Beasts of the East redux
New book on Northern Lehigh’s run to 1982 state title finals offers similarities to current Bulldogs football team
Michael Hofmann Jr., is a proud Northern Lehigh High School alum and loves to talk about a team that created a lot of community spirit and excitement that united generations and brought people together.
He could be talking about the current Bulldogs football team that’s playing Southern Columbia Friday night at Lehighton in the PIAA Class 2A semifinals.
But instead, he’s talking about another Northern Lehigh squad from nearly 40 years ago that did the same thing for the Slatington/Walnutport area the Bulldogs football squad is doing right now.
It was the 1981-82 Bulldogs boys basketball team, a squad that Hofmann described as being a “selfless team that put winning ahead of any personal accomplishments or goals” that is the subject of his latest book done in conjunction with the Slatington History Committee.
In his new book called “Beasts of the East: The Story of the 1981-82 Boys Basketball Team,” Hofmann spotlights a team that galvanized a community and brought people in large numbers out to games in a brand new high school that had opened that same year.
Northern Lehigh went 30-3 and won the Centennial League title and was the District 11 2A runner-up. The Bulldogs then beat Danville, Wilkes-Barre GAR, Palmerton, and Darby-Colwyn in the state tournament before losing to Bishop Boyle of the WPIAL, 78-67, in the 2A title game at Hersheypark Arena.
The team’s accomplishments brought the community together, but it was overshadowed to a degree in the Lehigh
Valley basketball community because at the same time, Whitehall, led by legendary coach Dick Tracy, was on its way to the 3A championship.
Hofmann previously wrote about Slatington High’s famous 1954 “Iron Men” team in boys basketball and its undefeated 1969 football team.
But this project was of special interest to him because his father, Michael, was on the boys basketball team and graduated in 1981, a year before the storied run to Hershey.
“Growing up in Slatington, you always hear about all of these successful sports teams like the Iron Men and this 1982 team, but I had a closer affinity to this 1982 team because of my dad,” Hofmann said. “He graduated a year before this but almost all of the guys on this team were friends of his. So growing up and knowing these guys and talking to them about this season was just something special and a lot of fun.”
Hofmann noted that while the 1981-82 team got further than any other Northern Lehigh team, it was just part of a golden era for Bullldogs basketball.
“They went five straight years winning a Centennial League title and I believe, seven out of 11 years winning a league title,” Hofmann said. “From 1978 to 1985 they were just so dominant and had so much success. I wanted to make sure that while the 1981-82 team was the focus of the book, I also included sections about how this team was composed. And it starts with the lowest point, which was the 1971-72 year.”
Hofmann said that was the year Glenn Rissmiller took over for Dick Jones three games into the season.
“Jones and Rissmiller switched positions and Rissmiller became the head coach and that was the first piece of a championship puzzle,” Hofmann said. “That 1971-72 team only won one game, but the teams after that kept getting better and better. The apex was the 198182 team but even in the years after that, they were always exceptionally competitive in districts and states. So I wanted to include those teams as well.”
Hofmann, who later became a Northern Lehigh player, said the Bulldogs were a selfless team that moved the ball around on offense and worked together on defense.
Twins Brian and Blaine Waylen combined for 1,117 points in that storybook ride and they finished their careers with nearly 3,000 points between them.
The point guard was Larry “Boopie” Arndt, who set the school’s all-time assist record with 470 in his career and had 253 in the 1981-82 season, including 18 in one game.
The 1981-82 Bulldogs beat rival Palmerton four times, including once in the state quarterfinals.
“Palmerton had a fantastic team that year,” Hofmann said. “We beat them in the district semifinals, but they took third place over Central Catholic in the district to get into states. They beat Scranton Prep in the first round and met up in the second round with Nazareth, who had beaten us for the district championship. And then they faced us again in the state quarterfinals and it was only the fourth or fifth time that Slatington/ Northern Lehigh played Palmerton that many times in the same year.
“Both teams have to be pretty good to get to play each other that many times and it was the only time that one school beat the other four times in the same season.”
Northern Lehigh started the year 16-0 but lost by five in a nonleague game — that had some controversy —before a packed house at Whitehall.
“Northern Lehigh called a timeout and Rissmiller, who always had every I dotted and every T crossed when he was coaching and left nothing to chance, thought he had a timeout left, but the officials said he didn’t,” Hofmann said. “There were a couple of things in that game that was disputed.”
Hofmann spent hours and hours of research for the book, sifting through newspaper archives from The Morning Call and Times-News. He also interviewed Rissmiller, who recently retired as a football official after 51 seasons, as well as all of the players on the team.
Rissmiller said he appreciated that special team getting some attention years later and is looking forward to reading it.
When he talked to the players, Hofmann said most were excited to hear a book was in the works.
“There are team members from that year who still live in Slatington,” Hofmann said. “Some live in the Parkland School District, some of them are local, some of them live on the other side of the country. But one interview stood out. It was with Jamie Hunsicker who went by the nickname of Smokey. He was the sixth man and rotated in and out of the lineup with Craig Scheffler. When one started the other became the sixth man.
“Hunsicker moved to California after graduation. He told me that even though he left Slatington, he will always be a Slatingtonian. And that really stuck with me and spoke to the community spirit and how high school sports can build a community and provide lifelong memories.”
Hofmann, who now lives in Clark
Summit and teaches at Abington Heights High School, enjoys writing these books and could be writing a book about the 2021 football team one day. He hopes to have one more chapter next Friday in Hershey.
“I am pulling for the Bulldogs all the way,” he said. “I have a cousin, Dylan Hofmann, who played quarterback when I was in high school and he’s on the current staff. The stats these players are throwing down have been amazing. They have done a great job and I’m proud of what they have done. I know Southern Columbia is very good, but I do think it’s going to be a competitive, interesting, high-scoring game. I know just like in 1982, it’s a team that has the whole town talking.”
Note: To purchase a copy of the book, which was printed through Times-News Publishing, send a check of $20 (including $5 for shipping) to Slatington History Preservation Committee, 44 S. Walnut St., Slatington, PA, 18080.