Back in 1998, Chris Hentges dug deep into the history of the Helias football program.
It was the final season his father, Ray Hentges, was going to be the head coach of the Crusaders and he wanted to mark the occasion with facts about the program.
“I wanted to put together a nice overview and digging through some information, I realized we had three All-Americans back in the early days,” Chris Hentges said. “I didn’t know that and I thought I knew everything about Helias football.”
Those three -- Tom Bacon, George Heisler and Leon DeLassus -- will have their jerseys retired at halftime at tonight’s home game against the Vianney Golden Griffins at Ray Hentges Stadium.
“We should have rectified this years ago,” Hentges said. “But it’s nice that we’re getting to do it now.”
Heisler and DeLassus were All-Americans in 1960, while Bacon was an All-American in 1961.
Framed jerseys will be presented tonight at the game.
“We tried to get a retro look, make it look as close to what it was back in the day because we obviously still don’t have those jerseys laying around,” Hentges said.
“It will be nice addition to our trophy case.”
In addition, Helias will be honoring Jack Schnieders. The first-ever football head coach at Helias, Schnieders led Helias to an record of 70-19-1 in 10 seasons. He was named the National Prep Football Coach of the Year and Catholic All-America Coach of the Year after the 1960 season.
Under Schnieders, Helias posted a program-best 32-game winning streak from 1957-60. He was inducted into the Helias Hall of Fame in 2015.