Crusaders football celebrates 95th anniversary

Few understand better than Stacy Dainard how steeped the St. Paul’s High School football program is in history.

The head coach of the Crusaders’ varsity team for the last 25 years has watched the institution’s presence on the gridiron blossom over four decades since he donned the maroon and white as a player from 1984-87.

Dainard figures he will harken back to those days more this weekend when a flock of Crusaders alumni from across the country gather to commemorate the football program’s 95th anniversary.

“We were a competitive team. We had some very committed coaches and some very committed student-athletes,” said Dainard, who reached the provincial championship in each of his first three seasons as a student-athlete. “It was a good time. Football wasn’t as big as it is now, or at least high school football wasn’t as big as it is now. But it was a very competitive league.”

The Crusaders (1-1) host the Vincent Massey (Brandon) Vikings (1-1) on Saturday at Connolly Field as a part of a homecoming weekend that will continue a scholastic year that celebrates the centennial anniversary of St. Paul’s.

“From a coaching standpoint today, the school has grown, the league has grown. There’s more opportunity for more kids to play,” Dainard said.

St. Paul’s had two varsity teams and a junior varsity squad during the 2010s, and now has one team at each level, fielding over 100 players in total.

“I think the opportunity for players to get better, especially in the off-season… I think you see more student-athletes take advantage of that,” Dainard said. “And our school, like a lot of other schools, has responded with added or renovated spaces to make excellent fitness centres and stuff like that.”

The Crusaders have morphed into a perennial powerhouse in recent decades. Their first provincial championship came in 1982. They would have to wait until 1999 to reach the top of the mountain again, but at the turn of the century, the program turned a corner.

The Crusaders have won the provincial championship in the top division 13 times, most recently in 2022. It has also captured four provincial championships in the second division.

The varsity program’s most dominant stretch came between 2009-2013 when it captured the ANAVETS Bowl four times in a five year stretch.

That rich history, Dainard said, is something all players who suit up are cognizant of when they take the field.

“Until (this) season, there’s 94 years of history before these guys. And as a result, the guys that are in the locker room now, they carry a weight of expectations that they haven’t really earned, but they have to live up to at the same time,” he said.

“There’s a sense that there were 94 teams before us and, God willing, there will be 94 teams after us. So, they have a place in history.”

There is an equal sense of pride that comes with this run of excellence. Much of that can be attributed to many players’ lineage of family members who have walked the school’s halls, connecting generations of student-athletes.

“There’s immense pride in just representing what came before you,” Dainard said, “and it’s a burden and a responsibility, but it’s also a real blessing.”

St. Paul’s will have events throughout the scholastic calendar celebrating its 100 years of existence, notably a gala in November, class reunions in May and a golf tournament in June.

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