Old school coaches... on football, then and now

High school football in this area has existed almost as long as the public education system itself and has been the focal point, at least in the autumn, of many of our community activities. Although the "Coal Region" is no longer the hotbed of college recruiting it was a half century ago, there is no doubt that high school football, in these parts, is taken every bit as seriously now, if not more so, than it was then. That's one reason Southern Columbia and Mount Carmel have combined to win 11 state championships in the 22 years the PIAA has sponsored state tournaments.

Much has changed in the sport in the past half century. The average player now is as big as the biggest players were then. For example, the average weight of the starting players on Mount Carmel's 1969 Eastern Conference championship team, considered by many to be the finest team from this area, was 173 pounds (offense) and 176 (defense). By comparison, the average weight of the starters on last year's Southern Columbia team was about 197. That Mount Carmel team had not one player listed above 197 pounds in the starting lineup. Last year's Southern team had 12 players coming in at 200 pounds or more.

Teams play more and more on artificial turf. Two-platoon football, pioneered by the major colleges in the 1950s, is more and more the way the game is now being played at the high school level. The passing game has become more popular, and offseason workouts, at one time completely up to the individual player, have become two or three nights a week summertime staples, with yearly weightlifting and 7-on-7 passing scrimmages included. There is even talk of the PIAA allowing spring football practice.

Joe "Jazz" Diminick, Ed Binkoski and Harvey Boughner all were around as head coaches back in the good old days. Diminick, of course, was for a time the state's all-time winningest coach, and still coaches on a volunteer level a couple of days a week for his former assistant, and now head coach at Mount Carmel, Carmen DeFrancesco.

In 31 seasons as the Red Tornadoes' head coach, from 1962-1992, Diminick's teams posted a record of 267-81-7, winning five Eastern Conference Southern Division championships and three overall EC titles in the days when that was the be-all and end-all before the state championship format evolved. Overall, Diminick had a record of 290-96-9, including stints at Coal Township and Susquenita. He coached all six of his sons - Gary, Ken, Joe, Ed, John and Mike - during that stint.

Binkoski was head coach at Coal Township High School from 1961-64, then coached the first six seasons at Shamokin Area. He had an overall record of 74-31-1 and won two Southern Division championships.

Boughner was head coach at Trevorton and Line Mountain for more than a decade, posting an overall record of 85-37-5, with two undefeated teams (Trevorton, 1960 and Line Mountain, 1971) and three conference champions.

Together, these three were head coaches for almost 60 years, with a combined record of 449-164-15 and a winning percentage of .724.

The News-Item recently sat down with the three at Kemp Memorial Stadium, while players from Shamokin, North Schuylkill and Lewisburg took part in a passing scrimmage, and got their views on football then, and football now.

NEWS-ITEM: Do you guys all get to see a lot of football? Do you get to see a lot of the games?

BOUGHNER: Yeah, I do.

BINKOSKI: I try to follow Shamokin as best I can. I usually don't see everything but I see most of the games. I go see Bucknell, Penn State, Susquehanna once in a awhile, so overall I'd say, I see a lot.

N-I: Jazz, I know you get around following Carm (DeFrancesco) a lot.

DIMINICK: If I see Mount Carmel play once a year, twice a year, that's a lot. I still go to the games, helping Carm out. I was still helping him last year.

N-I: What about the game has changed primarily, if anything, in 40 or 45 years?

BINKOSKI: I would think the advent of the weightlifting program. I know when I was involved, weights were kind of taboo and everybody thought you'd get muscle-bound, and that's changed dramatically. All the successful teams today seem to have a very well supervised weight program, and I'm sure Jazz and Harvey would agree. If you look at the high school level, they're playing with 250-plus pound kids up front. If we had two 180-pounders, we were lucky.

NI: If you watch ESPN Classic, if you watch college games from 25 or 30 years ago, even teams like Oklahoma and Nebraska, their linemen then are only as big as the kids out here now. It's incredible.

BOUGHNER: Not just the strength, but the speed, too. The kids now who weigh 250 or 260, they can move like a cat; they have speed. Beaner's right; we thought they'd get musclebound.

DIMINICK: Back in the '40s, you know, there wasn't any such thing as weights. We didn't even know what a weight was. We didn't do it in high school, we didn't do it in college. I don't know when they really started, sometime, I guess it had to be in the '50s.

BINKOSKI: The late '50s or early '60s.

NI: I remember in school we got a Universal Gym, like in 1971, somewhere around there.

DIMINICK: We had the first one around here, the first Universal Gym, in 1969.

NI: The other thing I think of as being a big change is what you're seeing out there (on the field). I understand the need for the 7-on-7s and the summer workouts but I also wonder if the kids aren't getting their high school lives taken away from them because the football coaches want them there all summer, the basketball coaches want them there all summer. Were any of you doing any of that back then? You stayed around longer than any of them, Jazz. Was any of that around when you were around at the end?

DIMINICK: Well, it was just starting to come around. When I came to Mount Carmel in the '60s, it was just starting at that time. The basketball coaches wanted the kids around, and the baseball coaches. We didn't push any weights or any kind of hard workouts when we started and I think that's one of the biggest things that's happened. Our team at least, used to go out there in the '60s, one day a week in June, as group, as a team, worked out down at the field. In July, it was two days a week, and in August three days a week until preseason practice began. So, we weren't, I'd say, burned out. Everybody else got burned out. The report around town, around the league, was that if you were going to get Mount Carmel, you had to get them early, because we were just coming on. As the season went on, we got stronger. Our kids were fresh all the time.

N-I: How many kids, I would think most of your kids back in those days, were playing two or three sports?

BINKOSKI: Oh yeah. We encouraged that. We endorsed kids to play more than one sport. I know that doesn't seem so today. A lot of people want you to play a sport year round. We encouraged a kid if he was a good athlete, I just thought it made a kid a better athlete. We encouraged them to get a good high school experience. So few of them were going to get scholarships, that we encouraged that.

BOUGHNER: I know from coaching at smaller schools, when you had kids who were special, they had to participate. Football, basketball, wrestling or baseball. It was good for them.

DIMINICK: They're taking the good spirit out of the kids in high school now. Saying, one sport, specialists. Kids should be able to play all sports, or as many as he wants. This thing of specializing, of majoring in one sport, I don't go for it.

N-I: You were also kind of a pioneer in having kids run track. When you had speedy kids, you wanted them to run track. Obviously, some of them were baseball players too, but I know back then, you wanted kids to get involved with the track program. It kept you in shape during the springtime.

N-I: Harv, I was kind of joking outside but I kind of wasn't joking either, when Trevorton and Mahanoy Joint got together, there were some real logisistical headaches I think, to get around as far as getting kids to and from practice, because not everybody had a car and there certainly wasn't a bus route between Trevorton and Line Mountain.

BOUGHNER: No. It was 17 miles. Yeah, it was a problem for awhile. but then everybody got used to it. Everbody waited around for the bus. When the bus was there, you had to get them off the field. You ran your practice around the bus. We got the work done.

NI: How did you handle two weeks of preseason? Did you have the kids there for a camp the whole time?

BOUGHNER: We had one week of camp. We stayed at the school. When it was Trevorton, we went to the Union County Sportsmen's Club. Do you remember that (nodding to Binkoski and Diminick)?

DIMINICK: Do you remember that?

BOUGHNER: Frankie and Jimmie Stace. We went six years in a row. That was great. They came in there boys and they came out ready to go. It was great. They had a nice bar, too. (Laughter).

NI: One of the other things I've noticed in the years I've been covering, is that teams now will throw the ball 40, 50 times a game. Jazz, you were a little ahead of the curve on that because you had some good quarterbacks, but that's really, really changed in the years since. It's probably good for the game. It's probably opened up the game a little and made it more interesting for the fans.

BINKOSKI: Teams have a tendency to fill the gap. The pro league's a passing league, then the college teams do it and it filters down to high school. I guess there are high school teams that have talented quarterbacks that throw more. One thing I know Jazz and Harvey would agree, now, everybody's team has wide receivers. When we coaching there wasn't any such thing as a wide receiver (laughter). That's a position now, they're listed in the program as wide receivers. It's a job now.

NI: That's the diva position in the NFL now. It used to be running back, now it's the wide receivers.

BOUGHNER: While you're talking about that, this wildcat. You guys know what I'm getting at.

BINKOSKI: The wildcat is the old single wing.

BOUGHNER: That's exactly right.

BINKOSKI: When I watch games and listen to announcers say that, it's just the old single wing.

BOUGHNER: Yeah. In fact, there's a good story about that. I used to have that in. I used it occasionally. Glenn Ressler, Larry Erdman and those guys (Mahanoy Joint) came up to play us in Trevorton in 1960. They were undefeated, unscored upon, and so were we. And it (their defense) was an unbalanced, and we couldn't do much teamwise. So in the second half, I said we've got to go to the single wing. And we did, and Clyde (Mahanoy Joint coach Clyde Miller) never shifted down. We'd get five yards, eight yards, five yards, eight yards.

NI: You mentioned Glenn Ressler, and that's something else I was going to bring up, too. One of the things I always hear about from less knowledgeable people is that, well, Line Mountain, it's a farmer league, blah, blah, blah, blah, but Charlie Roth made the point to me, the two best, well known football players that ever came out of this area came out of the farmer league, and that was Glenn Ressler and Gary Collins over at Williamstown.

BOUGHNER: There's another kid, Larry Erdman, a Little All-American at Susquehanna.

NI: Did you, back when you were coaching, recognize that kind of attitude and is that something you kind of fought against.

BOUGHNER: Those kids were talented people, Good Lord, yeah. I was scared to death of them. But we took the game as it came, you know. We had some good kids. That Glenn Ressler game, that was a great game.

NI: This is going to you, Ed. You got out of it kind of early. Any particular reason?

BINKOSKI: Well, toward the end, we weren't doing well. This was in 1970, and the losses affected me a great deal. When you go through seasons where you're fortunate to win a number of games, and it's great to do the winning, but the losses really affected me a great deal. We weren't going to do well, so I just thought maybe it was time for a change at the time, and then I got into administration right after that.

N-I: How old were you at the time, about 41, 42?

BINKOSKI: How old was I when I got out of coaching? I was only 38. I got in early. Actually, right from the Army, I ended up down in Sunbury coaching football. When it was just Sunbury, it wasn't Shikellamy at the time.

N-I: (To Diminick): On the opposite end of the spectrum, you stayed longer, a lot longer than either of these two guys

BINKOSKI: A lot longer.

NI: I assume some of that was to herd your own family through a little bit, but any other reasons, did you like it that much?

DIMINICK: I just loved the game, that's all. I'd been an athlete through and through, and I started getting into coaching, and that's all I ever did, and officiating. I did both. In fact, next year will be my 61st year officiating. 61 years.

BOUGHNER: And you still can't see.

BINKOSKI: I have to mention this. I was in eighth grade and I used to hitchhike up to Kulpmont. They played on Thursday nights, they played Thursday night football and Jazz was the star of the Kulpmont High School team, running all over the field. It was just a thrill for me to go up to Kulpmont and watch Jazz play. I hitchhiked up there on Thursday night. So Jazz was my early hero.

NI: Another thing you guys all have in common is you all went through the jointure thing. Shamokin and Coal Township, Trevorton and Mahanoy Joint, Mount Carmel and Kulpmont. I know you and I (to Binkoski) have talked about how you guys handled it in the past, having Shamokin kids wear the Coal Township jersey and vice-versa. Anything either of you other guys did to ease that transition a little bit? Maybe it wasn't a problem? Maybe it was more of a problem with Shamokin and Coal Township?

BOUGHNER: Yeah, we had some problems We talked to the kids and get the kids together. One thing that helped was that we started winning.

DIMINICK: That takes care of everything.

BOUGHNER: '68, '69, '70, '71, we had some good years.

DIMINICK: When Kulpmont played in the jointure, we didn't have one problem. It was mostly the fans.

BINKOSKI: The kids were good, but the fans were a problem.

DIMINICK: They (the kids) just molded in with everyone's message. They meshed with everyone. The fact that some of our better players were from Kulpmont helped, too.

N-I: Jazz, you just mentioned that you were always in coaching and officiating and obviously, all three of you guys were athletes, but why did you want to get into coaching to begin with? Was it just an outgrowth of being an athlete, or was there something else to it?

BINKOSKI: Well, I enjoyed being around kids. I enjoyed being around young kids. It kind of stimulates you. But I kind of ended up through the back door. I initially was going to work for Scott Paper in Philadelphia but then got involved with summer camping up in the Adirondack Mountains. As a result of that, I needed the summer free.

DIMINICK: I got into it by accident. I was ready to be drafted. But I took a job at home, and I was never drafted.

NI: How about you Harvey?

BOUGHNER: Well, being from the coal region, when you grew up, you had a ball in your hand - football, baseball, basketball. When I went to school, I got involved with the sports. Then when I went to college, I decided to become a coach. I always had a ball in my hands, up in the alley, shooting basketball, going to a lot, picking a team and playing baseball.

NI: Charlie Roth's dad said your best sport was always baseball. Do you agree?

BOUGHNER: True, I agree.

NI: When you look at the game today, the coaching today, do you ever wish you were still in it? Do you envy these guys. Do you think they have too much pressure on them at this point? Any thoughts on that?

BINKOSKI: Well the comical thing is, I keep referring to Jazz because of all the fantastic success he's had and how long he's been in it, but we can all go back when coaching staffs were painfully small. When we started we had three guys, and that was varsity and JV. Today the coaching staffs are really large. I don't know if the game has become so sophisticated. but to answer your question, there's always a thrill to be on the sidelines and to be in the game and in the locker room afterwards, but right now, I'm enjoying having a hot dog and watching the games.

BOUGHNER: Absolutely. Just going to the games and just really enjoying them. I just completely enjoy it.

DIMINICK: I don't know. In the 58 or 60 years that I've been coaching football, I'm still doing it. Up to last year, I was still helping Carmie. Two days a week, three days a week. On game nights, I do that. It never left me. I can't say that I miss it; I never got out of it. It's game night; that's the big thing.

NI: One last thing, and then I'll let you go. Do you see any great difference between kids today and kids 40 years ago? Jazz, you would probably know more than any since you're still kind of close to it a little bit.

DIMINICK: I think today you don't have quite the dedication that we had back then. They're great athletes, don't get me wrong. I'm not taking anything away from them as athletes. There are a lot of good ones out there, and a lot of big ones. Big athletes, which we didn't have back then. That's the biggest thing.

BINKOSKI: I had an absence. I finished up coaching at Shamokin in 1970 but then went back to Lourdes in 1990 after a 20-year absence, and the kids at Lourdes were good. Their ability wasn't at the level maybe that everybody would have liked. Maybe a half a dozen might have been really good football players, but they certainly tried. Their attitude was good and they certainly made an effort.

BOUGHNER: I think too, the work ethics of some of the kids back then. If you told them to run through the wall, they'd go through the wall. If you do that today, they'd say, 'I don't know why I have to do that now.' And their parents had good work ethics. So the kids did too. They were coal region kids too, so they had good work ethics.

NI: I think part of it too, is that the kids today, they've grown up in an era when they question authority a little bit. You say, 'Run through a wall' and they say, 'What good is that going to do me? I'm going to break my nose and the wall's still going to be there.'

DIMINICK: See, one of the big things, too. Back then, back then, a kid wanted to play both ways. There was no such thing as one way. They'd get ticked off when they had to go out of the game. But today, it's I want to play offense or I want to play defense.