By Michael Letendre

A scholastic football fight between Bristol Central and Maloney of Meriden put the winter sports schedule in a bit of flux in the Mum City during the winter of 1959.

And before the newly minted Bristol Eastern boys basketball team was about to make its debut on December 9, the Kingstreeters already had a major schedule change.

In the end, bad sportsmanship between the Bristol Central and Maloney football teams would not be tolerated and that meant Bristol dropping the Meriden schools from its scholastic sports slate.

And there was more than a little tomfoolery as the Bristol Eastern boys basketball program was trying to get its program off the ground during its first scholastic campaign.

In part two of this story, Bristol makes a huge decision in terms of sports competition against the Maloney and Platt programs while Eastern’s first ever boys basketball team under head coach Burr Carlson takes shape – opening season play against powerful Sacred Heart of Waterbury on December 9, 1959.

Meriden’s schools are off the schedule

Two days after the fight between the Central and Maloney football teams, Bristol refused to schedule games against both the Meriden schools going forward.

Bristol superintendent Carl A. Magnuson announced that Central and Eastern would not be competing against Maloney or Platt anymore and told the Bristol Director of Athletics, Thomas R. Monahan, not to book games against the Meriden programs.

Officials from both Central and Maloney attended the special meeting as a very tough decision was handed down.

Sportsmanship was nearly considered sacred during those years of scholastic sports and Bristol’s leadership refused to compete against programs who defied such honored rules and traditions.

But it wasn’t the first time Bristol dropped opposing towns and cities from its schedule of events.

Torrington and Bristol High School had many tough and competitive battles, but a fight between the schools in the mid-1930’s severed relations for a time.

In 1921, a scuffle and fight between Bristol and New Britain saw the Mum City refuse to play any team from the Hardware City for nearly a dozen years.

But in terms of basketball in 1959, Central and Eastern were going to be short of opponents thanks to the Meriden squads getting the boot.

Both Maloney and Platt were supposed to play the Bristol programs two times each for a total of four games in Central Connecticut Interscholastic League play.

That meant Eastern’s slate was dropped from 19 to 15 games and state tournament qualification was made that much harder.

On December 29, 1959, Platt was scheduled to travel to the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium on the Bristol Eastern campus to take on the Lancers but that game was obviously pulled.

Central was also in the same boat, cancelling a contest against Maloney on December 15.

And in terms of the Lancers, opening day on the brand new gymnasium floor was a big deal, as the Eastern team was ready to go for the first time ever.

The Eastern roster

The first year program nearly saw 75 boys come out for the team, but it was a tough start since the gym at Eastern was not available when Carlson commenced practice.

In fact, the Lancers were forced to practice at Stafford school just down the road for a time.

However, the Kingstreeters finally got to practice on their own home floor on December 2 – one full week before the regular season commenced.

The problem for the squad was a severe lack of experience as several underclassmen played early and often for the Lancers.

Senior David Mills had varsity experience from Bristol High School, but the rest of the program was a bit on the youthful side.

David Mills, in fact, was one of four Dave’s on the Eastern squad that year.

The official Bristol Eastern varsity roster included David Helming, Dave Della Bitta, David LaRue, Phil Lewis, Bill Greger, Louis Kapell, John Porrini, Victor Zukowski, Kirk Brightman, Mills, and future star Terry Burke, who just missed out on being the program’s first 1,000-point scorer by the time of his graduation.

Carlson’s assistant coach was Vincent Punzo – the future varsity coach after Carlson at Eastern – while Larry Budnick was the team’s manager and Rene Massey was the assistant manager.

The basketball statistician was Mike Middleton who was obviously better at his job than whoever the Eastern program has been utilizing presently for stats.

The Lancers had some size but needed to put things together quickly as the CCIL was loaded with plenty of talent. 

The Lancers were a brand new team and with only 12 days as practice as a program, the critical chemistry was still missing during early basketball contests in CCIL wars.

By the way, Central also shared the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium with Eastern as that new hardwood floor got plenty of use immediately after its installation.

Sacred Hearts drops Eastern

The Lancers lost its first five straight contests but it was technically 10 games in their debut season (a 71-53 Wethersfield loss on January 12, 1960 was later awarded to Eastern via forfeit, which officially became the Lancers’ first program win).

And that first game against Sacred Heart didn’t go Eastern’s way as the Hearts defeated the Lancers by a 68-48 final.

The Hearts, playing in front of a packed house at Eastern, led 14-6 through one period and boosted that edge to 39-16 at the half.

The cushion for the Waterbury outfit ballooned to 49-27 after three completed frames as the home squad never got into the game.

Burke led the Eastern offense with 12 points, while no other scorer from Bristol tallied a double-figure point total.

Lewis flipped in eight points, Della Bitta added seven and Helming notched five to go along with 11 rebounds.

Eastern was miserable at the free throw line, missing 29 foul shots, while shooting less than 25-percent overall from the field.

Four players scored 10 points apiece for Sacred Heart as the squad ’s balanced attack led to the victory over the Lancers in the non-conference affair.

Eastern went 3-12 overall and were 1-11 in CCIL play in 1959-60 but were four conference games short thanks to the elimination of the Meriden schools from the slate.

However, there would better days ahead for the Bristol Eastern boys basketball program.

In 1961-1962, the Lancers made a complete turnaround – going 18-2 behind a No. 1 tournament ranking that included a 15-1 CCIL record that led to the league title

NOTES…In an interesting tidbit, several spectators were turned away at the first ever Bristol Central/Bristol Eastern game on January 15 and that was a concern when the plans for the school were produced…There was talk that the Thomas M. Monahan gymnasium needed a seating capacity of 2,500 (look at what happened over at Bristol Central years later)…By the way, Bristol and Meriden quickly resolved their differences and by the springtime, Maloney and Platt were back on the schedule once again – just in time for baseball.