West Catholic Adds to Ford Field Fame
November 26, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
DETROIT – November has become a regular part of the Grand Rapids West Catholic football schedule. Trips to Detroit are turning into a Thanksgiving weekend tradition.
But what the Falcons accomplished again Saturday was not lost on them.
Grand Rapids West Catholic won its fifth MHSAA football championship and became just the sixth school to win four straight, downing familiar playoff foe Menominee 43-7 in the Division 5 Final at Ford Field.
“There’s no word to describe it. Year after year, competing like that, getting to play 14 games – we’re very, very lucky and blessed,” said senior Sam Neville, who with David Fox played on all four champions. “That’s double what most people get to play over the course of their high school careers.”
This string was as impressive as any of the other three, for a few reasons.
West Catholic finished 12-2, despite playing without junior quarterback Gaetano Vallone for six weeks after he injured an elbow on opening night.
The Falcons, with a Week 3 loss to Zeeland West and a Week 9 defeat to Allendale, were then forced to play all of their playoff games on the road. They navigated a path highlighted by previously undefeated Portland, handed second losses to Lansing Catholic and Algonac and also beat another league champion in Berrien Springs.
They did so under the leadership of a new coach. Joe Hyland was hired this spring after the resignation of Dan Rohn, who had led the team to the first three titles of this streak. Hyland had been highly successful coaching in South Carolina before coming to West Catholic as a teacher and guidance counselor in fall 2015, but as with any change, there was a transition.
And then there was that Finals familiarity. The Falcons defeated the Maroons in 2013’s Division 5 Final to start this streak, and also in a Semifinal in 2014 and Regional Final last fall. It would be hard to find two high school programs 450 drive miles apart that know each other more.
“There’s a lot of people in our community and even statewide who talked about ‘November, November,’ but our discussions were always about today,” Hyland said. “And just feeling like if you do the right thing now, the rest will work out. And if we get beat by a good team on our best day, then you shake their hand and look them in the eye and congratulate them. But we really felt like on our best day, that wasn’t going to happen.”
Saturday had to be one of them.
Junior kicker Liam Putz started the scoring just 2:41 into the game with an MHSAA Finals-record 47-yard field goal, a yard longer that Josh Wuerful’s for Traverse City High against Detroit Catholic Central in the 1988 Class A championship game.
By the end of the first quarter, Vallone had thrown two touchdown passes. By halftime, he’d connected on four. The first, a 91-yarder to senior Brett Myers, was the fourth longest pass play in Finals history.
Vallone finished 13 of 20 passing for 311 yards, the fifth most in Finals history. He spread the ball nicely with five receivers catching at least one pass; Neville had six catches for 117 yards and two scores, Meyers three for 143 yards and his long touchdown and senior Aaron Hall caught four balls for 66 yards and the other passing TD.
The 5-foot-10, 170-pound quarterback also ran for a team-high 83 yards and a score on 13 carries. His 394 total yards rank sixth on the Finals all-time list.
Menominee did achieve a little history as well. In addition to playing in their fifth Final, the Maroons scored their points on a 76-yard blocked field goal return by senior Hunter Hass – the first blocked field goal return touchdown in Finals history. The kick was blocked by senior Sam Larson, and Hass picked up the loose ball and ran down the left sideline for the score.
“All week we were practicing to block their punt, and it just so happened that we blocked their field goal,” Hass said. “I saw the ball. I just picked it up and ran into the end zone, just trying to get some points to get some momentum going for our team.”
But the rest of the afternoon was a struggle. The Maroons (12-2) gained only 163 yards and tied a Finals record held by two others teams with seven turnovers – three coming on fumbles.
They also played once more without all-state tailback Keifer Rasner, who missed the end of the season with an injury.
“When you turn the ball over that many times to a good team, you don’t have much of a shot,” Menominee coach Joe Noha said. “But I’m really proud of my guys. We really hung in there. We’ve had a lot of things happen in the last couple of weeks, but I’m really pleased with our effort and our fortitude to get here. And once you get here, finishing is difficult. Today was not our day.”
The MHSAA Football Finals are sponsored by the Michigan National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Grand Rapids West Catholic’s Zane Timmer tries to break away from a Menominee tackler Saturday in the Division 5 Final. (Middle) Falcons coach Joe Hyland raises the championship trophy.
Fracassa's Remarkable Records Still Rule
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
June 24, 2020
As a senior at Sterling Heights Stevenson during the 2009 season, Jason Fracassa lit up the high school football world with his aerial display.
Fracassa shattered the MHSAA career totals for passing yards and touchdowns held by Mill Coleman of Farmington Hills Harrison. Fracassa also etched his name into the national record book in three career passing categories before the remarkable run ended with a 31-21 loss to Detroit Catholic Central in the Division 1 Final at Ford Field.
The numbers he posted at Stevenson indeed were staggering. And just more than a decade later, after securing two undergraduate degrees and a masters in finance from Walsh University in Ohio, Fracassa lives in Auburn Hills and continues to crunch numbers – now for a development company in Birmingham – while also planning for a Sept. 12 wedding to fiancé Kelsey Torzy.
Fracassa has always been a highly-motivated person, and that held true in the classroom and as a three-sport varsity athlete and continues now in the business world. But while driven by success, Fracassa doesn’t dwell on what he accomplished in the sports world – which also included Division II college careers in both football and baseball. What was important then remains so now, and those are the relationships he built through trust, hard work and having a little fun.
“I miss going to practice each day and hanging out with my friends,” he said. “Just walking around school and trying to set an example to the kids, that’s what was important. I’ll go to the golf course now and I’m with all of my friends. That’s what it’s all about. That was the best part. We had the best relationships, no matter if we won or lost. Playing for Coach (Rick) Bye and your friends, that’s the best memories I have.”
A four-year varsity starter for Bye, Fracassa led Stevenson to a combined 23-3 record over his last two seasons, culminated by that fourth trip in program history to an MHSAA Final.
During his junior season, Fracassa threw for 3,353 yards and 34 touchdowns over 12 games. He then took aim at Coleman’s career passing records for touchdowns (77) and yards (7,464), records that had stood for 20 years.
Fracassa and his teammates put on a show that 2009 season as he threw for 4,433 yards and 44 touchdowns. His career (10,615) and single season (4,433) passing yards remain MHSAA records, the career total by nearly 2,000 yards. Fracassa also continues to own the records for career passing attempts (1,104) and completions (656), accrued over 44 games, and he briefly held the MHSAA record for career TD passes with 97 before it was broken in 2013. The career attempts and yards and senior-season yardage all rank in the National Federation record book as well.
Fracassa credits the coaching staff at Stevenson for the success he and his teammates enjoyed. He couldn’t have imagined playing for anyone but Bye and his staff. Fracassa said he’s spoken with many of Bye’s former players, and they all agree playing for Stevenson and Bye was a phenomenal experience.
Like Fracassa, Bye – who retired after 2009 with a record of 268-94 over 35 seasons – also keeps tabs of his cronies by playing golf once a week with former assistants like Ken Fiott, Jerry Lajeunesse, Larry Zimmerman, Joe Emanuele and D.J. Hill among others. Bye is quick to point out that many of his former players, including Fracassa, keep in touch on a regular basis.
“I saw (Fracassa) at a Stevenson playoff game,” Bye said. “He calls me at least once every two months or so to see how I’m doing. I appreciate that. He was always a highly-respected kid. He’s not a kid anymore.”
Bye recalls hearing about Fracassa when Fracassa was in the eighth grade at St. Lawrence in Utica. Fracassa enrolled at Davis Junior High, Stevenson’s feeder school, for his ninth grade and tried out for the football team not knowing whether he’d make the varsity or not.
“His dad wasn’t pushy one bit,” Bye said. “(Rick Fracassa) asked if Jason was going to be on the JV. A big reason he wanted his son to come (to Stevenson) was Joe Emanuele, who was our baseball coach, and Rick knew Joe had a good program. He wanted Jason to play baseball, too.
“Jason came out and won the (quarterback) job. He proved himself. And he had to win over our seniors.”
Jason Fracassa said that was the hard part – convincing a group of seniors that a freshman could come in, start at quarterback and lead the team can be daunting.
“I knew I could compete at that level,” Fracassa said. “It was more of my getting to associate myself with the older players. That was the most difficult part. The coaches were always there to back me.”
Stevenson made the playoffs that 2006 season finishing 5-5. The next season was rough as the Titans lost a number of close games and finished 2-7. Stevenson improved substantially to 10-2 in 2008, losing to Lake Orion, 38-36, in a Regional Final.
That all built up to the memorable 2009 season, which included a tense Semifinal game against Clarkston won by Stevenson 37-35 on a Fracassa scoring pass on the final play.
Emotions also ran high the game before when Stevenson took on Detroit Public School League power Detroit Southeastern, led by Michigan State-bound and now-NFL defensive end William Gholston. Fracassa threw for a career-high 494 yards, and Stevenson defeated Southeastern, 38-32.
After a busy and accomplished prep career, Fracassa maintained a hectic athletic schedule in college first at Northwood University – where he started on the baseball team for three seasons and was a member of the football team for two.
After sitting out a term, Fracassa transferred to Walsh, located in North Canton, Ohio. There he revived his football career starting at quarterback his last two years. Walsh, then a recent addition to the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, nearly upset conference power and undefeated Ferris State in Fracassa’s final game. Fracassa threw his second touchdown pass of the game to give Walsh a 42-32 lead with 9:38 left before Ferris State came back with two touchdowns, the second with 36 seconds left, to win 46-42.
Fracassa hasn’t completely abandoned football since his last game at Walsh. He and his father coached the Oakland University club team in 2018 and that team reached a championship game. Jason was the offensive coordinator, his father the head coach – branches from the coaching tree rooted with Jason’s grandfather Al Fracassa, the second-winningest high school football coach in MHSAA history and Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice legend.
Jason’s competitive juices continue to flow.
“We had a great run,” Fracassa said, “and any other year could have taken the championship trophy.”
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Tom Markowski is a correspondent for the State Champs! Sports Network and previously directed its web coverage. He also covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Jason Fracassa rolls out during the 2009 Division I championship game at Ford Field. (Middle) Fracassa and fiancé Kelsey Torzy. (Below) Fracassa drops back to pass while playing for Walsh. (Middle and below photos courtesy of Jason Fracassa.)