But then the '81 season loomed and the wheels inside Sullivan's ample brain began turning. Games are more fun than scrimmages ... Our last scrimmage is against St. John Neumann and the new coach there, Bill Brannau, was my coach at Judge in 1960 ... Let's turn this into a game!
"There were no limits in the Catholic League on the number of games you could play," Sullivan said. "We just had to get permission to play one before school opened. It wasn't hard at all, really.
"After playing two scrimmages already, it just seemed to make sense to go with a game. A little break from the two-a-days routine. Everybody was for it. Kids, parents, coaches."
Saturday, Sept. 5. Eleven o'clock in the morning at Northeast High. The first LDW game in city history! Oh, boy!
The kickoff is in the air and ... no one's in the stands. Well, almost no one. If you had made everyone sit together, the, ahem, crowd might have filled one section.
Judge frolicked, 41-14, as Jerry Magallanes, now a prominent head referee for college football games, rushed 22 times for 148 yards and four touchdowns after Brian Reidy busted a counter 35 yards for a score on the game's fourth scrimmage play. Also, Bill Hartigan fired a 65-yard TD pass to Pat Glennon as the Crusaders accumulated 503 yards.
"One problem. No one was there," Sullivan said. "It wasn't too hard to figure out where they were: down the shore. So we all agreed, let's take it there next year."
Actually, that first meeting almost took place in Sand Land after the Rev. John Kowalewski, then Judge's athletic director, heard assistant coach Bill Edger comment a few days beforehand, "We should play this game down the shore." Time constraints prevented that.
