SPORTS STORIES:
SPORTS INFORMATION—2009
SCAFE Red cat First, Spartan second as player and coach
CLEVELAND, OH (August 28, 2009) -The No. 16 ranked Case Western Reserve University football team will put its 21 regular season game win streak on the line next Saturday [Sept. 5] when they host Kenyon College at 12:00 p.m. in their season opener.
For the first time in 39 years, the modern day squad will walk out onto the field without blue and white uniforms and without a Spartan logo on their helmets. Rather they will wear retro red and brown jerseys, white pants and sport Red Cat and Rough Rider logos on their helmet as part of Heritage Day.
The event was made possible by the generosity of the Case Western Reserve University Alumni Association and the Case Alumni Association (CAA).
Heritage Day will honor football players from Western Reserve University (Red Cats) and Case Institute of Technology (Rough Riders) as well as the early Spartans. Regis Scafe was both a Red Cat and a Spartan as a player and also coached the Spartans in the mid-to-late 90s.
When Scafe came to University Circle as a college freshman in 1967, Reserve and Case had just federated to form Case Western Reserve University, but the two schools would continue to play separate football schedules, and each other, until the 1970 season.
“It was the game,” Scafe said. “I think we played maybe a seven or eight game schedule back then. It didn’t matter if you won a game all season long because there was always the Case-Reserve game at the end. A win that day would cure all and that’s what made the merger weird, because they were our biggest rival and now we were on the same team.”
“Even though we basically shared a campus, we didn’t intermingle much,” Scafe explained. “That’s what made it [the merger] even stranger. They were the engineers and our guys were the doctors and lawyers. They thought we were liberal and we thought they were conservative. They thought we weren’t as smart and we thought they were nerdy.”
The first head coach of the newly nicknamed Spartans was Flory Mauriocourt and the adversity he faced trying to get them to start saying “us” rather than “they” could only be understood by a fellow head coach, which Scafe later became at his alma mater. He led Case Western Reserve for five seasons, from 1994-1998.
“As players, there was a lot of uncertainty and our biggest concern was who the coach was going to be,” Scafe explained. “It was pretty strange eventually being on the same team as those [Case] guys. But I think it helped both programs in the long run, but the bad thing about it – you didn’t have the Case-Reserve game anymore.”
“I think it had to be tough on him [Mauriocourt],” Scafe explained. “I have never talked to him about it, but he had to get everybody to be part of one team – that was the challenge. I had a positive senior year experience and that is a tribute to Flory.”
Scafe graduated in 1971 with a B.S. degree in health and physical education. He earned four letters in football and three in baseball. He grabbed seven interceptions in eight games on the gridiron his final season and was an All-Presidents’ Athletic Conference honoree at defensive back.
“I do talk a little bit about the old days with my players,” Scafe explained. “Especially when I was at Case, the history and tradition of where the program came from is important. That’s what’s cool now, this [Heritage Day] will bring that back.”
Before his arrival as a coach, the Spartan football team had only won four games in two seasons. Scafe turned Case Western Reserve into a .500 club in two of his final three years. In 1998, the Spartans finished 5-5 and the 1996 squad (5-5 record) was a tri-champion of the UAA. In return, Scafe and his staff were named UAA Coaching Staff of the Year in 1996.
Scafe has been a head coach at the NCAA Division III level for 15 consecutive seasons now (career record: 87-67), the last 10 at local John Carroll University.
“I was real excited when I was named the head coach at CWRU [university’s second reference at the time],” Scafe said. “We weren’t too good at the time I took it over. We made some progress during my tenure, but not near where the program is right now. Coach [Greg] Debeljak and his staff have done a tremendous job.”
A NEW RIVARLY INVOLVING SCAFE … John Carroll University was one of the Spartans new rivals back in the 1970s due part to the fact they were both in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference and because the two campuses are only a few miles apart from each other on Cleveland’s eastside. The rivalry will be restarted next season as the Spartans and Blue Streaks face each other for the first time in over 20 years [1988] next September 4, 2010 at Case Field.
“I think it’s really good for football in Cleveland,” Scafe said. “Now it will be weird because I have a lot of friends on their [Case] staff and vice versa.”
ABOUT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY … Case is among the nation's leading research institutions. Founded in 1826 and shaped by the unique merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, Case is distinguished by its strengths in education, research, service, and experiential learning. Located in Cleveland, Case offers nationally recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dental Medicine, Engineering, Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work. http://www.case.edu.