Editor's note: Final in a three-part series chronicling the 1985 Natick High football team from Tim Dumas, who was a senior that year. Read Part 1 here; read Part 2 here.
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The plane buzzed overhead, speaking for the entire town.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"33 straight (wins) says you're not No. 1 until you beat Natick."
The trailer behind the aircraft hovered above the 1984 Division 1 Brockton-Lexington Eastern Mass. Super Bowl at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough. Natick finished that season with a 10-0 record, but because of the ratings system, a third consecutive trip to the home of the Patriots was out.
Last run for father and son: One final day on the field for Natick football's Mark and James Mortarelli
“That was frustrating for everyone involved, but that’s the way the point system worked that year,” Natick High 1986 graduate Mark Bianchi said recently. “For as much as we feel like we got screwed our junior year, it sort of paid off our senior year.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe streak that the plane so brashly advertised grew to a nation-high 38 before Wellesley pulled the Redmen back to earth with a stunning victory in late October of ‘85. But the team soldiered on with a backup quarterback, the late Dennis Green. Natick’s upset of 8-0 Walpole – plus losses by previously undefeated Winchester and Waltham the same weekend – put the Redmen back in the Super Bowl picture.
A 45-8 win over Framingham South on Thanksgiving made it official: Natick, dubbed the “Home of Champions,” would face Brockton, the “City of Champions” in Foxborough. After the Wellesley loss, the Redmen won four in a row. The team was rolling.
Joe Flammini, left, intercepts a pass to seal the 1985 Division 1 Eastern Mass. Super Bowl for Brockton against Natick at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough.“You start drinking the Kool-Aid again,” two-way lineman Al Pogarian recalled. “You think, ‘maybe we are a team of destiny. Maybe this is all meant to be: we’re going to right the terrible wrong (of not going the year before).”’
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLike Walpole (Matt Rodgers, Iowa), Brockton had a star player headed to the Big Ten: Greg McMurtry, who also excelled in baseball; he was the first recipient of the Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year award for football. He became a first-round pick of the Boston Red Sox and also played for the Patriots. He appeared in the Rose Bowl three times while at the University of Michigan and was named All-America his senior year at Brockton.
Bianchi had no problem recalling McMurtry’s talent.
“I remember running into McMurtry a few times (on the field) and feeling like, hitting him feels a lot different than hitting other athletes in the Bay State League,” said Bianchi, who was Harvard University’s leading receiver as a senior, earning second team all-Ivy League honors.
Natick (41-2 from 1982-’85) dominated the first half of the decade, Brockton (42-1 from ‘84-’87) the second. They only met once, in the middle: 1985.
Brockton's Greg McMurtry in an undated photo. (The Enterprise)Dennis Green comes in to 'figure it out'
Starting quarterback Chris Forte, whose twin Greg was a running back, broke a finger on his throwing (right) hand in the Wellesley game. Green played the second half that night and piloted the Redmen into December.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I don’t remember any panic,” said Joe Arena, a receiver who was a classmate of Green’s. “It wasn’t like, ‘oh no, Chris is out.’ Greenie will come in and figure it out.”
“He was pretty level-headed,” said Chris Forte, who currently lives in Marlborough. “I did my best to support him when I was hurt. I wasn’t concerned with him taking over.”
Natick fell behind Brockton 14-0 in the first quarter. Because defensive back Rocky Edwards suffered an injury in the first half, Green took his place on that side of the ball. Few Redmen played both ways that season, and a switch was made at QB
“That’s when coach (Tom) Lamb came over and said, ‘you’re going in,’” said Forte, who had hardly played since the Wellesley game but was back under center for the third quarter against Brockton, which won the Super Bowl in ‘84.
Natick quarterback Dennis Green (21) in the huddle against Wellesley in 1985.Trailing 22-6, Forte rejoined the huddle and nearly brought his team back as Bianchi made two acrobatic touchdown receptions. Trailing by two points in the final minute, however, Forte’s final pass was intercepted in the end zone by Joe Flammini to close a 22-20 loss. Those were the most points surrendered all season by Brockton, which between 1984-92, lost just seven times.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Going toe-to-toe with the defending champs, we had to be proud about that,” Pogarian said. “I just feel we ran out of time against Brockton. I didn’t really feel like they took it to us.”
Teammates remember 'Greenie' and Howie Resnick
The 1985 season did not end with a championship, but the year 1993 included two losses that endure. Howard Resnick, a senior of the ‘85 team, and Green died two weeks apart.
Green - “Greenie” to most – was a rare four-year starter at Springfield College, where he was a captain and all-New England player in 1990 for a program that rarely threw the ball. Out of his 47 career receptions, 10 were touchdowns.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAs a health fitness major, Green interned with the San Diego Chargers. Arena remembers Green telling him about the “stud” linebacker on the team, Junior Seau. Green attended graduate school at the University of Kentucky when Duke’s Christian Laettner hit his famous buzzer-beating shot in the East Regional final in ‘92.
“I swear I saw him on the TV behind the Kentucky bench,” Arena said.
After graduating from KU, Green became the youngest strength and conditioning coach in the NFL, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At age 23, however, he was killed in a two-vehicle crash on Interstate 75 in Florida on May 9, 1993. Dale E. DeCarmine, 28 of Brooksville, Florida, also died.
“It was shocking,” Arena said. “There’s a hole that my little group of friends still haven’t recovered from.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementResnick died suddenly on May 23 and also played at Springfield, where the Howard Resnick Award is given to “the player that represents what Springfield College stands for by displaying commitment and dedication to the team both on and off the field.”
“I remember it being one of those real-world events you’re not really ready for,” Pogarian said. “You feel invincible at that age. It just didn’t make sense.”
Pogarian, Waltham finally beats Brockton
Pogarian did get a measure of revenge against Brockton. After playing at UMass, he joined the coaching staff at Waltham High, where the head coach was Paul Mayberry, who played on the offensive line with him for the Minutemen.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWaltham played Brockton on Thanksgiving for nearly 80 years until the rivalry ended in 2009. Brockton dominated the series, winning 11 in a row at one point, but in 2006, Waltham won 7-0.
“That was the last high school game I ever coached,” said Pogarian, who has served as an assistant at MIT since 2007. “It was fantastic. All right, I can live with myself now.”
While the Brockton loss in 1985 stung, the experience resonates.
“Being in Foxborough and feeling like the whole town of Natick was there was something I never have forgotten,” Bianchi said.
Forte recalls attending a Natick High Hall of Fame induction ceremony, when Tom Lamb (winner of 248 games and four Super Bowl while coaching at Natick and Norwood) addressed the gathering.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I just remember Coach Lamb talking about how special that era was; between the fans, the buses going to games – it was crazy,” Forte said. “And he was right.”
Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram at tdumas1.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Natick football 1985, part 3: Redmen recall loss to Brockton, late teammates
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