PRO FOOTBALL Pottsville loses last survivor

Joseph Marhefka didn't play on the team that won -- and then lost -- the NFL title.
POTTSVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- The last-known surviving player from a Pottsville NFL team whose supporters still hope to claim the 1925 championship title died Monday in Easton at age 101.
Joseph C. "Duke" Marhefka, who taught English and Latin at an Easton junior high school for 40 years, spent only the 1924 season as running back with the Pottsville team.
The following year the team adopted the nickname "Maroons" and beat the Chicago Cardinals in what was billed as the NFL title game.
But in a move that still evokes bitter memories in a coal-mining community now best known as the home of Yuengling beer, the NFL rescinded the title a week later -- and took away Pottsville's franchise -- because the Maroons violated league rules by playing Notre Dame on the Philadelphia home field of a rival, the Frankford Yellow Jackets.
Proud of his team
Marhefka took pride in his football playing days, said his wife of 56 years, Gladys. He attended team reunions and was interviewed by television sports programs about his connection to the intriguing but little-known chapter of sports history.
"He loved the Pottsville Maroons," she said. "He's got all this literature here, pictures of his team when he played up there and everything."
Marhefka's death, said Gov. Ed Rendell, "is the end of an era in some ways. Although it reinforces the belief that the Maroons should get the title reinstated."
Schuylkill County Historical Society president Leo L. Ward says the NFL title remains "the most significant sports championship that was ever in the county. It brought national attention." A state-sanctioned historical marker about the Maroons is located in front of the society's headquarters.
The Pottsville Maroons Memorial Committee, established in 1963, has led the campaign to return the title, although NFL officials have indicated it is unlikely.
Committee chairman Nick Barbetta, an 88-year-old retired salesman from Schuylkill Haven, said the few other remaining Maroon veterans died in the 1980s.
Barbetta said he will make special reference to Marhefka's passing on Monday, when a 2.5-mile stretch of Route 209 from Pottsville to Minersville is rededicated as the Pottsville Maroons Highway.