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BY GARY HAWKINS
Staff writer 08/27/2008

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VIEW FROM NEW PERSPECTIVE: Cony High School football coach Rob Vachon played against Jim Palmer in the Cony-Augusta game in 1985. Now they’re going to cross paths in the rivalry again, this time as head coaches. Vachon is entering his second year as the Rams’ coach, Palmer his first with Tigers.

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Staff writer

Rob Vachon remembers it snowed a little on Oct. 26, 1985.

When you're a senior playing in the Cony-Gardiner football game, you remember the weather, the fans, that first big hit and, yes, the score.

"Twenty-seven to nothing," said Vachon, Cony's quarterback that season. "They were really, really good. They were a better football team."

The odds of snow for the annual rivalry game, scheduled this Friday in Gardiner, are the same as Cony's score 23 years ago. For the first time in the 116-year history of one of the nation's oldest high school rivalries, the game will be played in August. If has never, for that matter, been played in September before.

But this year is different. The schools play in different classes and have different schedules, necessitating a move to preseason. But there remains more than a thread of continuity.

Vachon, now in his second year as head coach at Cony, will square off against first-year Gardiner coach Jim Palmer. The two were on opposite sides of the rivalry in 1985, too, Palmer a junior fullback on one of the Tigers' best-ever teams. The '85 teams will be honored at Friday's game in an impromptu homage to history.

"It was kind of short notice," first-year Gardiner athletic director Jeff Turnbull said. "We're slowly trying to work on tradition stuff."

Not that 1985 doesn't deserve recognition. The Tigers entered the game at 8-0 and went on to win the Class B state championship with a 17-14 win against Lawrence.

"For me that was a special group," Rob Munzing said. "That was the group I started with as freshmen."

Munzing was the freshman coach and a varsity assistant that year and would replace varsity coach John Wolfgram the following season. Among the seniors were quarterback Mike Story, last year's varsity coach Matt Brown, Gardiner assistant Mike Gammon, and two-way starter Rob Chadwick.

"It was one of those years where you had the right combination of juniors and seniors," said Palmer, who split time at fullback with Matt Foye.

Cony came into the game at 4-4 under first-year coach Pat McFarland. Vachon had a couple of good receivers in Pat Lyons and Mike Murphy while Ken Dufour was the primary back. Palmer was aware of Vachon because they both played baseball and football.

"I remember him being a tough quarterback who had a little zip on the ball," Palmer said.

Palmer and Gammon each caught touchdown passes in a game otherwise dominated by Gardiner's defense. "Jimmy made plays as a receiver," Munzing said. "He had great hands."

Munzing knew the '85 team would be good since they were essentially the same group that won a freshman title four years previous.

"We knew this was a team poised for greatness," he said. "When we had teams like that we really pushed these guys hard because we knew they could take it."

This would be Wolfgram's last Cony-Gardiner game. The following spring he accepted the head coaching position at South Portland. He spent 11 years at Gardiner, turning a sagging program around and leading the Tigers to three state championships. He was also 9-2 against Cony.

"You really respected the type of coach he was," Palmer said. "The discipline aspect and the mental aspect."

Palmer has incorporated some of Wolfgram's techniques into his own practices, particularly the attention to detail.

"There was just that constant discipline of knowing the snap count, knowing your assignment and concentrating for seven seconds. He always told us that was the length of each play."

Gary Hawkins -- 621-5638

ghawkins@centralmaine.com

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