Annual City-Poly Game Has Always Generated High School Milky Way

By Keith Mills

Another City-Poly game has come and gone, the 121st in this illustrious rivalry, and every time the Black Knights and Engineers take the field it is impossible not to take a trip down memory lane.

Logic says to start at the beginning -- 1889, the first time the game was played. But let's begin 21 years ago -- 1988, the 100th anniversary of the oldest high school-public school rivalry in the country.

It was cool and sunny that Thanksgiving Day at Memorial Stadium when Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke threw out the ceremonial first ball. Coach Augie Waibel led his Poly Engineers out of the Orioles’ third base dugout; coach George Petrides led his City College Black Knights out of the first base dugout, and the centennial showdown was about to begin. There was some pleasant irony in Petrides and Schmoke being on the field together.

More than 20 years earlier, in 1965 and '66, it was Petrides, the City College center, snapping the football to Schmoke, the City quarterback. 

City -- which also featured such outstanding players as John Sykes, who played with the San Diego Chargers of the American Football League; Ken Dutton; Ara Person, who played tight end for the St. Louis Cardinals; Tom Gatewood, wide receiver for the New York Giants; and future Maryland state legislature member Curt Anderson -- won those two games, 52-6 and 42-6.

Schmoke went on to Yale and eventually became mayor of his hometown, edging Clarence "Du" Burns in a close election one year before he tossed out the first ball in the 100th City-Poly game.

In 1975 Petrides replaced Ron Chartrand as City's coach and has been there ever since. Saturday's game at M&T Bank Stadium was his 36th as the Knights’ chief.
City won the 100th game, 20-7. The Knights won the 99th game as well, 34-22, thanks to what is now known as “The Play.” Quarterback Chris Smith, the Baltimore Sun's All-Metro Player of the Year in 1987, handed the ball off to fullback Paul Williams, who tried to sweep left but was chased down by Poly's defense.

Williams ended up running about 30 yards behind the line of scrimmage when he stopped, turned and threw across the field to Smith, who caught the ball and ran 50 yards for a game-clinching touchdown.

The Black Knights finished 1987 a perfect 11-0 and snapped Poly's 17-game win streak in the series.

The Engineers of the late 1960s and '70s were powerful. Waibel, a teammate of former Poly quarterback Jack Scarbath at the University of Maryland in 1952, replaced Bob Lumsden as the Engineers coach in 1967. Scarbath went on to become an All-American quarterback at Maryland and is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. Waibel went on to coach Poly for 31 years, winning 280 games and 14 MSA A Conference championships before retiring in 1997. He died four years later.

But City-Poly is more than just Petrides and Waibel, two of its most legendary figures.
It's 1884, the year Poly was founded, and 1889, the year City College was born. The two schools played a football game that year and have been at it ever since.

It's 1908, Poly's first win. 

It's Charlie Rudo, as in Charlie Rudo Sporting Goods, a Baltimore institution since the 1950s. Rudo played fullback for City in the mid-1930s. He helped the Black Knights beat Poly in 1934, '35 and '36 by a combined score of 59-6. In 1936, City finished the season unbeaten and gave up just one touchdown -- to Poly -- on Thanksgiving Day.

It's Harry Lawrence, the coach of City that year. Lawrence arrived at City in 1934 and left in '41, leading the Black Knights to 38 straight wins. In 1947, Lawrence took the coaching job at Bucknell, where he is a member of that school's Hall of Fame.

It's Lumsden, who played and coached at Poly and is one of the true icons of Baltimore high school sports. He played running back at Poly from 1938 to '40, and coached from 1949 to '66, bringing the T-formation to the Engineers offense and four conference championships to the school on Cold Spring Lane.

It's George Young, who graduated from Calvert Hall and played for Lawrence at Bucknell. Like his mentor and Poly's Lumsden, Young is as legendary as he was successful. He led City to an unbeaten season in 1961 and was the coach when Schmoke and Petrides teamed up in '65 and '66 to beat Poly by a combined score of 94-12. Young left City for a job as a scout with the Baltimore Colts in 1968, and in 1979 he became general manager of the New York Giants, who won two Super Bowls during Young's tenure. 

It's 1913 to '21, when Poly won nine of the rivalry games in a row.

It's 1934 to '42, when City went 8-0-1 against Poly.

It's Bob DeWald, a former running back at Poly under Lumsden. DeWald helped the Engineers beat City three straight times before heading off to the University of Pittsburgh, where he was a teammate of future NFL Hall of Famer and Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka.

It's Thomas Biddison, an All-American tackle at City in the mid-1950s. Biddison went on to Johns Hopkins University and later became a prominent Baltimore lawyer.

It's 1949 to '59, when Poly went 10-0-1, and it's 1964 to '69, when City won six straight.

It's Gatewood, a 1968 City graduate and one of the finest receivers ever to play area high school football. Gatewood helped City beat Poly three times before moving on to Notre Dame, where he played for coach Ara Parseghian, was a teammate of Joe Theismann and was a two-time All-American.

It's Greg Schaum, a tremendous two-way tackle for Waibel's Engineers in 1969, '70 and '71. Schaum, end Ken Wingate and running back Tony Smith helped Poly snap City's six-game win streak in 1970 with a 6-0 win. One year later, Schaum and Smith led Poly to a 22-14 comeback win as Smith rushed for two touchdowns. Schaum went on to Michigan State and then the Dallas Cowboys, where he played for Tom Landry and helped the Cowboys win the 1977 Super Bowl.

It's Tim Whittie, Brian Baker and Mike Pitts. They played for Waibel's dominant teams of the late ’70s. Whittie and Baker, now defensive line coach of the Carolina Panthers, both went to Maryland, where Baker helped the Terps win the 1983 ACC Championship. Pitts went to Alabama and was the 16th pick of the 1983 NFL draft. He played 12 years in the league with the Eagles, Falcons and Patriots.

It's 1979 and '80, when the junior varsity teams played because City was being revamped, and 1970 to '86, when Poly won 17 in a row.

It's Gary Sells, City's quarterback in 1978 and '79 who would later join the U.S. Marine Corps.

It's Lawrence Drumgoole, who played on one of the great Poly teams in 1984. The Engineers finished the year unbeaten and were ranked 18th in the country by USA Today. Drumgoole went on to play at West Virginia. In 1988, with Drumgoole playing cornerback, the Mountaineers, led by quarterback Major Harris, finished 11-0 before losing to Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

It's Bryant Johnson, a 1999 graduate of City and one of 10 City-Poly graduates to play professional football. Johnson went to Penn State and was selected by the Arizona Cardinals with the 17th pick of the 2003 NFL draft. He's now playing wide receiver for the Detroit Lions.

It's Antonio "Buttons" Freeman. Like Johnson, Buttons was an explosive wide receiver who played one of the great games in City-Poly history. In 1990, in the snow and freezing cold at Memorial Stadium, Freeman hauled in two long touchdown passes from quarterback Chris Lafferman as the Engineers won, 27-0. One year later, Freeman was playing at Virginia Tech. Seven years later, in January 1997, he was helping the Green Bay Packers win Super Bowl XXXI. Freeman's 81-yard touchdown pass from Brett Favre helped the Packers beat the New England Patriots.

It's 1993, when the game was last played on Thanksgiving Day and 1999, when it was first played at Ravens Stadium.

It's Ellis Foster, a 2009 City grad now a cornerback at Rhode Island, and LaQuan Williams, a 2006 Poly grad now at Maryland. 

It's Adrian Coxson of City, who is headed to Penn State next year, and Antoine Goodson, Poly's highly-coveted option quarterback

And it's Roger Wrenn, Barney Wilson and Tim Dawson, who along with Petrides are the caretakers of the game today. Wrenn spent 32 years at Patterson and is now in his fourth year as Poly's coach while Wilson (Poly) and Dawson (City) are the principals at the two schools, whose bands, cheerleaders, alumni and students still come out to cheer their favorite school and write the latest chapter in this classic high school rivalry.

Issue 143: November 2009