The Observer, November 16, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 11
Case's last undefeated team won big
You need a little luck to go undefeated, as Case's football team did in 1984. At times, even the best teams falter. For the Spartans, that moment came on September 22 at John P. Papp Stadium in Wooster, Ohio. The Fighting Scots lost all nine of their games that year. They also came close to spoiling Case's perfect season.
Trailing 14-0 at halftime, the coaching staff was worried; their squad was being outplayed. But the Spartans came out of the locker room and battled back, eventually tying the game. In the final seconds, quarterback Fred DiSanto connected with tight end Dave Stuczynski for a 78-yard touchdown pass. Stuczynski would go on to become one of the best receivers in school history. Wooster's head coach, Jim Kapp, was exasperated. "You guys got one from us," he said to DiSanto.
Kapp wasn't the only coach who was unhappy with his team's performance. "We had better be ready to play four quarters this Sunday instead of two," said the Spartans' head coach, Jim Chapman. "John Carroll [their next opponent] is a tough team and we're going to have our hands full." But it was John Carroll, then Denison, then Ohio Wesleyan, Allegheny, and Carnegie Mellon who would ultimately have to worry about their hands being full.
The success of that season has its roots in 1982. The university, under president David Ragone, placed a renewed emphasis on athletics and hired Chapman, the head coach of Willoughby South High School, to take over Case's football program. In 1980 and 1981, the Spartans didn't win a game and entered the '82 season with the longest losing streak in Div. III football. Their 14-7 win against John Carroll snapped the 23-game streak and even got the Spartans a mention on CBS' NFL Today.
Chapman received an increased budget and used it to attract good assistants, including Jerry Seimon as offensive coordinator and wide receiver coach Dennis Harris, who played that position at OSU under legendary coach Woody Hayes.
Chapman also enticed quality recruits. In 1983, he recruited three of the 22 high school performers named to the prestigious Plain Dealer All-Scholastic Team: middle guards Tony Rus and Al Mantello as well as Mike Denk, who was also named the Cleveland touchdown club's MVP of the area's independent schools.
The coaching staff also had to change the culture of the football program. "It all started with setting high standards and expecting to win," said Harris. "When we came in (in 1982) there was an attitude of 'we're Case, we're not supposed to be good.'" The team also became more disciplined. "If you dropped a pass in practice, you knew you were running to the fence," said Harris.
The coaching staff never talked about going undefeated. But they gained confidence in the team with each successive win. Without Chapman's knowledge, his assistants got together during the week to guess by how many points they would defeat their next opponent.
As the season marched on and the Spartans strode towards 9-0, Case students took notice. Thirty-five hundred to 4000 would pack Finnigan Field to cheer the team on. The student body, true to form, would chant the school's address, down to the area code, or the digits of pi. "That's why I still remember that number," said Denk.
Today, 32 teams make it to the Div. III postseason. In '84, only eight went, two from each region. The Spartans won their last game and were ranked eighth in the nation. They had an off week before the playoffs began, so practice continued in anticipation of a postseason berth. But when the final rankings came out, the Spartans dropped to 10th and were out of the playoff picture. Washington and Jefferson, a team they beat during the regular season, ended the year ranked ahead of them. In the end, Case would suffer for being in the same region as first-ranked Augustana and second-ranked Mount Union. "We weren't as disappointed as you might think," said DiSanto. "For the seniors, we were there for an 0-9 year. To turn it around and be a part of a 9-0 season was very rewarding."
