Swampscott honors football teams past and present

SWAMPSCOTT – Coach Steve Dembowski wanted to link his Division 3 Super Bowl-winning team to Swampscott’s glorious football past, and last night, at the new high school, the whole thing came to fruition in a big way.The Big Blue won the Division 3 Super Bowl last December by beating Medfield. They also won the first-ever Super Bowl over Catholic Memorial in 1972. Both before and after those championships, Swampscott was a wagon if there ever was one, winning – in all – 20 Northeastern Conference titles. During one stretch lasting from 1966 through Halloween of 1970, the Big Blue had a 32-game unbeaten streak.This is what the town came to honor last night.”It is a real honor to be part of it,” said Peter Kinchley, who quarterbacked the team to its title last December. “I’m proud to be part of a long tradition of football excellence at Swampscott.”Dembowski and the town promised to make the ring ceremony a big splash, and it certainly was. Speakers included former Swampscott greats Barry Gallup and Todd McShay, both of whom have achieved tremendous success in their careers.Gallup, the assistant athletic director for football at Boston College (where he also starred as a wide receiver and was an assistant coach and recruiter), recalled his high school days fondly.”It was a big deal back then (in the early-to-mid-1960s),” he said. “It was really the only thing in town.”Gallup also said that for the 2007 Big Blue team, the season will never end.”That’s what (BC hockey coach) Jerry York said to his players (who won the NCAA championship Saturday night),” Gallup said. “He told them if they won this title, they’d have it always.”McShay, a scout and an NFL draft analyst for ESPN, told the players that luck happens when opportunity meets preparation. He also told them how the Swampscott football family helped shape his career.”Steve Dembowski (who was an assistant under Bill Bush when McShay played quarterback for Swampscott) put in a good word for me with Jim Reid, who was coaching at the University of Richmond, and who was his coach at UMass,” McShay said. “I played two years there, but hurt my back.”From there, McShay said, Reid kept him as a game film analyst, which he parlayed into an internship with an NFL scouting bureau. He and a partner formed a small independent scouting group, which was purchased by ESPN, where he now resides.”But,” he says, “maybe none of this happens if Coach Dembowski doesn’t put in a good word for me with his old coach.”Perhaps the evening’s most poignant moment came when Dembowski unveiled the championship banners in the new gym. Assistant coach John Hoffman, who suffered a stroke five years ago, climbed the steps to the top of the bleachers – with plenty of help and support – and unveiled one of them.”Coach Hoffman deserved to be here for this, and we were thrilled that he was,” said Dembowski. “We’d have waited all night for him to get to the top of the steps.”