80s-90s Fostoria Redmen

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Maple_City_Fan

Well-known member
Fostoria has fallen on difficult times losing Industry and students(II to now V), but what do you remember about this era when they were a power? Believe it or not, I actually admired them and found them quite "rowdy."
 
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Maple_City_Fan said:
Fostoria has fallen on difficult times losing Industry and students(II to now V), but what do you remember about this era when they were a power. Believe it or not, I actually admired them and found them quite "rowdy."
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Funny you say this. I had 2 that were on Fostoria's football team in the 80s in my college dorm. Rowdy is a nice word...lol....great guys but tough as nails.
 
jonmoxon said:

Stupid Mistakes Change Lives

Within a year, Derek Kidwell went from \
amp.the-daily-record.com amp.the-daily-record.com
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I'm fairly certain Keith was being facetious with his post

He's acknowledged his wrongdoing many times And, Hopewell-Loudon, Fremont Ross, and now hometown Fostoria thought enough about him to be their Intervention Specialist/Head Coach
 
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I remember watching the QB, Kidwell, play for (and win??) a state football championship at Paul Brown. If I remember it right he was a big strong kid who looked as much like a LB as he did a quarterback. His father was the coach at the time and among one of the best in Ohio.
 
I recall walking into Paul Brown Stadium for the 1996 D-II championship game and seeing what appeared to be a rag-tag bunch of Redmen at one end of the field and Buchtel on the other. Buchtel looked like a college team with size and speed to burn. Fostoria looked like a freshman team in comparison with some of the players on the ground stretching and others doing who knows what. I recalled that FHS had lit up 69 points on Findlay so they had some kids, one being Richard Newsome. On the first play of the game Buchtel ran a toss sweep with their 10.6 100m running back, Newsome was at Free Safety and flashed from 12 yards deep and hit the kid for a 5 yard loss. I turned to my buddy and said "It's on." He knew exactly what I meant. Fostoria didn't back off from anyone. Newsome was fantastic, on occasion he would make a play a flash a double-bicep Superman pose at Buchtel when they tried to trash talk him. He was Superman that night.

During Micah Hyde's senior year I decided to attend a home game although I forget who the opponent was. I had heard that he could control a game with his arm and/or feet and it seemed like a decent gamble to make the trip to Fostoria. It was. If he wasn't completing passes he was scrambling everywhere and gaining huge chunks of yardage. It was Lamar Jackson before we had any idea who Lamar Jackson was, nobody could get a clean shot on him. They won but it was clear that they didn't have much to go along with him. I thought at the time that I might be seeing the decline of Fostoria Redmen football and as it turns out that was indeed the case.

Tough kids from a tough town.
 
"His father was the coach at the time and among one of the best in Ohio."

Dick Kidwell was quotable or at least I remember a couple of things I heard him say. I went to a clinic with one of the other coaches on our staff and we ran into Coach Kidwell. My buddy knew Coach Kidwell and asked him how they were going to be, "We'll show up." was his reply but the look in his eye was saying "We're going to bust stuff up.", my buddy said that he knows what that means and that they were loaded. He just smiled. That clinic was leading into the 1996 season.

I also recall him commenting after beating Fremont Ross that "Ross will never beat Fostoria as long as Rex Radeloff is the head coach." This was before all this fancy internet/social media stuff and I had never seen a coach quoted in the newspaper saying such a thing but that was just him.
 
Mr. Slippery said:
At my college, I knew a couple Fostoria kids from the tail end of their "hey day." 1 joined my fraternity and became our chapter president. He gave me a T-shirt that commemorated their 2000 GLL championship (the kid's senior season) and says "Two A Day Soldiers" on the back. I still have that shirt.
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Sounds like the ones I knew from Otterbein that played football.
 
Mr. Slippery said:
I just did some additional research and discovered that the Redmen went 8-2 in '00 to win the GLL (appears they shared the title with Whitmer but beat Whitmer) and qualify as the 3rd seed in the D3 Region 10 playoffs. What I didn't realize is the Redmen went 0-10 in '99. That was quite a turnaround from '99 to '00.
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After winning State in 96, Grine's 1st 3 teams went 3-7, 2-8, then 0-10. Turned it around in 00 as you mentioned. Only GLL loss was to Ross, who won rather easily 42-6, I believe)

1996 team only had 40 players but 21 Seniors. Of course, an awesome class.
 
Maple_City_Fan said:
After winning State in 96, Grine's 1st 3 teams went 3-7, 2-8, then 0-10. Turned it around in 00 as you mentioned. Only GLL loss was to Ross, who won rather easily 42-6, I believe)

1996 team only had 40 players but 21 Seniors. Of course, an awesome class.
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Do you happen to remember the defensive tackle's name that stood about 6'4" and weighed around 255? While all of the players were tough as nails he was the other kid that stood out to me. He was dominant inside against Buchtel. He might have attended Toledo after graduating.

I also think I recall an undersized defensive end that never gave an inch on base blocks and/or kick-outs.
 
Upside said:
Do you happen to remember the defensive tackle's name that stood about 6'4" and weighed around 255? While all of the players were tough as nails he was the other kid that stood out to me. He was dominant inside against Buchtel. He might have attended Toledo after graduating.

I also think I recall an undersized defensive end that never gave an inch on base blocks and/or kick-outs.
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you maybe referring to #79, Malcolm Robinson. Great OLmen who went to BGSU on scholarship. Leo Frierson went to Toledo.
 
Upside said:
"His father was the coach at the time and among one of the best in Ohio."

Kidwell was quotable or at least I remember a couple of things I heard him say. I went to a clinic with one of the other coaches on our staff and we ran into Coach Kidwell. My buddy knew Coach Kidwell and asked him how they were going to be, "We'll show up." was his reply but the look in his eye was saying "We're going to bust stuff up.", my buddy said that he knows what that means and that they were loaded. He just smiled. That clinic was leading into the 1996 season.

I also recall him commenting after beating Fremont Ross that "Ross will never beat Fostoria as long as Rex Radeloff is the head coach." This was before all this fancy internet/social media stuff and I had never seen a coach quoted in the newspaper saying such a thing but that was just him.
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I knew about the quote; I'm going to put you on the spot; why do you think the comment? At any rate, I didn't think there was love lost between the 2 although I think Kidwell did opine Radeloff was always under intense pressure at Ross
 
I remember watching them against an excellent Lake team in the D-2 State Title Game back in the early 90s. What I remember is yes, the QB Kidwell was tall and lanky and they might have also had the kid that went to OSU (Damon Moore?), but the best player on the field was their stout Noseguard/Fullback that blew everything up on both sides of the ball - Breitegam. I still recall a play where Lake's Matt Christopher (who also went to OSU and went about 6'2 230 lbs) took a toss sweep and the hit Breitegam put on him changed the complexion of the game. I thought Lake was going to roll but found out otherwise. I might have mangled some of the kids names but I'm sure someone can help me out.
 
Tom Breitigam was a beast. Along with Kidwell, he also went to BGSU on scholarship

Moore would have been a Sophomore that year. Speaking of which, Moore is the only one I saw to get a clean pop on Woodson during 1993 game. Upside mentioned Newsome's hit from Safety Position which Moore played. Evidently, Safety blitz was the way to go, Ha!

A memory from me; when they took the field for pregame warmups, they did a funeral march, LOL
 
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A couple of stories...
The Redmen were pasting Springfield in first round of 1991 playoffs at Donnell. Damon Moore was a freshman and came in as the back up QB to spell Kidwell. He was electric and ran roughshod over Springfield's first teamers in the second half. Nordonia's coaches were there as they added Fostoria to the schedule the following year. When they saw Moore, as a freshman, knowing they would have to face him the next two years, the next day Fostoria got a call from them to cancel the contract.

In the early 1990s, soccer goals were constructed in the fields adjacent to the high school. After the coaching staff was alerted, they were removed the next day.

I can remember in 1991 going downtown with everyone else to greet the Redmen on their return home from winning a state title. There were thousands of folks jammed into the downtown area at midnight as the bus pulled in and they were pounding on the bus whooping it up. It was an amazing scene.

I played across town during the 80s when the Redmen were very good. I'd bet you couldn't find a town in Ohio of the same size that had the level of HS football talent that Fostoria had between FHS and St. Wendy in the 1980s and early 1990s. Both teams in town went 10-0 in 1983 and the Boosters brought an aging Woody Hayes in to talk to both teams.
 
Maple_City_Fan said:
I knew about the quote; I'm going to put you on the spot; why do you think the comment? At any rate, I didn't think there was love lost between the 2 although I think Kidwell did opine Radeloff was always under intense pressure at Ross
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I've pondered that for a long time and after all the years I'm still not certain. When I first broke into coaching I was struck by how many "alpha males" there were as head coaches that played petty mind games with the other coaches as if they were going to gain some advantage. I'm sure that it still goes on but I think that their efforts could be better focused elsewhere.

I presumed that there wasn't a lot of love between Kidwell and Radeloff but why would you want to get rid of someone you own? It didn't make much sense to me for Kidwell to make that comment since I believe that you shouldn't give your opponents a reason to want to beat you beyond your performance, but I'm also pretty certain that he had a reason for commenting beyond taking shots. I don't know if he was just trying to get into Rex's head or what.

If you have an explanation I'd love to hear it. I also wonder if the Ross job carries the pressure nowadays that it did back then.
 
Coach_B said:
A couple of stories...
The Redmen were pasting Springfield in first round of 1991 playoffs at Donnell. Damon Moore was a freshman and came in as the back up QB to spell Kidwell. He was electric and ran roughshod over Springfield's first teamers in the second half. Nordonia's coaches were there as they added Fostoria to the schedule the following year. When they saw Moore, as a freshman, knowing they would have to face him the next two years, the next day Fostoria got a call from them to cancel the contract.

In the early 1990s, soccer goals were constructed in the fields adjacent to the high school. After the coaching staff was alerted, they were removed the next day.

I can remember in 1991 going downtown with everyone else to greet the Redmen on their return home from winning a state title. There were thousands of folks jammed into the downtown area at midnight as the bus pulled in and they were pounding on the bus whooping it up. It was an amazing scene.

I played across town during the 80s when the Redmen were very good. I'd bet you couldn't find a town in Ohio of the same size that had the level of HS football talent that Fostoria had between FHS and St. Wendy in the 1980s and early 1990s. Both teams in town went 10-0 in 1983 and the Boosters brought an aging Woody Hayes in to talk to both teams.
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The closest I can come to a town having that much success would be Delphos although their population was never as large as Fostoria. Delphos Jefferson under Kevin Fell won on the order of 55 straight regular season games. Then came the run that St. John's had that eclipsed both Jefferson's and Versailles' win streaks. You can get your butt kicked in Delphos pretty quickly without much effort.

I was able to experience first-hand how to get beat by St. Wendelin and Gene Peluso back in the 70's. I wonder if Peluso ever thought that St. Wendelin would suffer the fate that played out.

The talk of Breitigam, Moore, etc reminded me of Casey McBeth. Man, Fostoria had some monsters. Fortunately, I was born too soon to get my whipping from Greg Studrawa.
 
Upside said:
The closest I can come to a town having that much success would be Delphos although their population was never as large as Fostoria. Delphos Jefferson under Kevin Fell won on the order of 55 straight regular season games. Then came the run that St. John's had that eclipsed both Jefferson's and Versailles' win streaks. You can get your butt kicked in Delphos pretty quickly without much effort.

I was able to experience first-hand how to get beat by St. Wendelin and Gene Peluso back in the 70's. I wonder if Peluso ever thought that St. Wendelin would suffer the fate that played out.

The talk of Breitigam, Moore, etc reminded me of Casey McBeth. Man, Fostoria had some monsters. Fortunately, I was born too soon to get my whipping from Greg Studrawa.
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Sandusky/SMCC of the 60s
 
Maple_City_Fan said:
Sandusky/SMCC of the 60s
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No question. Since I'm originally from Sandusky I decided against being a homer. I was just a kid when my uncle took me to my first Sandusky game at Strobel and after all these years I'm not sure that I've ever seen as much talent from a non-private school. My experiences just from the first few glimpses of Blue Streak sentience I hope will never leave me.
 
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