Brent Peterson: The History of Football in Stillwater

As the dog days of summer slowly move through the month of August the one thing on the mind of most sports fans is the upcoming football season. The NFL is back and this year will be a test of strength, both physical and mental. The team is up and practicing and soon their season will begin with the same tests as the Vikings.

To go into the history of football in Stillwater, we should visit some of the high school's championship clubs that have played on the gridiron in this city.

One of the most powerful football clubs in Stillwater High School history would have to be the 1943 team coached by Leo A. Rorman with Assistant Coach Phil Belfiori. In that year, the team went undefeated [7-0] and outscored the other clubs 192 to 13. If there was a state championship that year surely Stillwater would have captured the trophy.

In 1971, playoffs were started for the state high school football champions. In 1975, four years after the playoff system was started and also just four years after George Thole became the high school football coach, the Stillwater Ponies found themselves playing Richfield for the State Class AA Championship.

The game was played on a cool Friday night in November at Parade Stadium in St. Paul. Both teams had extremely good years and were both undefeated entering the championship game. There were 14,000 fans on hand, and at that time it set a single-game playoff attendance record.

The game was hard fought and the scoring took place not only on the passing game but also on the ground. The quarterback for Stillwater was Mike Nolan. He completed only six passes in the game but they were good for 124 yards. His main target through the air was Bob de St. Aubin who caught five of those passes for 97 yards, which included the winning touchdown with 18 seconds left in the game.

Todd Butterfield and Terry Richert kept Stillwater moving on the ground. Richert scored a touchdown on a four-yard run and de St. Aubin scored earlier on a 42-yard pass from Nolan. Richfield had scored on a Mike Connelly seven-yard run, a 56-yard pass play from Joe Smith to Mike Voelker and then Dave Larson added a 30-yard field goal.

With a score of 17 to 13, the Stillwater Ponies went 77-yards with the last play being the short pass to de St. Aubin for the touchdown.

After the game, coach Thole said, "We played a real worthy opponent in Richfiled. I know that. Our defense just rose up and stuck it to them in the second and third quarters. We shut down their running game."

Since 1975 George Thole had led the Stillwater High School Football Team into the championship game several more times, winning some and losing some. As we watch this year's squad get set to start a new era in the football team's history, let us not forget the history of the champions that have been given to us.

When the Ponies play home games I hope that the community will turn out and support the team. The home crowd can certainly become that "12th man" and hopefully help lead this year's team to the Prep Bowl and another state championship.

Brent Peterson is the Executive Director for the Washington County Historical Society.