Russ Stoner (second from left above) spends his time these days as an assistant football coach at Central York, but was a remarkable athlete during his high school days at West York 20 years ago. He was recently named the third-best athlete in the school's history and was a two-way standout on the 1988 football team that won the school's first ever district title in football, playing running back and safety for the District 3 Class AA champs.
It's a time of his life of which Stoner has been reminded often now that he is back on the sidelines as a coach.
"Every time we've ever gotten a chance to go to the playoffs or we have a good football team, it always brings back the memories of playing at West York and playing in that run that we had my senior year," Stoner said.
"It was really cool, I was over at the West York game on Friday and I remember being interviewed the week after we played and we won the district championship and they asked: 'What was the feeling in the locker room?' I said: 'Well, we're all pretty excited and we're all singing Christmas carols.' And last Friday, the band was playing 'Winter Wonderland' and it made me think back about how we were one of the only teams left playing."
The Bulldogs also won a District 3 Class AA title in 1991, but have not won the crown since. Now West York is in Class AAA against bigger schools and will have its work cut out for them against Manheim Central on Friday. The good news for the Bulldogs is Stoner said there are plenty of similarities between his championship squad and the current team fighting to become the first YAIAA squad to win a district football title in Class AAAA or AAA.
"I guess the team that is playing right now is sort of very similar to it," Stoner said. "It wasn't really a ball-control offense, we would score on big plays and we had a pretty stout defense. I think we gave up six points a game. It went from just being a team to being a championship-caliber group because we had great athletes on that team."
Stoner also highlighted the West York defense, particularly safety Blaine Fissel, who leads the team in tackles. Another element Stoner mentioned, which might be particularly important with their top offensive producer going down with an injury, is team unity. Stoner said it was a big part of his team being able to win the title and says he sees it in the 2008 West York squad.
"You can tell watching the West York kids -- they care about one another just like our team cared about one another," Stoner said. "I think they get along really well off the field and that's the same way we were 20 years ago."
Anybody out there see that 1988 team play? Are there any other similarities or differences worth mentioning? The comments section awaits your input.
I was at every football game in 1988 and the similarities are certainly there. I was at the Northeastern game, the Kennard-Dale game, and the 3 games playoffs games at West York. They reminded me of the games in 1988, of course I had a very good bird eye view in 1988, I was the volunteer equipment manager for the team that year. Defense was good at times and the offense had a great running game. It was a team effort. Congrats to the West York Bulldogs for winning the first York county class AAA championship, GOOD LUCK at states, see you at Hersheypark.