Three weeks ago there was an obituary in the local newspapers about a well-known priest from Mechanicville, Father Dan Nolan. Father Dan’s history and legacy goes back to days of glory in the archives of a small city.
Early in the 1950s, Dan Nolan was a member of one of the most famous high school basketball teams in New York State, a program that also was nationally recognized—Mechanicville High School. Not only was he a basketball star, but he was an all-around talented athlete. Father Nolan was also known for his extraordinary ability as quarterback for the MHS football team. At the end of his high school career he accepted an athletic scholarship to Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As the Lehigh quarterback he continued his legacy in football by receiving the accolade of “Little All American.” He played some basketball and baseball for the university, but later into his college career he just focused on football.
After his collegiate career, Dan Nolan was drafted by the NFL’s Washington Redskins. But, soon after that he was dealt to the Pittsburgh Steelers as a backup QB to the famous Bobby Lane, who at that time was one of the best quarterbacks in professional football. Due to injury, Dan never had an opportunity to play a single game in the NFL. After a couple of years of pursuing his quest as a pro athlete, he decided on a different calling.
Many people from Mechanicville did not expect this life-changing move. Dan entered the seminary and began his career as a lifelong man of God.
On December 16, 2013, at the age of 76, Father Nolan passed onto a higher calling.
Here is a brief history of the Lehigh Hall of Famer. He was a college division All-American and was selected to play in the 1957 North-South college all-star football game, known as The Blue-Gray game. During his tenure at the engineering school, he led the Engineers (a team mascot that is no longer used by the university), as their starting quarterback, to a record 22 wins in 27 games. In that era of intercollegiate athletics, freshmen were not allowed to play at the varsity level, so Dan Nolan started his college varsity career as quarterback in the beginning of his sophomore year.
In 1955 and '56, the Engineers had identical records of 7-2, and in Nolan’s senior year, they improved to 8-1.
Father Nolan played college football in a period before the forward pass became a dominating weapon. Even though he was an excellent passer, he still holds the title of being the best running quarterback in the university’s history. Since his time at Lehigh, the game of football has totally changed, and even though the school’s record book was rewritten by Dan Nolan, his records have now been broken.
Here are some of his stats: He completed 142 of 298 passes for 2,317 yards and 16 touchdowns. Rushing the ball on 263 carries, he netted 720 yards and seven touchdowns. His total offense during a three year career at Lehigh was 3,037 yards. This was from 1955-1957 and that’s over 57 years ago.
The game has changed so much over the past four decades that it might seem that Father Dan’s statistics at Lehigh are mediocre, but for that era, they were far from average.
My family had a connection to the Nolan family. Dan was the youngest of three brothers: Tom, John (Jasper) and Dan. Both Tom and Jasper played college football. In itself, that’s another story. Dan’s dad, Tom, Sr., known as “Bunny” (mom, Kathryn Healy Nolan) had a very successful plumbing shop and business in Mechanicville. They also lived up the street from my paternal grandparents. My dad, Dan Fantauzzi, was a very good friend of Bunny Nolan, and Nolan’s plumbing shop was connected to our building/restaurant.
The building was Fantauzzi’s Italian-American restaurant, which was called the Venetian Tavern, and for 60 years it was on the corner of Park Avenue and Central Avenue. The business was a three-story building, with the restaurant on the first floor and apartments on the second and third levels.
I lived in one of two apartments, on the third floor, with my parents and sisters. I used to play in front of Nolan’s plumbing shop, riding my tricycle up and down the wide sidewalk. Bunny always said, “Hello” to me, or waved through the store front window as I zipped by his shop. Once in a while I would see the boys going in and out of the store.
Mr. Nolan never told me to move away. He was just a great guy. So, in my early life, that was part of my connection to the Nolan’s.
During my early elementary school years, 1951-53, conversation in the city of Mechanicville was dominated by the success of the famed Whiz Kids—usually they were the buzz of the town.
The high school didn’t have a gym large enough to accommodate the large crowds that were common place for all of the home games. So the games were played at St. Paul’s elementary school gym, which had a fairly good size floor, but it was still an inadequate venue for the Whiz Kids—this era was a time that was based on the movie “Hoosiers.”
I can remember my dad and I standing outside with hundreds of people at St. Paul’s. While games were going on inside the school, we were all part of the overflow crowd. There was a speaker above the entrance, so those of us out in the cold could hear the game’s commentator. This story was truly out of “Hoosiers,” but without a script.
Father Dan was more than just a local hero. To me he was a role model, a person I wanted to emulate in my little world of playing the game of basketball. Dan Nolan’s legacy will live along with the famed Mechanicville Whiz Kids, a nostalgia that may never be duplicated. It was a memory of glory and what high school athletics used to mean to a small town like Mechanicville.
There were so many towns across the United States, in those days, in an era of stories that were about young men and women who left their mark at the entrance of time. I would like to thank Dan Nolan and the Whiz Kids for what they did for Mechanicville. They gave our town its own story of “Hoosiers” and a love for the nostalgia that is imbedded in a small community’s history.
Truly, Father Dan Nolan was an American icon, worthy of a tradition along with a recognition that may never return to our nation’s days of yesterday year.
