BHS Football Linked to Notre Dame, 4 Horsemen

By KEN HAMWEY,
Bulletin Sports Writer

One of the best untold stories in Bellingham is its football program’s link to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame — more specifically linked to one of South Bend’s legendary Four Horsemen. 

The connection, which took almost two years to develop, involved a math teacher from Hopkinton, Villanova University, and an all-American quarterback from Notre Dame.

The link started when Bellingham High fielded its first football team in the early 1930s, when the Great Depression was rearing its ugly head. When the school’s first coach left after one season, a search for a replacement became a high priority for the fledgling program.

Frank Moriarity, a native of Hopkinton who graduated from St. Mary’s of Milford (no longer in existence), enrolled at Villanova where he majored in math as an undergraduate. Harry Stuhldreyer, Notre Dame’s star quarterback, was attending Villanova as a post-graduate student. Moriarity and Stuhldreyer weren’t best friends, but they knew one another well enough to often chat about college life.

When Moriarity graduated, his goal was to teach math at Hopkinton High. With the Great Depression taking hold, jobs were scarce. No math positions were available in Hopkinton, but Moriarity discovered that Bellingham had a vacancy. He interviewed and got the job on one condition — the new teacher had to coach football. Needing to work and eager to teach, Moriarity consented.

Athletics played a role in Moriarity’s life, but football wasn’t high on his list. He was well-versed in basketball, and golf later became his specialty. Suddenly faced with leading and guiding students on the gridiron, Moriarity realized that if he was going to survive as a teacher-coach, then a letter to Stuhldreyer might keep him afloat.

Bellingham’s football schedule was only five games, primarily because gasoline was scarce during the depression and World War II was just around the corner. Stuhldreyer sent Moriarity five plays used by Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s legendary coach.

Moriarity’s team battled through the five games, finishing with a 2-2-1 record. Stuhldreyer had mailed him two offensive plays, two on defense and one special-teams play.

The season ended and Moriarity finished his first and only year at Bellingham High successful as a math instructor and a coach with a .500 record. He left for his native Hopkinton when informed of an opening in the math department. During his lengthy stint on the Hillers’ faculty, he became the school’s varsity basketball coach and he later coached golf. After his death, the Tri Valley League named a golf trophy after him and presented it every year to the school that won the golf championship.

Moriarity was well-known in local circles, especially in Hopkinton and Milford, but Stuhldreyer was known nationwide. He was the catalyst who sparked Notre Dame’s 13-7 victory over Army on Oct. 18, 1924 at the Polo Grounds in New York City before 55,000 fans.

With Stuhldreher at QB, Rockne unveiled a backfield that included left halfback Jim Crowley, right halfback Don Miller and fullback Elmer Layden. They had run rampant through opponents’ defenses since their sophomore seasons.

The quartet, however, became famous when Grantland Rice, a sportswriter for the New York Herald-Tribune, provided the words that led to their football immortality. After Notre Dame’s victory over Army, Rice wrote the most famous passage in the history of sports journalism.

He began, “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are pestilence, famine, destruction and death. But, these are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.’’ 

George Strickler, then Rockne’s student publicity aide and later sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, made sure the name stuck. After the team arrived back in South Bend, he posed the four players, dressed in their uniforms, on the backs of four horses. The wire services ran the famous photo, and the legendary status of the Four Horsemen was etched into the history of the roaring ‘20s.

After the triumph over Army, Notre Dame’s third straight victory of the season, the Irish were rarely threatened. A 27-10 win over Stanford in the 1925 Rose Bowl gave Rockne and Notre Dame the national championship and a perfect 10-0 record. 

How did this writer discover the link between Bellingham, Moriarity and Stuhldreher?

I began my career as a sports journalist in 1967 at the Framingham News, long before it became the Metrowest Daily News. At times, the sports editor would assign two reporters to a significant game. Moriarity, who was still teaching math at Hopkinton, worked for the paper as a part-time correspondent, mostly covering sports in Hopkinton.

Frank and I often teamed up for a major event. One day, en route to a game, Frank revealed how Stuhldreyer helped him get through his brief time as a football coach. He also discussed the plays and the strategy Stuhldreyer provided.

Unfortunately, Bellingham eliminated football in the early 1940s. A student-athlete had died from injuries suffered in a game, and that led to football’s demise at BHS. The sport, however, was revived in 1966 at the junior-varsity level. A varsity program re-emerged in 1967 when George Anderson, for whom the current field is named, became the Blackhawks coach. BHS became a charter member of the Tri Valley League when that circuit was formalized in 1966.

Dan Haddad, Bellingham’s current coach, had some interesting comments about the school’s link to Notre Dame and one of its Four Horsemen.

“I’m amazed that coach Moriarity’s team was able to play five games with such a small playbook and win games,’’ said Haddad. “To know that Knute Rockne and the Four Horsemen’s influence made it all the way to our little town of Bellingham is remarkable. Such a great story from the 1930s.’’