1968 Football Squad
- Post by: mcalibrary
- December 20, 2023
- Comments off
INDUCTEE
Jazz Diminick called the 1968 season “the most prosperous in the history of our school” in an annual letter to colleges and football scouts. The Tornado coach had taken to writing biography on each of the seniors, including their stats and college board scores, to colleges where he hoped to drum up interest in his players.
The Tornado coach proved he was a good judge of events as they occurred. He wasn’t so good at forecasting, though.
Prior to the season he had predicted the three toughest games of the season would be against Pottsville, Shamokin and Shikellamy. Actually he thought at least two of the schools might be ranked higher than his own team. His team knew differently, though, and actually handled all three rivals easily shutting them out by a combined score of 60-0.
What a team. They were led defensively by Bob Sacavage and Dennis Lentini and offensively by the “Touchdown Twins” Gary Diminick and Bobby Veach and quarterback Jeff Greco.
At season’s end Sacavage was a first team all stater, Diminick a second teamer and Lentini and Veach honorable mention.,
They scored a total of 369 points to only 58 for the opposition over the course of the entire season. And even though they lost in the Easter Conference Championship game to Blakely, they were one of our most important teams. They created the blueprint for all the great Mount Carmel teams that followed.
The names are still recognizable by Tornado fans: Veach, Diminick, Greco, Lentini, Sacavge, Semicek, Sulick, Shirmer, Dubb, Churprinksi and many others. More importantly, the wheels were set in motion for the great Mount Carmel Express of the next 110 years. Listed as underclassmen on that list Joe Diminick sent to those college recruiters were names like Phil Klaus, John Halcovich, Gary Howanec, Henry Hynoski, and Carm Defrancesco.
This was Joe Diminick’s 7th coaching season. So the site work and preparation was already in progress…but this was the team that put Mt. Carmel on the high roads as a football power to be reckoned with.