by Mark Benton
Sports Reporter

     As another high school football season kicks off, this calls for a look back at the varsity win-loss records that can be traced to 1924.

     Eighty-five years ago this fall, the Gowanda High School Football Team posted a record of 1-4-1 under Coach Herman Polt. Gerald Donnelly took over the reins as head coach the following year and the team struggled to a 1 win and 7 loss season. However, the Blue and White won 14 consecutive games over the next two campaigns, going 7-0 in both 1926 and 1927. This is the only time in recorded local high school football history that Gowanda put together back-to-back undefeated seasons.

     Howard Ferguson was the next coach to guide Gowanda. His two years at the helm continued the winning ways as the football team went 4-2-1 and 4-3. Enter Ted Conwicke in 1930. During the Great Depression, Conwicke’s troops put together four winning seasons in six years. Gowanda’s best season came during a bleak time for the entire country in 1931 as the “G” men won six and tied one during with a rare nine-game schedule.

     Howard Hillis came onto the scene from Ithaca College in 1936. Gowanda put a winning team on the field every year except 1940 before “Coach” was called into action in 1942.

     Gowanda won the first of three Southwestern Conference Championships under the guidance of Hillis in 1941, with a 7-1 record. A late-season win at home over Falconer secured Gowanda’s place at the top of the standings.

     From 1942-45, accurate win-loss records for the varsity football team have been hard to uncover. The ‘42 team had several returning players from the championship team in ‘41, and went 3-2-1 under Interim Coach Irving Hallstead, a basketball coach by trade. According to George Dispenza, who is now deceased, the next three years produced no more than one or two wins a season. Nothing was recorded in the school’s yearbook during the war years except to say that the team struggled.

     Hillis returned to his coaching duties when the war ended and Gowanda went 5-2 in ‘46. The ‘47 team went 6-1-1 and won another conference title. Since the Southwestern Conference disbanded from 1942-46, Gowanda had the distinction of winning back-to-back conference championships.

     The varsity football team hit on hard times after ’47 and did not have a winning season for the next five years. However, the tide turned in ‘53 and ‘54 as the teams combined to win 13 games while only losing 3. Unfortunately, their outstanding records of 6-2 and 7-1 did not produce a league championship.

     From 1955 through 1960, the Gowanda Varsity Football Team went through their darkest period on the field in school history. Over this six-year period, the Panthers put together a forgettable record of 6-34-6. The ‘56 and ‘59 teams failed to win at least one game during the regular season. The ‘56 squad posted an unusual record of 0-4-4. Three of the four ties came against teams that had won their division. The ‘59 team lost their first seven games and were on the verge of becoming the only 0-8 team in school history. Trailing 19-0 entering the fourth quarter of their last scheduled game, the Panthers miraculously scored 19 points in the final stanza to salvage a tie with Lake Shore.

     Next week’s installment will cover the varsity football team from 1961 to the present.