This was supposed to be a story a milestone meeting of Northeast Florida’s oldest and most-played rivalry.
St. Augustine-Palatka will always set the standard for high school football rivalries in this state. It was assumed by many that tonight’s encounter would be the 100th meeting between the eternal rivals for opposing sides of the St. Johns River.
That assumption is false.
While it’s true the Yellow Jackets and Panthers first met in 1922, this will be the 101st St. Augustine-Palatka game.
Palatka beat St. Augustine 19-0 on Nov. 11, 1922. A recap of the game was buried deep inside The St. Augustine Evening Record in the lower right corner of the page.
“The Saints had the line and the Pals the backfield,” The Record wrote two days later. “That’s the story. With steady gains, the local boys would tramp through the Palatka line, only to lose the ground gained by the spectacular runs of Callahan, Vickery and Dulmage.”
No first names were given, but it was noted that Vickery’s 80-yard touchdown run immediately followed his interception of “a forward pass.” Callahan scored Palatka’s third touchdown to conclude the scoring.
The story concluded with an announcement the Saints will play “the Palatka eleven at Lewis Park on Thanksgiving afternoon and it promises to be a battle royal.”
It’s the Thanksgiving afternoon game that many recorded as the first St. Augustine Palatka game.
That contest, according to multiple sources, ended in a 12-12 tie. However, The Record noted the final was 12-6 with Vickery, once again, scoring a long touchdown for Palatka.
St. Augustine trailed early, but touchdowns from Parkhill and Owens helped the Saints, as they were called at the time, take the lead.
“The score stood 12 to 6. The drop kick for the extra point struck the cross bar and felt backwards.
“The locals kept the ball in Palatka’s territory during the second half, but their threats at scoring were stopped when the visitors held and several times carried the ball back to mid-field with forward passes.”
The true final score of the first St. Augustine-Palatka game played in the Ancient City is probably lost to history.
Including the series kickoff that so many people forgot about, and the second, more known, result of the 1922 season, St. Augustine leads the all-time series 53-43-3. The 100 meetings are equal to the Hardee-DeSoto rivalry downstate.
Wauchula Hardee hosts Arcadia DeSoto for the 101st time tonight. DeSoto (6-3) has lost three straight to Hardee (4-5) in a rivalry that was first played in 1921. For years, supporters of both programs took umbrage at the insinuation when folks on the banks of the St. Johns professed that the St. Augustine-Palatka game is Florida’s oldest rivalry.
The local rivalry is not Florida’s oldest. Hardee and DeSoto have played longer, but neither has made an impact outside the Florida Heartland in decades.
The same cannot be said for the Mullets and Maroons.
Mullets? Maroons? Wait, what?
Yes, once upon a time, St. Augustine was the Mullets and Palatka was nicknamed the Maroons. Tonight, the schools will celebrate that history by wearing throwback uniforms.
Legend has it that after Palatka beat St. Augustine 6-0 in 1947, an indignity that led to the coach at the time, Bill Ferrazzi, changing the high school’s nickname from Mullets to Yellow Jackets.
As former Ketterlinus High football player Bernie Masters explained to The Record a few years ago: “They hung dead fish from the light poles. Bill used to chew a cigar and he said, ‘We’re going to change this name.’ He’s the one who came up with the name Yellow Jackets.”
The names and nicknames have changed over the years. St. Augustine became Ketterlinus in 1925 and returned to its original name in 1960. Palatka was Putnam High School, Palatka Senior, Palatka South and then, finally, Palatka, in 1977.
A decade later, the late Wendell McCraw came up with the idea to have both schools celebrate their senior night together.
Before tonight’s kickoff, seniors and coaches from both teams will line up under their respective goalposts, walk onto the field at Foots Brumley Stadium to the applause of their teammates, peers, families and the supporters from both communities in the stands.
Decades before developers turned pine trees into suburban enclaves, there was varsity football in the Ancient City. The high school, as it was called, squared off against Palatka.
There are not a lot of constants in this state, but the St. Augustine-Palatka game was one of them. The cities squared off during the Florida Land Boom, during the Great Depression, in wartime, in peacetime, on Saturday afternoon’s at Lewis Park and Friday night’s at Francis Field, with segregated teams and integrated teams. And in 1922, 1943 and 2001, the two proud programs met twice.
It’s a rivalry that has featured Super Bowl winners (St. Augustine’s Caleb Sturgis), first round draft picks (Palatka’s John L. Williams) and people who have touched all walks of life. Before he became The Lion of St. Johns, Verle Pope was the captain of St. Augustine’s 1922 football team. Richard O. Watson made his name as a legendary jurist, but he, like thousands of other young men, played football at Ketterlinus High School.
St. Augustine and Palatka’s current coaches have both played in this game. Willie Fells is a 1995 Palatka graduate who was undefeated against the Yellow Jackets. Brian Braddock is a 1999 St. Augustine graduate who lost to the Panthers 30-7 in his senior year but won all three games he has coached against Palatka by at least 14 points.
Braddock has no intention of his team breaking its vice-grip over Palatka. Even though tonight is not the 100th meeting, as many presumed, it’s still the St. Augustine-Palatka game.
