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The statistics used on these pages may
require an apology to all Wakefield
players who participated in the football program before the nineteen
seventies. Supposedly a fire at the Wakefield
High School
in 1971 destroyed all football records before that date and efforts to prove
that theory incorrect have not been successful. The Wakefield Daily Item does have copies
of the newspaper on microfilm available for anyone to see at the library but
clearly sports writing at the high school level were not as focused on
certain accumulated statistics as we are today.
Mr. Carl Provost, a former sportswriter
for the Daily Times, put together a book which summarized each Wakefield
football year from 1900 to 1986.
Although Mr. Provost’s compiled statistics can be found and nearly
always verified on The Wakefield Daily Item microfilm, without his head
start, the record and the team pages would probably not have been
attempted. Unfortunately, the
newspapers usually would not write about a reception or a run unless it was
associated with a scoring play and the box scores we enjoy today did not
exist. To try and gather data for a
different category other than what appears here, like most passes completed
or received in a game or season, would require reading over a century worth
of sports pages that still might not contain all the information
required. Therefore, these are the
record categories which exist on these pages and also why the lowest achiever
in each category is usually a pre-1987 player who serves as the bottom
benchmark to add new records.
However, it was felt that four
categories should be added: single season and career, passing and rushing
yards. Some yardage statistics
expressed here have been taken from a players Hall of Fame plaque but efforts
to find sources which provided statistics for the Hall Of Fame members have
also not been successful. Although all
years have not been reviewed in the
Wakefield Item, it can be said that total yardage statistics appear only
rarely in the first seventy years of Wakefield
football reporting. A thorough investigative
research in the Wakefield Daily Item and other sources for future concerned statisticians
should reveal more qualifiers in the yardage categories. Things did get a lot better in the 1980’s
when the writers started to notate yardage but even these totals are subject
to the human error of the original newspaper writer and the people who
compiled the statistics for this website.
Ultimately, the statistics on this page were a place to start and
expand upon but yardage statistics probably do not reflect the
accomplishments of all of our deserving ‘older’ high school stars and might
be the only reason why very few ‘older’ players are members of the yardage
record categories.
Finally, it became the consensus of the Wakefield
football community at the conclusion of the 1970 football season that Mr.
John Rafferty became the leading single season and career rushing leader in
yards. However, as general knowledge, an
upper-most leader in single season or career passing yards was never
established. It is the pre-1980’s
quarterbacks’ records which warrant further research and consideration.
Corrections are welcomed and encouraged
for the sake of historical accuracy or else we will just have to live with
what you see.
Back to History Page
Wakefield Varsity Football Home Page
For alumni or companies who desire to contribute to
the Support of Wakefield Sports please send all inquiries or donations to
Warrior Club – PO Box 442 – Wakefield, MA 01880 or warrior@whsfb.com
Complaints-Corrections
warrior@whsfb.com
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