Guest Blog: Part One - Eleven Seasons of Bridgeport High Football (Plus Two) from Mind of Chuck Miller
By Connect-Bridgeport Staff on December 23, 2024
Editor's Note: Chuck Miller, the author of this two-part piece, was a member of the 1986 Class AA state championship football team. He’s an occasional contributor to Connect-Bridgeport and has written two books. Will Little Roo Ever…?is a children’s picture book about a little girl striving to overcome developmental delays. Inside the Mind of an Iron Iconis a weight training book. His upcoming book, The Master Class in Vintage Strength Training, will be available in the spring of 2025. Visit his website to learn more or connect with him.
PART ONE
“On the 11th day of…” Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Despite my festive mood, forcing an analogy with The Twelve Days of Christmas isn’t working. What is working, and has been for about seven decades now, is Bridgeport football.
We just picked up our 11th state championship in dominating fashion. These triumphs often lead to arguments over which team was the best—as if there’s some football nirvana where the 1986 squad could test its mettle against the 2000 juggernaut, etc.
Until artificial intelligence evolves a lot further, we’re not settling that debate, but there’s something we can do that’s just as fun. We can take a trip down memory lane to celebrate them all.
So grab a cup of hot cocoa and curl up in your favorite armchair by the fire and we'll revisit some Indian magic, with visions not of sugar plums, but of footballs, dancing in our heads.
State Champions
1955
We won our first state championship fourteen years before I was born, and this is the team I know the least about. Here’s something I do know: the first time you achieve any milestone is generally the hardest because you’re venturing into uncharted territory. This trailblazing group did it to the tune of four shutouts along the way and a convincing 45-13 championship victory over Webster Springs. Never forget where you came from or who you owe a debt of gratitude.1972
Growing up, one name was synonymous with Bridgeport football: Steve Stout. Even today, anytime anyone is ticking off names of the best
players in Indians’ history, Stout’s is mentioned early.
players in Indians’ history, Stout’s is mentioned early.
All these years later, he’s still second on the all-time rushing yardage list. Add in five straight shutouts to begin the season (seven in all), the fact that the 1972 team played up in Class AAA despite an enrollment that would have qualified them for Class AA, plus a playoff format that saw only four teams in each classification make the tournament, and the mystique surrounding 1972 remains high to this day.
We might be over 50 years removed now, but the Indians’ faithful will never forget a narrow 18-16 playoff victory over Saint Albans and the 16-14 championship nailbiter over Dupont.
1979
I question the veracity of my memory of being at the 1979 state title game at Laidley Field in Charleston. I’d have only been ten years old 
and my sister just six. And my single-parent mother would have had to have driven us there alone. Still, I remember it.
and my sister just six. And my single-parent mother would have had to have driven us there alone. Still, I remember it.
I also remember a group of players visiting my classroom at Johnson Elementary, and I know that one’s true. In my young mind, players like Charlie Fest, Brad Minetree, and Bobby Mara may as well have been Pittsburgh Steelers. And in Indian lore, they’re still revered.
With a 10-0 regular season and six shutouts, the 1979 team hit all the marks of greatness. There’s also the 7-6 playoff win against the formidable Parkersburg Big Reds—still the program that’s won the most state titles with a staggering 17. Bridgeport never throws, but who can forget the iconic photo of Minetree catching a drive-extending pass from Mara over the outstretched arms of a Parkersburg defender, mud streaking both their forearms as they reached skyward?
Another of my strange 1979 memories is of the Parkersburg mascot dressed in full Native American war regalia jamming a spear into the frozen ground in front of our sideline before the game. Did that happen or is it just part of the legend that grew out of my childhood memories?
1986
One minute you’re so young you don’t remember which of your memories are fabricated and which are real, and the next, you’re buckling the chinstrap on that helmet with the coveted arrowhead on the side for the final time.
Our Christmas time machine has arrived at the team I played on now. It was Coach Wayne Jamison’s 3rd state title and the one that cemented his legacy as one of West Virginia’s all-time greats. For years, I thought Bridgeport’s success was all about Coach Jamison. I.jpg)
still do in many ways, but we’ve gone on to win championships under the direction of four other coaches, so there must be some other reason, too. Maybe it’s the players, and I played with some good ones. Nearly all of the toughest people I’ve ever met are from right here in my hometown—All-Staters like Scott Creek, Anthony Napolitano, Tim Randolph, David Wright, and Ryan Skidmore.
still do in many ways, but we’ve gone on to win championships under the direction of four other coaches, so there must be some other reason, too. Maybe it’s the players, and I played with some good ones. Nearly all of the toughest people I’ve ever met are from right here in my hometown—All-Staters like Scott Creek, Anthony Napolitano, Tim Randolph, David Wright, and Ryan Skidmore.
We won our first three games by scores of 35-13, 42-0, and 42-0. And then we lost one of our best running backs, Clarence Hardy, for the season to an injury. As he was our only real threat to turn the corner and take one the distance, the rest of our games were low-scoring “slug-it-out in a phone booth” affairs. Fortunately, we could lean heavily on a stingy defense that pitched five shutouts and never gave up more than thirteen points in any game. Even so, we lost one along the way, an uncommon moment of adversity among Bridgeport’s title-winning teams, but we had the resilience to overcome that loss.
All three of our playoff victories were nail-biters. In the first round, Magnolia returned the opening kick-off for a touchdown that might have shell-shocked a lesser team. Instead, we battled back and beat them 21-13. In the next contest, we narrowly escaped against the previous season’s champion, talent-laden Winfield, by a slim 10-8 margin. It took a 39-yard, final-play field goal from Scott Lewis, one of the first in a long line of excellent kickers poached from the soccer team, to secure a 10-7 championship game victory over the Jed Drenning-led Tucker County Mountain Lions. Drenning, who we held in check throughout the game, later became the first West Virginia Conference player to accumulate 10,000 yards of total offense playing for Coach Rich Rodriquez at Glenville State College.
Scrappy. If you ask me to define the 1986 team in a word, that’s the one I’ll pick. We were going to fight you until the final whistle, and maybe out in the parking lot, too.
1988
The greatest game in school history and perhaps the best ever played in West Virginia—that’s the legacy of 1988. If you weren’t there, 
you probably assume I’m exaggerating. If you were at Mountaineer Field like I was, dragging my poor Uncle who was visiting from the DC suburbs for Thanksgiving and had no real ties to Bridgeport besides my family, then you know.
you probably assume I’m exaggerating. If you were at Mountaineer Field like I was, dragging my poor Uncle who was visiting from the DC suburbs for Thanksgiving and had no real ties to Bridgeport besides my family, then you know.
As if five regular season shutouts weren’t enough, the 1988 team terrorized playoff opponents East Bank and Musselman with two more by scores of 22-0 and 35-0 before facing old familiar foe Winfield in the final. Deadlocked at the end of regulation, the two teams would trade haymakers for a staggering four overtime periods, each firing and matching the other’s best shots on short, twenty-yard fields by rule.
I once interviewed Coach Jamison for an article published in Wally & Wimpy’s Football Digest, a fantastic little (free!) publication I’d eagerly run to Go-Mart to grab a copy of every week. I mentioned to Coach that he’d often said, “Three things can happen when you pass and two of them are bad.” He swiftly corrected me saying, “It’s actually four with three bad outcomes.” To say he was not a risk-taker would be a colossal understatement; he didn’t even like to pitch the ball, never mind throwing a forward pass.
So when his exhausted team lined up to kick the extra point that would force a fifth overtime, the call he made was perhaps the most unexpected and brilliant one I’ve ever seen. Holder Pete Curry received the snap, popped up, and lobbed a perfect pass over Gary Lhotsky’s shoulder near the back left corner of the endzone. Just like that, the greatest game I ever saw had ended, our fourth state championship secured by a sliver-thin 29-28 margin on the most daring play call I ever saw—and the kid who sat a couple of pews in front of me in church every Sunday growing up had caught the most important pass in our long history. Even my Uncle agrees.
2000
Unexpected dominance, that’s what I remember most about 2000. If you’re from Bridgeport, you can’t help but start to expect to win, except that we’d been slightly off throughout the nineties. We still made the playoff field most years, but multiple regular season losses a
nd early exits became more common. Perhaps there’s a lesson there in complacency and taking winning for granted, or maybe it’s just that doing it as consistently as we’ve become accustomed to is damned hard.
nd early exits became more common. Perhaps there’s a lesson there in complacency and taking winning for granted, or maybe it’s just that doing it as consistently as we’ve become accustomed to is damned hard.
With a 7-4 final record and a rare first-round playoff exit as the higher-seeded host, 1999 was a mediocre season by Bridgeport’s standards. So when we opened 2000 by rolling over opponents by scores like 55-12, 59-14, and 42-7, I didn’t see it coming. The dominance continued through a 10-0 regular season in which we were only tested once, by our crosstown nemesis, Robert C. Byrd, in a 7-6 nailbiter. Lopsided playoff scores—the likes of which I’d never seen us post before—went like this: 48-8, 42-12, and 42-7.
Standing in the way of a championship remained only the Wayne Pioneers, a program often near the top of the Class AA heap. This would be our first title game tussle with this southern West Virginia powerhouse, but not our last. My Uncle and I were back on the road for the first time in 12 long years, this time to Wheeling, and I was excited. He was… well… let’s just say he was a good sport.
At that time, the Class AA game kicked off championship weekend on Friday evening, and you could count on cold weather. We left in time to stop for dinner at a local diner. When our waitress cleared our plates, she did a double-take at the fifteen empty sugar packets next to my Uncle’s iced tea. Or maybe it was a second glance at him—the old man still had game and his evening was improving by the hour. It continued improving, especially for me, throughout the game. Despite a tight 14-6 final score, the impression I have today is that we were in control throughout, with the outcome never really in doubt.
My fondness for this team is intertwined with memories of my Uncle in his Russian ushanka hat, pouring hot coffee from his thermos to stave off the cold. This year, as I pulled on my BHS 2000 state champs toboggan before our semifinal victory over Fairmont Senior, I was reminded of the perfect evening we spent watching the Indians close out a perfect 14-0 season twenty-four years ago.
2013
From 2009 through 2015, we played Wheeling Park every year and went 3-3-1. More on that tie later. In those seven games, the margin separating the two teams was never greater than four points. In 2013, we opened our season with a 47-28 victory over Buckhannon, in which we gave up more points than I thought we should have, and then lost to Wheeling Park 14-17. I followed the team closely, as I do .jpg)
most years, and this slow start made a lasting impression on me.
most years, and this slow start made a lasting impression on me.
Thus, when we later twice posted over 60 points and shut out three other opponents while scoring over 40 points in each game, I didn’t trust my eyes. Even a playoff march that saw us steamroll Roane County, always-tough Fairmont Senior, and a Bluefield program that’s had as much championship success as we have, didn’t fully sway my opinion. Just like our 2000 season, we would face a talented Wayne team that had rolled through their schedule as convincingly as we had. I was concerned it might not go our way.
On championship weekend, my then-girlfriend/now-wife Christina and I were vacationing on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Thankfully, we also traveled with a friend of hers, providing her with someone to chat with while we made the 37-mile drive from sea level to the 10,023-foot summit of gorgeous Mt. Haleakala. I was too busy holding my phone to my ear so I could listen to internet radio coverage of the game to be much of a conversationalist. It didn’t matter where I was; a piece of me remained with my Indians playing over 4,500 miles away in a driving snowstorm.
We took a slim lead into halftime, and with the deteriorating weather likely benefitting our running style of play in the second half, my apprehension turned to cautious optimism. Like many great Bridgeport teams before them, this one relied on its stout defense to make that lead stick for a hard-earned 14-13 victory. If I’d been there when the clock finally ticked down to zero, I’d have run onto the field and done snow angels. As it was, the smile on my face as I gazed out over Haleakala’s other-worldly, Mars-like landscape had nearly as much to do with events back home as it did with the beauty right in front of me.
END PART ONE
Look for the second installment of this retrospective tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 24. We’ll cover the remaining championship teams plus two other worthy additions you won’t want to miss.
Editor's Note II: Top photo shows what are believed to be the 1955 seniors or starters. Tentative identifications are from left front row, Jim McDonald, Bob Stallman, Nelson Hyre, Don Strosnider, William Mick, Paul Russell and Michael Hull. The back row, from left, is believed to show Henry McDaniel, Bill Altman, Nolan Wilson, and Bill Welch. The second image shows Steve Stout lumbering ahead for yardage, while Coach Wayne Jamison is shown with his players in the third photo holding the 1979 state title trophy. Author Chuck Miller, a member of the 1986 team, is shown with his mothers in the fourth image, while Gary Lhotsky celebrates the most improbable ending to the most improbable game in the next photo at the conclusion of the 1988 state title win. In the sixth photo, C.R. Rohrbough, one of the most dominant players in the state, rambles ahead for a few yards. Bottom image, by Ben Queen of Ben Queen Photography, shows Anthony Bonamico running for yardage in a Wheeling Island snow storem in 2013. Most photos are courtesy of the Bridgeport High School journalism department during the tenure of Alice Rowe. One of Rowe's former students, and the author's classmate, Alecia Ford, edited this article.
