1991 FOOTBALL TEAM

Division 4 Super Bowl Champions

After being stunned by a one-point loss to Southeastern Regional of the Mayflower League at home on opening night, many of its followers were ready to write off Fairhaven High School in the race for respectability in the 1991 schoolboy football season. But 10 games later, the Blue Devils had managed to regain that respect, and they were also on the threshold of appearing in the school’s first high school Super Bowl Game.

The season before, Fairhaven had managed to ground and pound its way to another respectable 7-3 season thanks to the patented wishbone offense that had produced the vast majority of the teams’ 32 total touchdowns. One or two may have come from the defense or special teams, and only three touchdowns were scored via a pass.

Under Coach Dana Almeida, passing at Fairhaven High School was only important on test scores. But after three rushing touchdowns, a pair of running two-point conversions and a safety had left his team two points shy of a win in the season opener, Almeida bit his lip, looked to the sky and re-wrote the team’s playbook.

Jason Monteiro was in his first full season as the team’s starting quarterback in that ’91 season. He was a natural at running the team’s patented wishbone attack, but he was also proficient at throwing the football. So, Almeida decided to let him throw. Monteiro threw for two touchdowns in Fairhaven’s next game and the Blue Devils rebounded from their opening night loss by beating Wareham 12-6. The winning touchdown came on Monteiro’s second touchdown pass of the game, a four-yard strike to John Alves in the final minute of play. Over the final nine games, Monteiro would throw at least one scoring strike in seven of them, and the one-time 0-1 Blue Devils would rally to win 10 straight, capture the South Coast Conference Championship, beat Dartmouth on Thanksgiving Day and clinch a berth in the Division 4 Large School Super Bowl game at Boston University.

East Bridgewater was the opponent and, led by Monteiro, Fairhaven went on to win a 30-27 shootout to bring home its first Super Bowl trophy. The junior, who threw for the Blue Devils’ only two touchdowns in a 13-9 win over Dartmouth, threw his 13th and 14th scoring strikes, ran for two touchdowns and rushed for a pair of 2-point conversions to figure in all 30 of the team’s points to cap off the Super Bowl win and put an exclamation point on that championship season.

Junior All-Star running back Nate Pickup led the team in touchdowns with 15 in the regular season, including five in a 49-16 rout of Seekonk. Other players who found their way into the end zone and cement the success of this team included: Anthony Bertoldo (7 touchdowns), Donnie Joseph (3 touchdowns and 4 extra points), Alves (6 touchdowns and 10 extra points), Shaun Goldrick (3 touchdowns and 2 extra points), Neil Roderiques (3 touchdowns), Mike Graham, Mike Bourgault (1 touchdown each) and Nate Cass (2 extra points).

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