Uhlans missed, especially at football season”We are the Uhlans; the mighty, mighty Uhlans,
“Everywhere we go, the people want to know; who were are, so-o-o we tell ’em, “We are the Uhlans; the mighty, mighty Uhlans …”
I never forgot that German Township High School chant, my high school chant. It rings loud in my head come every football season, when I root for a team that no longer exists, for a school swallowed up by merger a decade after I graduated, and mostly for a bygone era of close-knit community.
The small-school mighty, mighty Uhlans (the double adjective was usually well deserved), or what’s left of them, now don a different uniform and go by a different name, that of a once-hated rival, the Albert Gallatin Colonials. In my day there was no game better, no atmosphere more charged, no competition more intense than German vs. Albert Gallatin, or German vs. Fairchance-Georges, the other school that lost its separate identity in the three-way jointure among those former competitors.
German had, well, sort of a reputation. Let’s just say it could be a tough place, for insiders like me as well as visiting athletic teams. When I was in fourth grade, an eighth-grader stabbed a classmate in the lunch line and killed him. This was decades before the shootings at Columbine shocked the nation.
But there was another side to being a German Uhlan. In truth it wasn’t that bad of a place overall. I had some splendid teachers, especially at the elementary school, and the strong sense of community remains firmly etched in my psyche. Football games were a true community event, turning Friday afternoons (and later Friday nights) into the equivalent of a town fair.
At Sangston Field in McClellandtown, players had to walk down a flight of concrete stairs, down a hillside, to get from the locker room to the field. In my youth I recall that before every game, and again at the conclusion of halftime, the path from building to field resembled a parade route, with both sides lined with parents, grandparents, older and younger brothers and sisters, other relatives and general well-wishers. People with black and white skin lined up to root on the red-and-black-clad Uhlans (the nickname comes from elite, pre-World War I German cavalrymen). As players passed, outstretched arms would often slap them on the helmet or shoulder pads, accompanied by words of encouragement.
It was truly a cross-generational community event. Youngsters would pass football in the end zone during warm-ups. Oldsters would cram the bleachers, rain or shine, monitoring the on-field happenings and taking advantage of the opportunity to chat with friends and neighbors who’d likewise been drawn to the event.
A trip to the concessions stand could gain you a chance meeting with a classmate, or someone who had graduated several years before you, or a current or former favorite teacher. It seemed that everyone with a connection to the school was there, which made the experience all the richer. The marching band, headed by long-time music instructor Frank T. Gabrin, changed in its composition but played some of the same standby tunes, providing a thread of continuity.
All that got lost back in 1988, when declining enrollment brought about the merger of German, F-G and A.G., and relegated the Uhlans to the history books. At the time I supported the merger, figuring that a high school whose graduating class had dwindled to perhaps 85 probably couldn’t stay too mighty at anything for much longer.
Bigger would be better, I thought, especially in terms of academic offerings. That probably has been and remains the case, and in some larger sense I suppose the merger has been a good thing. It’s even possible that a new generation views the larger A.G. with the same kind of pride and devotion we old German Uhlans felt for our alma mater.
In moments of reflection, though, I feel a certain sadness that my school has been wiped from the map. It was a special place, with special memories, at a special time.
I’m sure that many graduates of other Fayette County schools eliminated by merger, like Redstone Township and North and South Union townships, probably feel the same way.
For us, there is no place to go home to. And Friday nights in autumn don’t carry quite the same electricity.
Paul Sunyak is editorial page editor of the Herald-Standard. He can be reached at (724) 439-7577 or at psunyak@heraldstandard.com