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October 7 News Story
St. Marys Wins 500th High School Football Game
ST. MARYS -- With the October 5, 2001 victory over the Elida Bulldogs, the Roughriders reached an elite plateau in high school football - 500 wins.
Roughrider Official Statistician Buz Howard calculates that Friday's win marked number 500 for the program. Beginning with the teams of 1912 and 1913, and then annually from 1919 to the present, the teams from St. Marys High School (through 1922) and Memorial High School have won two-thirds of their games in reaching the 500 milestone.
The gap in years was apparently due to the controversial aspect of the rough sport in its early days. According to David Stilwell, writing in Burton Andrews' "The History of Roughrider Football 1912-1994" -
- "The sport was 'officially' sanctioned for several seasons prior to 1920, but there were problems with injuries and 'ringers.' Workers from local factories often showed up on the high school team.
"For one stretch during the early 1900s the school administration banned the sport. But football reappeared to stay in 1919."
Here is the breakdown by decade, up to and including the Oct. 5, 2001 game:
| DECADE |
W |
L |
T |
PCT. |
| 1910s |
3 |
7 |
1 |
0.300 |
| 1920s |
53 |
27 |
8 |
0.662 |
| 1930s |
45 |
36 |
7 |
0.556 |
| 1940s |
35 |
43 |
9 |
0.449 |
| 1950s |
55 |
31 |
4 |
0.640 |
| 1960s |
51 |
42 |
4 |
0.548 |
| 1970s |
86 |
16 |
0 |
0.843 |
| 1980s |
77 |
25 |
1 |
0.755 |
| 1990s |
82 |
31 |
- |
0.726 |
| 2000s |
13 |
4 |
- |
0.765 |
| TOTALS |
500 |
262 |
34 |
0.656 |
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