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McDonald Midgets turn 50
In 1959, John Batcho organized Trumbull’s first youth football squad.
McDONALD — John Batcho Sr. pointed to himself in the football team photo and commented that he’d like to be 18 again.
Batcho, a Wally Cleaver-like figure with his flattop and jeans cuffed at the ankles, was standing in the back row with his McDonald Midgets players. He portrayed the doo-wop image of 1959.
Now 68, Batcho Sr. is in a wheelchair, the result of amputation from diabetes.
It’s been 50 years since Batcho organized a group of McDonald youngsters to play football in a youth league — an undertaking he likes to consider ground-breaking.
It started in July 1959 at the corner of 6th & Pennsylvania, about a quarter-mile from Batcho’s house.
“I used to walk down there every day,” Batcho said, “and they’d be playing baseball and arguing. So I told them I’d be the steady pitcher and buy the winning side popsicles.”
They waited for him each day at noon and the games continued as the summer wore on.
One day, Batcho noticed a newspaper advertisement seeking teams in the Volney Rogers Youth League.
Batcho took a vote of his little neighborhood friends, asking them if they wanted to form a team and join the league.
“The rest is history,” Batcho said of the fall of 1959 when the McDonald Midgets came into existence.
At the time, there was one team, ages 8-12.
McDonald’s high school principal, the late John Saganich, bought the boys 30 jerseys for a dollar apiece, Batcho said.
Batcho said he converted an open parcel on Ohio Avenue into a football field for a scrimmage game against an Akron team in late August.
“Traffic stopped to watch the novelty,” Batcho said of what he claims was the first organized youth football game in Trumbull County.
Batcho said he bought other equipment for the boys using money earmarked for auto body repair.
“I remember having my parked car hit during a practice, so, when I got the money for the damage, I never repaired it. The front fender on my 1952 Ford remained dented all that winter. I used the money to buy shoulder pads and equipment.”
The Midgets eventually left the Volney Rogers League and went independent in 1963. However, the team’s 29-game winning streak started while the Midgets were still a member.
The skein started in 1962, then continued through 1963 and into part of 1964.
Batcho remained with the Midgets until 1974.
Over that span, Midgets games would occasionally have skydivers descend on the field during halftime at McDonald High’s stadium. Another attraction was the annual Turkey Bowl, which included turkey giveaways.
“It was a big deal,” said Batcho, who added with a bit of hyperbole: “People thought I was God.”
Batch recalled some former talented players, including Kenny Vega, Billy Long, Jack Dugan and Ricky McFalls.
Another former player was Glenn Holmes, who is now the village’s mayor.
Batcho said that Dugan eventually had a tryout with the New England Patriots.
From 1963-74, the Midgets played teams from Ellwood City, Columbus, Geneva, Cincinnati and Perry, Pa., as well as the Pittsburgh Morningside Bulldogs and McKeesport Little Tigers.
After the 1974 season, Batcho left to help start the Liberty Little Leopards along with Vince Cordy Sr., a friend.
In five years, the Leopards had three unbeaten teams and one national champion in 1977 in Orlando Fla., as part of a Pop Warner affiliation for 13-year-olds under 115 pounds.
Tom Ragland and David Cordy were two players on the national championship team.
The following year, Batcho said, the Little Leopards were national runner-up, losing by one point to a Ft. Myers, Fla., team that had Deion Sanders.
For the next two years, Batcho coached the St. Anthony junior high team to two undefeated teams in the Parochial league.
In 1981, Batch joined Jack Pierson’s staff at Niles High as an assistant. In 1982, Batcho was named head coach at Liberty and went 4-6.
Batcho retired after that.
“I was done,” he said.
The guy who got the ball rolling in Trumbull County said he’d like to, someday, have a reunion of the hundreds of former players.
Batcho remains proud of his inchoate group that eventually took root and spawned teams in several communities.
Holmes played for the Midgets starting at age 6 in 1963 and played until he was 12.
“Who are we? We’re McDonald,” Holmes said, reciting the team’s battle cry.
Holmes, 51, said that Batcho had his heart in the right place when dealing with the players.
“We were disciplined and didn’t back talk and we learned the right way,” said Holmes, who stayed with the Midgets even when he could have played on his school’s eighth-grade squad. “I think he took a chance on a few kids, but that’s because he wanted to steer them in the right direction.”
Batcho told Holmes, who was shy, that he should be a destroyer on the field, but a gentleman off.
“When I put on that uniform, I felt like a knight in armor,” Holmes said.
Holmes, whose father came from the South, brought his family to Campbell, then moved to the Parkwood area of Girard.
At first, Glenn’s parents, Johnie and Sylvia, brought him to practice.
“When I got older, I rode my bike across the Girard bridge to McDonald.”
Mike Wasser, the current McDonald schools superintendent, was a mascot for the 1960 Midgets.
“I was 4 years old then,” Wasser said. “I was just a little guy wearing a homemade football uniform and I didn’t have a big role, believe me.”
The Midgets have since evolved into the McDonald Little Blue Devils, also a very successful program.
Sean Murphy, Little Blue Devils vice-president, said that plans to recognize the organization’s inception are being made for its annual banquet on Nov. 15.
“We have plans to do something for him,” Murphy said of Batcho.
Scholarships given to McDonald High School seniors who were involved in the Little Blue Devils program in some capacity have been named the John Batcho Sr. Educational Scholarship, Murphy said.