From "A TREASURY OF NOTRE DAME
FOOTBALL" IN THE SPRING Of 1940, Coach Frank Leahy was putting the frosting on his Sugar Bowl champions at Boston College. A few miles away in West Springfield, Angelo Bartolo Bertelli was the talk of New England prep school circles. This Bertelli could play hockey. The Boston Bruins wanted him. This Bertelli could play baseball. Both the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers wanted him. Most of all, this Bertelli could throw a football. Every Eastern, several Southern, most Midwestern and a few Far Western colleges wanted him. But this Bertelli had decided to play his football for Notre Dame--thanks to the missionary zeal of Milt Piepul, 1940 captain and fullback of the Fighting Irish who preceded Angelo at Cathedral High. Leahy dispatched his backficid coach and chief talent scout, Ed McKeever, to West Springfield for a talk with Bertelli. Angelo had heard about McKeever, who reputedly could sell Florida oranges in California. It was astonishing how many boys went to Boston College after a few minutes' conversation with McKeever. Bertelli feared a similar few minutes would be Indiana's loss and Massachusetts' gain. The evening McKeever called at the Bertelli homestead, Angelo hied to a downtown movie house where he sat through a double feature and two Mickey Mouses. McKeever went back empty-handed to Boston. Bertelli entered Notre Dame. The wheel of football fortune spun crazily. Elmer Layden resigned as Notre Dame coach to become commissioner of the National Football League. Frank Leahy returned to his alma mater to succeed Layden. Here's where a Stanley-Livingstone angle creeps into the story. McKeever accompanied Leahy to Notre Dame. The first afternoon of 1941 spring practice, McKeever, still hot on the scent, after stalking his man from the rock-rihbed coasts of Massachusetts to the flat prairies of Indiana, sighted his quarry. McKeever closed in stealthily, tapped Angelo on the shoulder and inquired, "Doctor Bertelli, I presume?" Leahy and McKeever finally had come into undisputed possession of Bertelli. It was a disillusioning experience. Angelo had a nice smile, blue eyes, brown hair, surprisingly Nordic features, but he was six feet one inch tall and weighed only 168 pounds-just three more than he had scaled in high school. Outside of throwing a fast, accurate pass, any resemblance between Bertelli and a Notre Dame halfback was coincidental and probably an optical illusion. Angelo could punt 40 yards, with a stiff wind behind him. He could run, but not far. Somebody always tackled him without much trouble. Angelo didn't really run. He skated along, ankles close to the ground, no high knee action, a hangover from his hockey training. Only a prophet could have predicted that in the fall, "Skinny" Bertelli, the awkward freshman, would pitch the Irish to an unbeaten season. Leahy was no prophet. He dropped Bertelli to the fourth team and forgot about him-for almost two weeks. But Angelo quickly graduated from the fourth team. He received very special attention from his old friend McKeever. Each afternoon they went off into a far corner of the field and for hours practiced forward passing. Bertelli fired ball after ball with his peculiar feinting motion, flicking the ball around under his nose the way a bartender handles a cocktail shaker. You can't guess when or where he's going to throw. May 1st was moving day for Angelo. The inevitable happened. Leahy promoted him to first-team left halfback. And it was inevitable that Angelo would be promoted to the first team. Anybody in West Springfield, Massachusetts, would have foreseen that, for back home Angelo had reduced to a fine art the old American custom of starting in at the bottom and working to the top. Here is the bare out line of a story that would have kept Horatio Alger writing for 300 pages: Angelo's mother and father were tobacco farmers near Venice, Italy. In 1915, they emigrated to West Springfield. Angelo's father went to work as a gas maker. Three children were born, Rose in 1918, Josephine in 1919 and Angelo in 1921. When Angelo was five years old, the Bertellis returned to Venice to sell their farm and visit friends. They stayed awhile, then sailed for New York, disregarding the strident protests of young Angelo, who wanted to become a gondolier. Angelo entered West Springfield grade school, played baseball, football, and hockey-mostly hockey. He was a rink rat for the Springfield professional team. He sharpened skates, cleaned uniforms, stayed late with the janitor to sweep up after the crowds had gone home. The players liked Angelo and taught him the tricks of the game, and he had no trouble making his high-school team. Eddie Shore, the ex-Bruins star, who now owns and manages the Springfield Indians, called Angelo the greatest prep player he ever saw. Angelo was on the fourth team of the football squad at Cathedral High at the beginning of his junior year, until Coach Billy Wise saw him fire a pass with the same wrist flick he used to bewilder goalkeepers and throw runners out at second base. Wise, who had pitched Holy Cross to football victories over Harvard in 1925 and 1926, knew a natural passer when he saw one. Billy showed Angelo a few tricks-how to feint and fake, look one way and throw another, and then assigned Angelo to the first team at left halfback. Angelo showed his appreciation by pitching Cathedral to eight consecutive victories and an unbeaten season. In his senior year, he hurled Cathedral to eight more victories and another unbeaten season. He was named captain and quarterback of the all-city team. And he was graduated an honor student and president of his class. Practice makes perfect was the secret of Angelo's home-town triumphs, and he did not forget the magic formula at Notre Dame. Leahy might have been satisfied with Angelo's passing proficiency in 1941 spring practice but Angelo wasn't. Bertelli got a job on the campus for the summer, painting. All summer long, Angelo painted and toughened that right arm. He painted everything from the stadium press box to the apartment of Clashmore Mike, Notre Dame's Irish terrier mascot. And every afternoon George Murphy, varsity right end who lives in South Bend, drove out from town for a game of catch. How much these practice sessions helped was apparent when Notre Dame played Georgia Tech at Atlanta. Bertelli made one of his few bad throws of the season, a wobbler seemingly destined for the bleachers close behind the end zone. Up went Murphy in the far right corner to take the ball in one hand. Up popped a big white 6 under Notre Dame on the scoreboard. Two other Notre Dame greats, Gus Dorais and Knute Rockne, back in 1913 did the same thing when they spent the summer as lifeguards at Cedar Point, Ohio, throwing a football around in their spare time. Then that fall they went east and forward-passed Army dizzy. Well, Bertelli and Murphy were rewarded, too. Murphy was elected captain for 1942, and the extra measure of passing accuracy Angelo achieved made him last fall the most highly publicized sophomore in the history of football. It was a well-deserved distinction. Angelo completed 70 of 123 passes for 1,027 yards. He threw eight touchdowns and set up seven others out of Notre Dame's 28 total. The Irish won eight games and tied Army for their first undefeated season since 1930. Bertelli, though only a sophomore, was runner-up to Minnesota's Bruce Smith for the Heisrnan Award, college football's equivalent of major league base- ball's "most valuable player" trophies. Angelo made more All-America teams than you could throw a football at. Here was success with a capital S. It might have increased the size of Angelo's hatband, except for several reasons. Angelo can remember all the way back to when he was a rink rat, and Angelo's teammates never let him forget that good little sophomores are seen and not heard; speak only when spoken to. A few days after Angelo made his varsity debut against Arizona by completing 11 out of 14 passes, the inevitable ribbing of the sophomore sensation started with Steve Juzwik, Angelo's running mate at halfback, the chief ribber. Steve discovered that Bertelli was interested in gangster lore. Angelo soon won the nickname of "Duke," after the comic-strip villain who was then fighting a losing battle with Dauntless Dick Tracy. Everywhere Duke went, a few members of the Irish varsity tagged along, slouching in the approved Humphrey Bogart manner, their hands in their pockets on imaginary guns. This pantomime brought the attention of the student body to Bertelli who, up until now, had been merely a name in football headlines to the great majority of Notre Dame's 3,000 students. Discovering Bertelli's identity did not exactly uplift student morale. He didn't look like much without his shoulder pads. There is the story of the freshman who got a good look at Angelo, then went out and canceled his two-dollar bet on the Northwestern game. Gradually the ribbing shifted from the Duke's underworld interests to his clumsy running. Angelo was completing more than 50 per cent of his passes, but all he heard from his teammates was the dismal news that he was averaging 1.4 yards as a ball carrier. Before the Army game, Juzwik was looking out of the dressing-room window in New York's Yankee Stadium. The rain was splattering down. The field was ankle- deep in mud. It was apparent that Angelo's passes would not figure in Notre Dame's attack. Juzwik turned to Angelo and grinned. "Why don't you stay in here where it's warm and curl up with a good book?" Steve suggested. "You won't be worth a nickel to us in that muck." It is doubtful, though, whether ribbing really affected Angelo's football outlook. Joe Petritz, Notre Dame's sports publicist, says Angelo is the calmest player before, during, and after a game since Frank Carideo quarterbacked the 1930 Notre Dame team. Joe tells this anecdote: Bertelli pitched his best game of the year against a great Navy team, completing 12 out of 18 attempts for 232 yards. He threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Juzwik;completed two passes to the Navy 8- and 2-yard lines, respectively, to set up Notre Dame's two other touchdowns in the 20 to 18 victory. "What do you think about when you drop back to pass?" a sports writer asked Angelo, in the locker room, later. Angelo hitched a towel around his middle, thought for a moment. "Not much of anything," he finally replied. "You see, I know who the receiver is and where he should be before the play starts. Nine times out of ten, he's there. Then it's automatic. I throw the ball." "Were you surprised at completing so many passes?" Angelo took another hitch in the towel. "Not surprised, exactly. Every pass I completed this afternoon I've completed a hundred times in practice. And it's a lot tougher completing passes in a scrimmage against our second and third teams because they are familiar with every pass I throw. Navy didn't have that advantage. I figure this way: If I can complete 25 per cent of my passes in practice, I should complete 50 per cent in a game." That's pretty accurate figuring; over the season Angelo's competition percentage was .569. One of the reporters turned to Harry Wright, the quarterback. "Doesn't that guy," the reporter pointed to Bertelli, "ever get excited, even on the field?" "That guy," said Wright, "has sherbet for blood. Remember when Cameron intercepted Angelo's flat pass and ran it back for the tying touchdown in the third quarter? That was Bert's fault-he threw two yards behind Dove, the end. "Couple of minutes later we had the ball at midfield. Time for another flat pass, but I was afraid Bert might be a little shaky after throwing one away. I nudged Bert in the huddle. 'How do you feel?' I asked, Bert didn't change expression. 'I feel fine,' he said, 'How do you feeI?' 'So I called the flat pass. Bert hit Dipper (Evans) right on the nose, and Dipper ran down to Navy's eight-yard line. Two plays later we had our winning touchdown." One afternoon last February, Leahy called Angelo into his office. "Bert," Leahy said, "you are the finest passer and the worst runner I've ever coached. We've got to do something about it." Leahy diagrammed a Notre Darne pass play on his memorandum pad. "We were lucky last year, Bert. We didn't have any deception. Everybody knew when you were going to pass. You just took the ball from center, dropped back a few yards and threw. No deception, but theyll be laying for us next fall. Think you can play quarterback?" "I guess so," Angelo replied. "Why?" "Because'-Leahy sketched a new offensive diagram-'here's what we're going to try out in spring practice. It's the T formation. That means we'll have to discard up Notre the Rockne shift, and we may get a few howls from the synthetic alumni, but we're really not throwing Rock's stuff out of the window. Rock was using the T formation way back in 1920, long before the Chicago Bears made it popular again." Leahy drew a big circle on the pad. "This is you, Bert. You'll play right behind much of center and handle the ball on every play. You'll feed it to the other backs or you'll fake and drop back to pass-that's where we'll get the deception we lacked fall. Of course, it means a lot of work for you. You'll have to memorize 50 or 60 new plays next month." "Sounds good to me," Angelo said. "I think I'll like this T formation." The Irish face a long football haul, for this is Notre Dame's centennial year and an appropriate schedule has been arranged. They open against Wisconsin on September 26th, then meet Georgia Tech, Stanford, the Iowa Preflight School, Illinois, Navy, Army, Michigan, Northwestern, Southern California, and finish December 5th against Great Lakes Naval Training Station. Leahy is not worried particularly, even if the Irish face the toughest schedule the university has even taken on. He has some awfully good holdovers who are either enrolled in the campus Naval R.O.T.C. and the United States Marine Reserve, or they are not yet registered for selective service. Twenty-one of his freshman linemen, guy's who last year enjoyed pushing the varsity around, are available this year. A reporter who watched the yearlings work out commented, "They're too big to stop and too third young to draft." And if Leahy ever did have morose moments, it was on March 19th when Angelo Bertelli, his football bombardier, enlisted in the United States Marine Reserve. Which means that Angelo will complete his college course before going into active service and therefore will be on hand this fall. He'll be in there with a new set of plays, calling signals, blocking, tackling and-throwing deadly passes. No, Leahy isn't worrying. But those ten coaches whose teams are playing Notre Dame should be at least apprehensive. Or they're crazy. Take them away, Angelo! |