Central President Katharine Davis (264) and her daughter joined members of the 1985 football Lancers in an afternoon of celebration Oct. 10 as the current team played Murrell Dobbins.
Photos and article by Yvonne Dennis (246)
Good luck to Central High’s 2025 Lancers in tomorrow’s game! Here’s hoping you channel the luck and legacy of the team from 30 years ago.
When members of Central High’s 1985 undefeated, championship football team recently reunited at the site of some of their most dominant wins, of course there were going to be recollections about who made this big play, and who made some huge f-up over the course of the 10 games that fall 40 years ago.
But the meetup at the Lancers home field, Broad and Somerville, on Oct. 10 put on full display the much broader impacts that elite season has had on those teens turned men.
“I only played a little,” on the offensive line and defensive line, said Dan Kurtz (246) in an interview, as Central’s current football squad hosted Murrell Dobbins Vo-Tech that crisp Friday afternoon. “I got spot time, but there were great athletes on the team and for me it was about finding ways to contribute. If I wasn’t going to play a lot, play hard when I could play. Really being ready and supporting guys and building a lot of chemistry so that 40 years later we still want to see each other.”
The starters on that team were not only great athletes, they were hungry athletes returning from a crushing 16-0 loss in the Public League championship the year before against Frankford High and its multi-record-setting running back Blair Thomas. Thomas, who later graduated to Penn State All-American and NFL first-round pick, posted 167 rushing yards and a touchdown in that win for Frankford’s Pioneers.
So Central made some important changes for the 1985 season. One was bringing Bruce Glatthorn onto Bob Cullman and Joe Nolan’s coaching staff.
“He was the whole different type of coach that we needed” said Mike Roche (246). “He really ran our defense. Our defense was crazy good.”
Mike Roche was also crazy good. So another change for that 1985 season, his junior year, was his becoming the starting quarterback. The late, award-winning Philadelphia Daily News reporter Ted Silary wrote that Roche and receiver Rich Drayton (246) “blossomed into one of the league’s better-ever combos.”
“There was a little pressure as we kept getting closer to the prize,” Roche said. “The first playoff game we played, it was I think 0-0 at half time.” The team kept pushing through, doing what they knew they were capable of, he said.
“Then we played Frankford. I think I threw a couple interceptions. Nothing was going right for us. We turned the ball over. Then the second half…I threw two TD passes, ran one in. We got ‘em!”
It was a formative time for Roche on the field and off.
“Central changed my way of thinking in life, period,” he said. ”I came from Southwest Philly. Pretty much white grade school and all that. I come up here and I just meet some of the finest people. I made some real friends. It was nice. It just broadened my views on life. That we’re all people. And, put a bunch of people together, you can accomplish anything. I feel so blessed I actually came this way on this journey.”
Results of the 1985 season as printed in 245’s yearbook.
Even though Roche, Drayton, and other offensive stars like Adrian Smith (245) were oftentimes singled out in news coverage, senior offensive and defensive tackle Jeff Cuff (245) credited the whole team for stepping up after that ‘84 loss. “We had a lot of guys underneath us who stepped up, younger guys who were really good—Jon Ford, Troy Hughes. I think we had effort from everyone.”
Cuff and Hughes were close friends who wound up rooming together at Virginia State. Hughes went on to become a social worker and was one of the early victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, when front-line personnel took care of others before themselves.
Reminiscing at the reunion without him, Cuff said, “It’s kind of bittersweet. Troy lived across the street,” he said, pointing from the field to 15th Street. “He was a great friend, roommate; good classmate.” Drayton, who is also Central’s athletic director, started a scholarship in Hughes’ name that is given to the player considered the best teammate.
Another deceased teammate whose name was raised often this day was John Diaz. ”John Diaz was a good friend of mine,” said Lance Adams (245), who today works as a recovery coach facilitating services for people with mental health issues and/or substance abuse issues. “He came along – in the 9th and 10th grade you could never have projected the strides that he made, that he would make as a senior.”
Kenneth Lomax (246) was the main driver in getting the teammates back together for this anniversary. He tagged as many as he could in a post on Facebook and guys responded.
“Ten years ago prior we met and I felt as though we’re all getting older. A lot of guys aren’t going to be around here, just to be brutally honest,” said Lomax, who played running back and cornerback. “I may have been the person that kind of pushed it, but it was really for the guys that were seniors. This is for them… I’m just happy to have been a part of the team.”
Because the team had come so close Adams’ junior year, senior year he said nothing less than the chip would be acceptable. So they had a perfectionist mindset.
“Me and Jon Ford used to just go at it about anybody getting any type of yardage against us,” said Adams. “We were on each other. We held each other to high standards, and that was good. I had one side of the defense and Jon Ford had the other. We were the linebackers, we were the leaders. And if a team got five yards on his side I’m cursing him out! If a team got a yard or two on my side, like Lance, tighten that s— up. Get it together m—f—-!”
An animated Adams continued: “Our defensive coach used to tell Jon he was the brains, I was the muscle. Jon called the defensive plays. And he told Jon, I don’t want Lance to think. He’s my pitbull.”
If Adams was the pitbull, Vincent Williams (246) was the cheetah. One opponent he’ll always remember is Frankford.
“They always had a reputation of being a tough team,” because they had won some championships, he said. “And they were talking about this one guy they had that was really fast. I kind of took that personal, you know being a track guy,” he said laughing, but serious. “I ain’t seen him on the track so they gonna say, oh but he’s fast on the football field. I said ok, we gonna see how fast he is on the football field! And I got to make a couple plays on him. I said oh, he’s not that fast. I forgot he’s faster than everybody else on the ballfield but that didn’t pertain to me because I’m a track guy. I just didn’t believe anybody was faster than me in the whole Public League.”
Ron Hart (246), left, shows retired Central coaching legend and athletic director Frank Greco (228), super-fundraiser Nate Abney (228) and former football player Dennis Barnes (246) his jackets from the ’85-’87 era. Greco plans to help the ’85 team members get replica championship jackets.
As a track and football coach later in life, Williams said he taught his kids, “there is no substitute for hard work.”
Central won the 1985 title game against George Washington 18-17. It was a sweet ending for Adams and other seniors, including Eric Spitzer, Dave Rosario, and Rodney Somerville, all among the 19 players at the reunion.
The older Lancers had much to cheer about that reunion day as the current team, coached by Drayton, took care of Dobbins 45-6. Drayton and his fellow coaches honored the current seniors at halftime. Then Drayton schooled his players on what he and his teammates were like before they were graying or balding, or both.
“We were some dogs,” he said. “When we came out, we put people to bed. Now we have doctors, lawyers, preachers, dudes whose sons are going to play Division I football and we still hang out when we can. They came back because they love this school. They came back because we love each other. So when I tell y’all if y’all need me when it’s over, it ain’t no joke. I’m for real. You gonna hit me and I’m gonna be right there. Whatever you need. When I need something, this is where I go. Those black uniforms you wearing, guess who they came from? Here.”
He then turned to the older guys, including his classmates Ron Hart, Oscar Turner, Derrick Ward and Dennis Barnes, and his later Temple teammate Kenyatta Rush: “I appreciate each and every one of you guys. I am so grateful I was on that team and I’m glad you guys came back to show these dudes that when we say we do something, we do something!”
As the current team marches, they hope, to high pursuits, Lomax said it was important to remember, “You don’t win a championship in one game.”
Now the defensive coordinator at Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington, Del., he said, “It’s a process. For example my brother actually played football for Germantown High School. They won the championship in 1982.The funny thing about that year was they actually lost the first game and they tied the second game, so they were 0-1-1. They wound up losing I think another game that year and they wound up winning the championship, so it’s not about how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Barnes, who posted 109 yards as tight end in one game when the opponent was determined to shut down Drayton, said a championship is one of those accomplishments you can look back on anytime anything gets tough. “When things got tough for me in law school, I kind of thought back to all the hard work and all the dedication and the focus – the focus that was necessary to do what we did and I applied that to my academics and pretty much had the same result.”
He and a lot of former teammates have traded in the shoulder pads for golf clubs and they still talk about the old days. “In any one person’s lifetime you get a finite number of people that you get exposed to and these are the people that you are on this life journey with,” he said. “Whether you like it or not, whether you like them or not, whether they like you or not. These are my guys and as far as I’m concerned these guys are my brothers.”
