Bruins have three championships, last played in the big game in 1992
Friday, December 4, 2009
By RALPH COX- The Herald Star
Brooke is back.
That's the thinking of most people in Brooke County as their Brooke High School football team heads to the West Virginia Class AAA championship game Saturday in Wheeling, where it will take on South Charleston at noon for the West Virginia Class AAA state championship.
The Bruins made it a habit of going to the state finals through the 1980s, but they haven't been there since they dropped a 36-7 decision to DuPont in 1992.
The consolidated high school began football competition in 1969 and 10 years later made it to the playoffs for the first time. That was when Paul (Bud) Billiard, who became the most successful Bruin head coach in school history, was an assistant coach on the staff of Vincent "Sonny" Rea.
Rea retired from coaching after that season and Billiard became the head man. His first team in 1980 made it all the way to the championship game and lost to North Marion 10-3, finishing with a 12-2 record.
This year, Tom Bruney, is in his first year at the helm of the Green and Gold and his team not only is going to the playoffs, but has tied the school record for wins at 13-0 and has a chance to make history with one more win.
"It was very exciting to be in the playoffs my first year as head coach," said Billiard of his feelings about going to the tournament. "It was a fascinating ride. It was nothing where I felt pressure or great anxiety. I just thoroughly enjoyed it. The bigger the game the more fun it was."
Billiard said he has been around the Brooke football team and Bruney a lot this season and he feels the first-year Brooke coach has anxieties that any coach would have.
"He's very task-oriented and an intense individual," Billiard explained. "He knows he has a chance to make history in his first year and all that is real good. I don't believe there is a coach alive that doesn't have anxieties in a situation like this.
"But we have to realize that winning is nothing new to him. He's been involved in winning programs as a son, a player and coach. He is not a flash in the pan. He's the real deal."
The next time the Bruins got to the state Class AAA championship was in 1985 and the team beat Parkersburg 7-0 to bring home the first of three title trophies.
Doug Wagstaff, an-all state guard and outside linebacker on that team, said his first memories of that championship game are of revenge.
"They (Parkersburg) beat us in the first game of the season that year," Wagstaff explained. "As seniors, we had to rally the team back from that first game. We wanted to motivate the younger group to focus.
"Coach Billiard was an inspiration to us all and I see a lot of Billiard in Bruney. The players have bought into his (Bruney's) philosophy and this season has rekindled some of the old memories of Brooke football in the 1980s."
Wagstaff, who now is a registered nurse and the nursing supervisor at the Brightwood Center on Hooverson Heights, said "It makes me want to go out and hit somebody."
Wagstaff, whose daughter, Savannah, a sophomore at Brooke, is the student trainer for the Bruins, said he has seen all the games this year.
"I think the most important thing is for the kids to savor the moment," he continued. "After all, it could be a once in a lifetime experience.
"If I had the chance to speak to them, I'd tell them to grab and take hold of the experience while they can. Success often is so fleeting.
"Coach Billiard used to preach that we should leave something for the ages - something that people can remember you by.
"My daughter has been there since day one this year. She has gotten to experience some of the things I experienced in 1985."
Wagstaff, who played two years of football at Dennison University in Ohio before injuries to an ankle and knee ended his football career, has another daughter, Sydney, who is a senior at Brooke. Both Wagstaff girls are members of the Brooke girls basketball team.
The 1985 season was the first of three straight trips to the championship game for Brooke. The Bruins lost to Stonewall Jackson by a field goal, 17-14, in 1986, but they won their second title in 1987 getting revenge over Stonewall Jackson 12-0.
"I felt a lot of excitement," said Ron Staffileno, who was the right tackle on the 1987 team. "We wanted to get back to the championship game and it so happened that we got a rematch with Stonewall Jackson and that made it even better. We got our revenge."
Staffileno, who now owns Staffileno's on the River restaurant in Wellsburg, also said Billiard provided much of the inspiration.
"He always told us that it could be the last time we put on a uniform and that after it was over we would always wish to have just one more game," Staffileno explained. "He (Billiard) said 'don't hold back.'
"He would say don't hold anything back, and now this years team has a chance to write history like we did by being the first Brooke team to go 14-0. That's pretty special."
Staffileno's 1987 Bruins were the first team to post a perfect 13-0 season for the school.
"We were the first to go 10-0 in the regular season, too. I remember we had to practice on Thanksgiving morning," he continued. "If you practice on Thanksgiving, it is a good thing. I remember it snowed that year the night before Thanksgiving and we were out in the snow practicing that morning, but it made it that much more fun.
"The thing that I remember about the game was all the students pouring out of the stands after we won. It was a special feeling. Also, I remember we had bottles of RC Cola to spray on each other in the locker room after the game. That was our champagne."
Staffileno said four players off that team went on to play Division I football. He was a three-year letterman at Maryland, Lance Chambers went to West Point, Dustin Reeves played at Appalachian State and Matt Ceglie went to West Virginia University.
"Matt and I were best friends and I have to tell this funny story about him," Staffileno said. "Ceglie was habitually late for everything. Coach Billiard was counting heads on the senior bus after the championship game and the bus began to roll. Matt was my seatmate and he wasn't there, so I yelled at coach. There was Ceglie running after the bus like you see in one of those commercials. It was really funny."
The Bruins' next trip to the state title game was a 20-13 loss to Capital in 1989. T. J. Billiard, coach Billiard's son and a tackle on the undefeated 1990 team that won the championship, said the trip back to Charleston actually began with that loss.
"On the way home after that 1989 loss, we talked a lot on the bus about going back in 1990," he said. "We wanted to win it all and we did. We won the OVAC and the state.
"We lost the first two games in 1989. We were 0-2 and it seemed like the season was over. We got beat by Mount Lebanon, Pa., and St. Clairsville. I was the tight end and punter in those two games.
"Back then, the football mothers hosted Saturday breakfast at the various homes, but suddenly after that second loss, the breakfast was canceled. Dad had the team, however, meet at our house that Saturday morning where he and the coaching staff changed just about everything.
"Dad said, I just want to tell you that you are moving to left tackle," Billiard said from his Charlotte, N.C., home while laughing. "They installed the wish bone offense that morning in our front yard and we ended up 7-3 squeaking into the playoffs. The third loss that season was by 19-18 to Youngstown Ursuline.
"We lost to Capital in the championship game, but we were a changed group with high aspirations for 1990.
"Also, I can remember one day in 1990 when Jimmy Casale, a player on the team, came running out of the school library waving a newspaper and screaming that Brooke was ranked 24th nationally in the USA Today high school poll. We finished 23rd in the nation that year.
"I think that growing up in that atmosphere served me well in my career in the corporate world," said Billiard, who is regional sales manager for International Paper Co.
Billiard follows the Bruins closely through the Internet and telephone conversations with his father and other family members. He got back to see one game this year, but also got the chance to attend a practice and talk to Coach Bruney.
"There is something about this bunch," he said. "There is something about this coach. I know there is something special there because of the controversy that has arisen. I think the tradition is starting again.
"I sent a letter to Bruney telling him he reminded me of my dad. I grew up idolizing my dad and I had never been around a person like dad until I met Bruney. I believe that he can build another dynasty at Brooke.
"When I played, we studied film so much that we each knew, almost personally, the player we were going up against in each game. We knew his name, his tendencies and what he ate for lunch. We remembered every play.
"Earlier this year, I asked my nephew, Kyle Wales, who starts at tackle as a junior, about the player he was going up against in an upcoming game. He seemed almost dumbfounded when I told him what we did. I asked him that same question a couple of weeks later and he told me the name and statistics of the guy he was going up against. I told him and would tell the others if I had the chance to speak to them that they should soak it all in this week. It boils down to 48 minutes and those are the minutes that will last forever in their memories."
