey 44-41 85, Pete Monaghan 48-44 92 and Charles Marion 49-47 96 — five shots better than runner-up Pontiac and seven better than defending champion Redford.
Following the competition, all officials and contestants were U of D’s dinner guests at the Eastwood Inn. As fate would have it, that is the only state golf championship that U of D can claim in its history.
'Greatest football game in history'
In the area of athletics, O’Keefe developed timelines for each of the school’s 13 sports, none more interesting than football.
For 10 years, until 1906, U of D fielded a roster of combined high school and college-age players. For the next two decades, the Cubs played an independent schedule of schools from Ann Arbor to Chicago and Cleveland. The 1921 squad enjoyed an excursion boat trip to play Cleveland St. Ignatius.
At about the same time, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) was formally organized in December 1924. The Catholic High School League (CHSL) was established in 1926 by administrators from parochial high schools in the Detroit area to organize and govern interscholastic athletics.
In 1927, after petitioning for eight years to join the Detroit Metropolitan (City) League and being rejected because it was a private school, U of D was welcomed in.
In the 1930s, U of D and Detroit Catholic Central were gridiron powerhouses. Neither school was invited to join the CHSL, which had blossomed to about four dozen schools by the mid-1940s. Public clamor grew for a city championship game in the absence of any state-wide playoff (which the MHSAA didn’t sanction until 1945).
The answer was the Goodfellow Game — so-called because part of the proceeds went to the Old Newsboys’ Goodfellow Fund of Detroit — played between the champions of the Detroit City League and the champions of Detroit Parochial League.
Catholic Central defeated Hamtramck 19-13 in the first Goodfellow Game in 1938.
That set the stage for one of the most memorable Goodfellow Games on Dec. 2, 1939, between U of D — ironically, a private school representing the Public League — and Catholic Central in front of 23,120 fans at Briggs/Tiger Stadium. CC came into the match with a four-year, 34-game winning streak, outscoring opponents 1,390 to 53. U of D stunned CC, 20-0.
The Shamrocks' star halfback, Tony Groth, sustained a broken leg in the second quarter when he was tackled by Tommy Dorais, the oldest son of Detroit Titans football coach Gus Dorais.
“An interesting thing from that game,” archivist O’Keefe said, “is that the CC guys go to carry him off the field and the U of D guys wouldn't let them do it.”
In the spirit of good sportsmanship, six U of D players carried Groth on the stretcher into the locker room.
“The Cubs’ victory was the greatest in its history,” O’Keefe added.
The Goodfellow Game was played from 1938 to 1967. CC won in 1942 vs. Hamtramck again and 1943 vs. Detroit Cooley, tied Denby in 1945 and lost in 1960 to Redford St. Mary. U of D lost in 1949 to Detroit St. Anthony and split with Redford St. Mary, losing in 1952 and winning in 1954. Overall, Catholic schools had a 15-12-3 record.
Sagging attendance and interest, as well as difficulties in controlling enthusiastic fans at Tiger Stadium, were cited as the reasons for discontinuing the series. In its 30-year history, the Goodfellow Game raised $1.4 million (in excess of $12 million in today’s dollars) for Christmas gifts for needy children.
U of D in 1958 and CC in 1959 were admitted to the CHSL. The league had 62 schools, all boys sports: 20 in Division 1 and 42 in Division 2. A hundred years later, the CHSL has 33 schools in the Bishop, Cardinal and Ste. Anne divisions: seven all boys, seven all girls and 19 coed, a combined 31 sports, 12,000 participants.
Contact Don Horkey at [email protected].
