Golden Horde teams to grace hall of fame

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By Derek Liebig

A pair of fabled gridiron teams from Granville’s past will be enshrined in the Capital Region Football Hall of Fame.

The 1930 and 1933 Granville High School football teams will be inducted in August.

“We decided this year to add teams,” said Nick Fitzgerald, a member of the hall of fame committee. “The first year we decided to start with teams that were undefeated, untied and unscored upon. You can’t go any higher than that.”

The teams, along with the 1965 Hudson Falls squad, will be the first teams inducted into the hall, which previously had included only players, coaches and officials.

Fitzgerald said the committee solicited nominations and pored “through the annals of local history” to identify this year’s hall of fame class.

“I’m so excited about this,” said Eileen Troy, Granville’s athletic director. “I think this is something that will be tremendous for Granville football, the school and the community.”

During a time when the country was languishing from the effects of the Great Depression, Granville football thrived.

In the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Granville had the premier football program of the era.

From 1929 through the 1934 season, Granville lost only three games – to Mineville in 1929 and 1931 and to bitter rival Whitehall in 1931 – and tied in three others. During those five years just 11 teams managed to cross Granville’s goal line and of those, only three managed to score more than seven points in a game.

At the end of the 1934 season, Granville had won 50 of its previous 56 games while losing three times and tying three times. During that stretch, the Golden Horde outscored its opponents 1,294 to 140, a run of dominance that has never been matched.

“During that time Granville dominated the local football landscape,” Troy said.

The teams featured names that are still familiar in the community today: Severance, Labas, Caiazza, Roche, LaFountain and Billow, among others.

Led by what the Granville Sentinel described as the “Four Horsemen” and the “Great Greek” Nick Pagones, the 1929 team surrendered just 39 points en route to a one-loss season and Northern League Championship.

The team was believed at the time to be the finest to ever come out of Granville, but that title was short-lived as the 1930 team proved even better.

The team was coached by Sam Eppolito, the son of John and Clara Eppolito, who had moved to the United States from Italy seeking a better life.

A standout athlete in three sports at St. Bonaventure, where he lettered in football, basketball and track, Eppolito graduated from Cortland Normal in 1926 and was recruited by Professor Claude McMaster to become Granville’s physical and athletic instructor.

Under his tutelage Granville athletics thrived, particularly in football.

Granville opened the 1930 season with a 19-0 victory over Mechanicville and followed that with a 37-0 rout of Hudson Falls and a 20-0 win over Cambridge.

During the fourth week of the season, Granville hosted Glens Falls, which at the time boasted a population of more than 18,000, nearly four times the number that lived in Granville.

While most people expected Glens Falls to run roughshod over Granville, the game proved to be perhaps the easiest game of the season for the Golden Horde. Glens Falls never came close to scoring and Granville rolled, 26-0, even with its second string playing nearly the entire second half.

Granville posted convincing wins over both Saratoga and Greenwich in the weeks that followed to set the stage for a huge game with undefeated Whitehall.

Ed Tyler, a writer for the Granville Sentinel, wrote: “The spirit of enthusiasm was bubbling over on both sides. The game ran true to form and proved to be a thriller whistle to whistle.”

The teams played a scoreless first half, but Granville took a 7-0 lead in the third quarter and shut down Whitehall’s offense the rest of the way.

Granville would win its final two games, against West Rutland and Fair Haven, to finish the season undefeated – outscoring its opponents 227-0 in nine games.

The following year, Granville lost only to Whitehall and Mineville before embarking on a 27-game streak without a loss.

Included within that streak was the undefeated season of 1933.

The 1933 team may have been even more dominant than the 1930 team. The Golden Horde opened the season by beating Glens Falls, 40-0, and followed that with a 21-0 win over Hudson Falls and a 52-0 win over Fort Edward, setting the stage for the annual showdown with Whitehall.

The game proved to be the closest of the season as Granville emerged with a narrow 6-0 win. The Horde would go on to defeat a team consisting of RPI freshmen, 20-0, the following week and post a 12-0 win over Mineville in the regular-season finale.

Granville faced Cambridge in the championship and, while the game was close initially, the Golden Horde turned it into a 40-0 rout.

“The Cambridge line performed in fine fashion for the first quarter but the high-powered guns of Granville’s backfield left that same line a badly mangled piece of wreckage before the final whistle,” Tyler wrote.

For the season Granville outscored its opponents 191-0 in seven games.

The 1934 team repeated as Northern Conference champions with the only blemish a scoreless tie against Whitehall. The 1935 team stumbled to a 3-4 record, including a 9-0 loss to Glens Falls that snapped the team’s 27-game unbeaten streak.

But Granville would rebound later in the decade and experienced more success in the years to come, although not to the same degree as the teams in the early 1930s.

This year’s hall of fame class includes eight players, three teams, four coaches, two officials and four others who have been involved in local football. The two local teams mark the first time someone associated with Granville football have been inducted into the hall of fame during its brief six-year existence.

“I think this is one of the most exciting things to happen in the Granville community in a long time,” Troy said.

She has reached out to some of the descendants of members of the teams – none of the actual players are believed to be alive – to invite to the ceremony on Aug. 1. Eppolito’s grandson, Paul, is expected to attend and is hopeful his father may also be able to attend.

“I’d like to have all the families come. It’s really their families’ award,” Troy said.

Anyone seeking more information is encouraged to call Troy at the school at 518-642-1051.