Super Saturdays The Complete History of the Massachusetts High School Super Bowl 1972-2002 by Mike Richard. Athol Press Inc., 2003. ISBN 0-97294997-0-4. 240 pages. Available from the author, 101 Temple St., Gardner, MA 01440, $24.99 plus $3 for handling and postage.

For the better part of 100 years, playing football for the Blue Devils marked the high point of a schoolboy's three short years at Leominster High School. From Lincoln Terrace to Whalom, anyone who donned the "blue and white" earned instant adulation from parents, siblings, relatives, employers and teachers. If producing plastic was the economic lifeblood of the city, then producing high school football players was its recreational byproduct.

Football players always got the prettiest (or in some cases, the wildest) girls. Duck-tailed Mechanic St. gangs never hassled anyone wearing a letter sweater. Even in elementary school, just before we recessed for the Thanskgiving Day holiday, classes weren't dismissed until Leave It To Beaver pre-teens sang a high-pitched rendition of the LHS fight song.

The night after a Saturday game, football players strolled into City Hall like newly elected ward councilmen, waived through admission-free by smiling T.A.G. director Bob Cooseboom and into the auditorium for three hours of non-stop rock n' roll, ladies choices and vivid reenactments of defensive stands and touchdown runs.

Leominster always fielded competitive football teams. It's coaches--Comerford, Broderick, Hannigan, Beaulieu, Vaillette and Dubzinski--were well respected across the region. Yet, bragging rights beyond the city's boundaries frequently fell on deaf ears. After all, powerhouse teams like Brockton, Everett and Walpole dominated the Boston sports pages. In Worcester and Springfield, the local teams received top billing.

What was needed was some kind of playoff system to silence Boston naysayers who dismissed high school football teams west of Rte 128 as inferior; some kind of Big Finale that wouldn't interfere with traditional Thanksgiving Day games and overlap the basketball season; some kind of Super Bowl.

And that's what Bay State fans and players got beginning in 1972.

Author Mike Richard, longtime high school sports reporter for the Gardner News and Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, spent months trudging through the dusty stacks of Boston Public Library gathering information on every Super Bowl game. Inside his book you'll find stats sorted by game, coach, high school, wins, losses, scores, plus a long section on individual records, and it's all nicely packaged with enough numbers to pacify the most statistically hungry fan.

Mike intersperses all the stat charts with fascinating sidebars on the players and the games:

• In Super Bowl '75, Milford's Howie Long recovered one of Pittsfield's four fumbles, helping the Scarlett Hawks to a 42-14 victory. Long later went on to a stellar career with the Oakland Raiders.

• In Super Bowl '76 disgruntled South Boston fans, irked because their team was down 41-0 to Newburyport, took out their frustrations on Newburyport fans in the stands. When fighting spilled out onto the field game officials halted the contest. The first and only time it's happened.

• Doug Flutie never appeared in a Super Bowl, but younger brother Darrin helped Natick High to bowl victories in 1982 and 1983 with a six-yard touchdown run in the '82 game against Melrose and three touchdowns the next year against Peabody.

Team Leominster has fared well since the inaugural game in 1972. With their victory over Minnechaug in the 2002 Division 1 Central-Western Massachusetts game, the Blue Devils captured their 10th (out of 12 tries) championship to became the all-time winningest team in Super Bowl history, surpassing Brockton with nine victories. Individually Scott Chester (LHS '82), still holds the Super Bowl single game record for most touchdowns (5), and the career record for most touchdowns (9) and points (54), and is second in career yards with 428.

Meanwhile, Dave Malatos (LHS '75) still holds the Super Bowl record for the longest touchdown after a blocked field goal attempt in what has to be the most bizarre finish ever to a high school football game.

As Mike describes the game, with Leominster trailing Chicopee 7-0 with only 10 seconds remaining, Blue Devils running back Steve Ringer bulled over from the one, then kicked the extra point to force overtime. After a scoreless first overtime, the second overtime dramatically ended when LHS linebacker John Angelini blocked a winning field goal attempt by Chicopee's Ken Miner. In a scene made for the football version of the movie, "Hoosiers," Malatos picked up the loose ball at the 14-yard line and raced 86 yards for the game-winning score.

As Malatos lumbered toward the goal line behind a phalanx of blockers, the Chicopee players stood motionless, apparently unaware that a blocked field goal could be advanced by the defensive team. Chicopee protested Malatos' game-winning score but, after a long delay and confusion, the refs reaffirmed their decision and Leominster high-fived it off the field surrounded by--you guessed it--adoring parents, siblings, relatives, employers and teachers.

LHS Super Bowl Scores