Dorchester Times: Dorchester's Best Football Teams Of All Time

Friday, September 15, 2023

Dorchester's Best Football Teams Of All Time

A while back, the Dorchester Times ranked the best high school football teams our school has ever produced. What made our effort credible is we relied on the expertise, input, and collective memories of former athletes and long-time DHS sports fans.

To be sure, this was no easy task. There have been some very solid teams produced by DHS over the past 70 years or so.

Also complicating our effort is the fact that DHS football has come in three different formats over six decades. In the early 1960s, Dorchester went from six-man football to eight-man. In 1969, DHS converted to the 11-man game, which it played for 22 seasons; in 1991, the school reverted to eight-man; and in 2018, after several seasons without a DHS football team, the school revived the six-man game.

Let's not forget that in the fall of 1949 DHS' football program was restarted after years of not playing the game -- idled by the death of a player in the 1930s.

Despite the challenges, we did our best to fairly rank the Longhorn football teams of the past by paying special attention to the the talent of opponents they faced and the class of ball in which they played. Below is our top 10 list. (NOTE: The years we cite are the autumns of that school year. For example, 1961 represents school year 1961-62, not the graduating Class of '61.)

Beginning with the best two DHS football teams of all time, here's our list:

1.) (tie) 1961: Undefeated and perhaps the most talented bunch at every position. Names like Tesar, Guggenmos, Axline, Sysel and August dominated the opposition with stellar offense and defense.

1.) (tie) 1979: Also undefeated, this team was touted as one the best Class C-2 teams in Nebraska by many, including Lincoln and Omaha sportswriters. The group certainly claimed the best skill-position players DHS has ever seen on one team. The DHS scoring explosion!

3.) 1971: This DHS team was also undefeated. Many in the area still claim this was the best Class D team in all of Nebraska that particular year. (As a side note, former DHS coach Jack Guggenmos' four years at the helm produced a 29-5-2 record.)

4.)  1977: Ranked No. 7 in Class C-2 by the Lincoln Journal and No. 5 by the Omaha World-Herald at season's end, this group claimed the Pioneer Conference champion trophy. "The hardest hitting team ever to wear the DHS uniform," one local expert said.

5.)  1986: This team was ranked No. 8 in Class C-2 by the Omaha World-Herald at season's end. State qualifier. Also, the only DHS team we know of who had a member, Bob Zoubek, shatter a helmet on an opponent. Led by the classes of 1987 and 1988, both blessed with skill and size.

6.)  1987: The group was ranked No. 9 in Class C-2 by the Lincoln Journal and No. 5 by the Omaha World-Herald at season's end. State qualifier. Led by the classes of 1988 and 1989, two classes with deep talent.

7.)  1978: Ranked No. 5 in Class D by the Omaha World-Herald at season's end, the group was champions of the Pioneer Conference. This group gave fans a preview of the successful 1979 team.

8.)  1958: This was one of DHS' first great football teams according to every Longhorn fan who saw them play. The squad finished the season ranked No. 2 in six-man by the Omaha World-Herald. Older fans say DHS never looked better than in the fall of '58.

9.) 1976: Ranked No. 5 in Class D by the Lincoln Journal and No. 7 by the Omaha World-Herald at season's end, this group was in the midst of the mid-to-late 1970 glory days for DHS football. Pioneer Conference champs.

10.) 1999: This team had a 7-1 regular season record, with the state's second-leading rusher in Jed Burkey, and was ranked much of the season. A late season injury at QB likely prevented this team from reaching at least the quarter-finals in the Class D-1 playoffs.

***** Honorable Mention *****

1959 -- Ranked No. 8 in six-man by the World-Herald.

1994 -- State qualifier. Only team to lead No. 1 Falls City Sacred Heart that season.

2006 -- State qualifier in eight-man.

10 comments:

AnonymousJuly 11, 2012 at 5:32 PM
i agree with most of list but i would have put the 1999 team in the top 5
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AnonymousJuly 12, 2012 at 5:27 PM
1988 deserves to be on honorable mention. shane carr ran over his opponents like a sherman tank does a 1975 toyota.
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Bob Moser (class of '53July 14, 2012 at 8:40 AM
Worth commenting regarding the 1949 restart after many years of not playing the game. Football at DHS was stopped in 1926(maybe 27) because Clyde Moser died due to a blow to the head during a game. Clyde was my Dad's (Earl Moser) cousin. I played on that restart team from '49 through '52.
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DBSJuly 15, 2012 at 4:17 PM
Wow a 25 year halt because of a freak injury. It scares me how over protective some are becoming now, even with helmets. I personally believe there's an agenda to ban football or soften it so much that women can play. Just one man's opinion.
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AnonymousJuly 15, 2012 at 6:29 PM
Would like to see a similar article comparing basketball teams.
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Round Ball StudJuly 16, 2012 at 10:27 AM
Best DHS basketball teams of all time:

1. 1986-87
2. 1968-69
3. 1984-85
4. 1988-89
5. 1985-86
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AnonymousMay 29, 2020 at 11:35 PM
What about Baseball? Get the whole community sports involved rather than just the school..
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AnonymousOctober 17, 2020 at 7:45 PM
Teams of the late 80s and early 90s would have been up there had they been playing 8 man as enrollment permitted
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."