The following is part of a 10-week series on the history of UW-Stout football. The series, which will run every Wednesday in The Dunn County News, is a collaboration with the The News, the Dunn County Historical Society and UW-Stout Athletics. The Stout football program will mark the centennial with a reunion celebration on Homecoming, Saturday, Oct. 1. For more information about the reunion, call the UW-Stout athletic office at 715-232-2224.
By Layne Pitt
UW-Stout Sports Information Director
The football stories of Bill Andrews and Tony Storti were not unusual for men during the 1940s.
Both Andrews and Storti and played on Stout Institutes' 1941 conference championship team, the last year before the United States entered World War II. Both Andrews and Storti joined the service, but would return to Stout following the war – Andrews to finish his education at Stout in 1946 and Storti as a coach in 1948 after completing his college education and football playing career at the University of Delaware.
Andrews played at all positions
Bill Andrews came to Stout Institute in 1939 after a hardscrabble life in Superior.
Andrews' father, William, traveled to California shortly after Bills' birth. His mother, Belle, was expected to join William along with young Bill and two sons from a previous marriage, but that never happened.
Bill's mother struggled to care for th
e three boys. The older boys lived with their grandparents and Bill was placed in an orphanage for up to three years until Belle could find work to support him
The family moved often in and around the Superior area and Bill was in several schools throughout his young life. At one school, Andrews had the father of Robert Swanson as a shop teacher. (Robert Swanson was also a Stout graduate and went on to become UW-Stout's chancellor from 1972-86).
After graduation from Superior Central where he excelled in football, basketball and hockey, Andrews enrolled at a Superior vocational school and was encouraged to attend Stout by an instructor who was a Stout graduate.
Andrews enrolled at Stout, joined the football team, went on to earn four letters, was a two-time team captain, was twice a second team all-conference choice and once first team. Andrews played halfback, center, guard, fullback, quarterback and was the team's kicker.
After the first semester of the 1941-42 school year, Andrews joined the US Army, and married his wife, Elizabeth, June 19, 1942. While Bill served overseas, Elizabeth finished her teaching degree at Stout.
Andrews returned to Stout for the 1946-47 school year, rejoined the football team where he was named an all-conference quarterback.
Andrews went on to teach five years in Michigan, then taught at St. Paul Central High School before he passed away in 1968.
Championship player and coach
Tony Storti came off the Minnesota Iron Range town of Eveleth, Minn., and came to Stout for the 1941-42 school year. He became an immediate freshman sensation for the Blue Devils' football team at running back in 1941 and was a first team all-conference pick in 1942.
Storti coached the Stout Institute football team from 1948-51 and compiled a 21-9-2 overall record and led the team to the 1949 WSUC title and is the only Stout football player to both play and coach on Stout conference championship team.
His career at Stout was cut short by World War II. He did play football while at Camp Grant, gaining 178 yards rushing against the University of Minnesota, was named all-service fullback and played in Chicago's all-star game.
After the war, Storti played at the University of Delaware where the team was undefeated during his junior and senior years, 1946 and 1947, respectively.
Storti returned to Stout in 1948 where the team posted a 2-4-1 overall record. In 1949, the team was 6-2 and conference co-champions. The 1950 team finished 5-2-1 and the 1951 team was 7-1-0. In the previous 21 seasons before Storti arrived, Stout won only a combined 30 games.
Storti moved on to Montana State College, where he served as head football coach and athletic director. His teams won four Big Sky Conference titles and his 1956 team, with a record of 9-0-1, and won an NAIA national championship.
Storti left coaching after the 1957 season and moved his family to Arizona, and then to California. Storti was elected to the UW-Stout Hall of Fame in 1979 and to the Montana State Hall of Fame in 1998. Storti died Jan. 23, 2009.
1941 Championship season
The Blue Devils captured their first conference title since the 1921 season by winning five of their last six games on their way to a 5-2 overall record.
Following a season opening non-conference 8-0 loss to Hamline and a 7-0 win over Mankato State where Storti scored the only touchdown, Stout served noticed with a 39-0 homecoming shellacking of Eau Claire. Bob McRoberts, who would go on to a one-game NFL career with the Boston Yankees, racked up four touchdowns against the Blugolds, a record that has since been matched four times.
The Blue Devils dropped a 20-6 decision to football powerhouse La Crosse the next week, but finished the season on a three-game winning streak. Stout started with a 26-0 non-conference win over Augsburg. Storti scored a 5-yard touchdown to give Stout a lead they would not relinquish in a 21-6 win over River Falls the following week. Stout had to beat Superior at Superior in the final game of the season to have a chance at the conference crown. The Blue Devils came back from a 6-0 halftime deficit in the snow and rain to win on a Bill Young run and when McRoberts recovered his own fumble in the end zone for the win. Coupled with a La Crosse loss the following week, Stout shared the crown with the Indians, Platteville and Whitewater.
War takes it toll
Stout played a limited schedule of five games during the 1942 season. The conference shut down operations and closed down football completely for all schools on Aug. 5, 1943, but did allow the option to play other sports in non-conference play only.
The Aug. 18, 1943, edition of the Dunn County News said “Shortage of men students, due to the war, and failure of the army to permit its enlisted students to compete on college squads led to the decision.”
As the war wound down, Stout resumed a limited football non-conference schedule for the 1945 season and college football returned to Menomonie on Sept. 29, 1945, when Stout blanked Augsburg, 24-0. The conference resumed play for the 1946 season.
Storti takes over
Tony Storti returned to Menomonie in 1948 as football coach and would go on to post the best winning percentage of any Stout football coach. The 1948 team would go 2-4-1, but, in 1949 the Blue Devils would again be on the top of the league for the second time in eight years.
Stout opened with a 28-27 win over Mankato State as Gale Woelffer passed for four touchdowns. Stout would drop the next two games, a 7-6 loss to Eau Claire, with the margin of victory a missed extra point, and a 12-5 loss to River Falls where the Falcons would score on a 35-yard touchdown pass in the final minutes.
Stout would not lose again until the middle of the 1950 season. Stout rallied to defeat Whitewater, 7-6, when Bob Young snatched a pass in the end zone, surrounded by two Whitewater defenders, then kicked the winning extra point.
The Blue Devils beat previously undefeated La Crosse, 27-19, the following week – Stout's first win over the Indians in 24 years – as Harter Peterson rushed for 155 yards and Jim Ooley recorded three sacks.
Five different players scored the following week in a 35-19 win over Superior – including Dom Cataldi, who hauled in a 20-yard touchdown pass only hours after becoming the father of a baby girl, born earlier in the day in Newark, Del.
Stout took a share of the conference title a week later when they intercepted seven Oshkosh passes – including a 35-yard touchdown return by Ooley - and did not allow the Titans inside the 30 yard line in a 14-0 win. The Blue Devils shared the crown with La Crosse and Stevens Point. Stout closed the season with a 14-13 non-conference road win over Upper Iowa.
While the 1951 team, Storti's final year in Menomonie, would go on to post a 7-1 record – Stout's best-ever record until the 2000 season – the Blue Devils would not win another football conference championship until the 1965 season.
