Redstone’s Charlie Packan was small but mighty
Over the years some diminutive quarterbacks have excelled in football. Doug Flutie and Eddie LeBaron are two that come to mind, and former Redstone High School star Charlie Packan was cast from the same mold.
Packan starred for the Hawks in football, basketball and baseball in the late 1950’s.
“We were competitive,” Packan recalled. “I don’t know if we had 28 guys on the football squad my senior year. Back then, my last season in 1956, I played for Coach Joe Bosnic and he was tough; he was hard on us. We went to camp up in Plum Township, and we lost a lot of kids who just left camp. He weeded people out, but there were a few of us that managed to make it through.”
Redstone posted a 4-6 record in 1954 – Packan’s sophomore year. The Hawks went 3-5-2 in 1955 and 5-5 in Packan’s senior campaign in 1956.
Packan played his sophomore and junior years under Joe McCune before Bosnic came in as head coach in 1956.
“My junior year we upset Charleroi 13-12,” Packan remembered. “Their coach Rab Currie went wild. It was a huge upset. I connected on a 70-yard touchdown pass to Johnny Kolessar to win the game. I can still see that play in my mind. As I look back, they must have been in a two deep situation because we hit the play right down the middle and split the safeties to win the game.
“We had some really tough football players on those teams. Lou DeSimone was tough as nails. We had John Rohaley. We used to call him “Moose.” We had a great blocking fullback in Laney Moore and a real tough lineman in Joe Novsek who went to Tulsa. We had a real good center in Guy Marbury who was short and stocky and one heck of a football player.”
Packan has a great deal of respect for both of his coaches – McCune and Bosnic.
“Bosnic was a real innovator,” Packan opined. “My senior year we went to a spread formation, and that was way ahead of its time. I was back in the shotgun; I wasn’t under center. I had a great game against Donora and wound up throwing 15 touchdown passes that season, seven of them to Jake Olsavsky. I had a good thing going with Olsavsky. He was my safety valve. I knew he’d be somewhere and catch the ball.
“McCune had me in 1954 and 1955. He was a good man, hard nosed, and he had two outstanding assistants in Alex Barantovich and Joe Chadonic. They were real good people.”
Redstone had some pretty intense rivalries in those days.
“Brownsville was probably our biggest rivalry,” Packan offered.” We also had a pretty good rivalry with German Township. There were always fights at that game. We played against some great players – Myron Pottios of Charleroi, Angelo Dabiero of Donora and Fred Cox from Monongahela.”
Packan was an All-Big Six selection in football and was a unanimous choice on the 1956 All-Fayette County squad.
“That was quite an honor because there were a lot of good football players in Fayette County at that time,” Packan said.
Packan saw Redstone’s fortunes take a dramatic turn in basketball. In his junior season, the Hawks were 1-9 in Section 11, 3-18 overall, and then Bosnic took over as basketball coach. In 1956-57 Redstone had a remarkable turnaround, posting an 18-4 record and capturing the section with a 13-1 record. The Hawks made their first trip to the Pitt Field House for the WPIAL playoffs.
“We ended up playing Ford City in the playoffs,” Packan explained. “Coach Bosnic went to a slowdown game, and we lost 39-38. We didn’t see the turnaround coming. Back then we played, and it was different. I didn’t even think about success. You went out and played the game, and you took satisfaction in the accomplishments. I played football, basketball, baseball and I ran track.
Coach John DePasquale was the track coach, and the baseball coach was Paul Polink. Whenever we needed to go to a track meet, we would leave baseball and vise versa. I’ll tell you a great accomplishment in track. Our 880 relay team won the championship at the Fayette County track meet when we upset favored Connellsville.”
When Packan graduated from Redstone in 1957, he had a few college offers.
“There were a few that showed interest, but I was not heavily recruited,” Packan stated. “I consider myself very fortunate to have the opportunity to play football in college. I was 5-10 and only weighed 136 pounds my senior year.
“I was playing Legion baseball. The coach from Monongahela was a scout for George Washington University, and he recommended me to GW coach Bo Sherman, and he offered me a scholarship.”
Packan played freshman football at GW in 1957. He was injured in the first quarter of his first game in 1958 against the University of Detroit and missed the entire season. In 1959 he played quarterback and handled the punting, as the Colonials posted a 1-8 record. In his senior campaign, they went 5-3-1 under new coach Bill Elias.
“I wasn’t a starter in 1958, and they sent me into the game,” Packan recalled. “It was a sprintout pass, and my receiver was covered. I knew if I cut back across the grain I could get the first down and I did. I got stood up, and the next thing I know I was unconscious.
Back in those days we only had one bar on the facemask of our helmet, and when I got stood up another player hit me with his shoulder and somehow it went between the facemask and the top of my helmet and fractured my cheekbone, and I missed the entire year.”
Packan bulked up to 165 pounds by the time he was a senior and had his moments at GW, including a record 75-yard punt against Air Force, plus he engineered a 26-0 win over West Virginia his senior year. It was the Colonials first win over WVU in 10 years. Packan tossed a 40-yard touchdown pass and scored on a 1-yard run.
Looking back, Packan says the decision to go to George Washington was a great one.
“I loved it; it was great,” Packan gushed. “It was different from now in the sense that we had our own dormitory, where all the athletes lived. We were our own little family; we had our own dining room and recreation area. We were a very close-knit group, and we still have football reunions every couple of years. I enjoyed GW very much and have no regrets.”
Packan expected to come back to Fayette County when he graduated from GW in 1961, but he wound up staying in the Washington D.C. area.
Packan started teaching at Newport Junior High School. After two-years he became an assistant football coach at Northwood High School for seven years.
In 1970 he began a new football program at Damascus High School in Montgomery County Maryland. He remained at Damascus and won at State Championship in 1981.
He also coached girls basketball for several years at Damascus. He gave up coaching in 1986 and returned as an assistant coach at Seneca Valley for one year, where he also was the girls basketball coach.
He went to Montgomery High School and retired in 1995.
“I’m proud of the job I did at Damascus,” Packan stated. “I helped build the program from the ground up. Now they are a perennial power and have won four or five State Championships.”
Packan, 70, resides in Libertytown, Md., with his wife of 46 years, Joanne. They have four grown children – one son and three daughters – and 10 grandkids.
He currently owns a liquor store in Libertytown.
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” columns appear in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.