Fall Fridays have been a big deal in Jackson for more than a century.
Not enough of a big deal to prevent a daughter of mine from getting married on a Friday in September, but that's a topic for another day.
There have been a lot of successful Jackson Blue Jay and later Jackson County Central Huskies teams. There have been numerous conference championships and a couple of state titles along the way.
The most dominant of those 100-plus teams might have been the 1931 JHS team. Following is a look back at those powerful Blue Jays, coached by Lewis Swearingen.
As much as I would love to take the credit, all the research for this was done by Tyrone Wacker.
Tyrone wrote that the 1931 Blue Jays were considered to be the best football team at JHS since 1903.
Up until 1931, the 1903 team that went 4-1-1 was the most famous.
Three of the boys that played on that team went on to be captains at Macalester, Ohio Western (Ohio State), and the University of Minnesota.
The 1931 Blue Jays compiled a 7-0 record and outscored their opponents 186-6.
Here are the scores of the games that season:
Jackson 35, Adrian 0
Jackson 48, Blue Earth 0
Jackson 12, Fairmont 6
Jackson 20, Lakefield 0
Jackson 39, Milford 0
Jackson 14, Windom 0
Jackson 18, Worthington 0
The 1931 starting offensive lineup:
RE - Joe Haugland
RT - Bat Smith
RG - Lyle Kelsey
C - Freeman Musegades
LG - Spunt Mustuska
LT - Bruce Berryman
LE - Floyd Strubbe
LH - Ernie Knutson
RH - Jerry Psik
QB - Jack Richmond
FB - Kent Snyder
Berryman was the team captain and would go on to play for the Gophers.
Snyder scored 18 touchdowns and was voted to the all-Southern Minnesota All-Star team. Tragically, he would pass away not long after graduating from high school from a tumor that grew in between his heart and lungs in the summer of 1932.
JHS Coach Lewis Swearingen would be one of the charter members of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
As if simply being a Hall of Famer isn't good enough company, among the other members of that inaugural class were Minnesota football legends Bernie Bierman and Bronko Nagurski.
Have a topic you'd like to see researched? Let me know and either I'll lean on Tyrone or try to do it myself. Email me at sportsdr44@hotmail.com