Twenty-five years later, Mike Goldenberg still gets the occasional free drink from folks who watched him make The Run.
It was November 26, 1998. The 100th playing of what’s known simply in these parts as ‘The Game’: Beverly vs. Salem. The series was dead even, with each school having won 46 games and tied seven. This overcast late November day at Hurd Stadium, played before an estimated 11,000 fans, would determine who would take the series lead as it began its second century of gridiron glory.
Goldenberg’s Panthers were trailing, 7-0, in the fourth quarter But they had marched into enemy territory and had first down on the Witches’ 30-yard line with just over two minutes to play. Head coach Roger Rosinski called one of the Orange-and-Black’s bread-and-butter plays: 39 sweep, where quarterback Justin Shairs would toss to the ball to Goldenberg, a running back, cutting left.
Shairs pitched the ball to Goldenberg, who encountered a wall of Salem defenders as he neared the left sideline. First Dan Emack nearly brought him down with a solo tackle, and Salem captain Adam Schroeder dove and nearly did the same thing. Amazingly, Goldenberg stayed upright, cut against the grain and, following a wall of Beverly blockers, scampered right for a 28-yard pickup before being dragged down at the 2-yard line.
In that moment, Goldenberg became the Golden Boy.
“Even to this day, it comes up on a regular basis whenever my friends — who were of course all at the game — try to remind me how washed up I now am,” Goldenberg says now with a chuckle. “It’s truly my Al Bundy moment when I forever became a very pseudo local football hero.”
Three plays later Eugene Moore crashed into the end zone from a yard out, then did the same thing on the ensuing 2-point conversion to give Beverly a historic 8-7 win over the Witches in one of the best-ever games not only in series history, but in the 120-plus years of North Shore football lore.
The one-point margin of victory was only the second time that the Panthers had achieved that against their arch rivals … the first coming 95 years prior, a 6-5 triumph.
There is, of course, a flip side to every coin. For as well as they played that day, the Witches were left in shock when the clock struck 0:00.
“I remember feeling devastated when we lost the game, feeling like we let so many people down — ourselves included” said Schroder, a captain and standout linebacker for the Witches. “ I think that’s one of the many reasons that make the Salem vs. Beverly game so great: the feeling that you’re playing for the whole city.”
Tough as nails
Ben Potvin was a senior captain and linebacker for Salem who played in his only game of the season that Thanksgiving Day. He and fellow senior Frank Cunha, a nose guard, had missed the entire season with torn anterior crucial ligaments, but both opted to forgo surgery so that they could play on Thanksgiving.
His team was an underdog coming into the clash with a 6-3 mark; second place Beverly (8-1), whose only loss had come against Gloucester, had been instilled as an 8-point favorite by local oddsmakers. Both were run-first squads known for being tough and particularly stingy when it came time to allowing points.
“The bus ride over, as always, was total silence,” said Potvin, now a captain on the Salem Fire Department who lives in Topsfield with his wife and two children (ages 14 and 10). “The environment at the game was like nothing I’d ever been a part of. Warmups were intense.
“Coach (Sean) Gallagher always had tremendous pregame speeches … and pre-week speeches, too. We had been known to watch battle scenes from ‘Braveheart’ before games.”
Beverly captain Justin Shairs, the Panther quarterback, has vivid memories of both the lead up to the historic contest and the moments before kickoff.
“I feel like we spent almost every school day at some sort of event to celebrate the 100th game,” Shairs, a Detective Sargent with the Beverly Police Department. “We spent a lot of time with the Salem captains leading up to the game, too, and we respected each other so much. There’s nothing quite like the high school rivalry that sparks that type of respect for your opponent. Those Salem guys were tough as nails. Ben Potvin was out for most of the year and ended up playing in the game. Artie Mercier, Matt Horgan, Frank Cunha and the Schroeders’ (Adam and Keith) were all tough customers.
“My fondest memory of the game was coming out of the locker room and seeing Hurd Stadium completely full of fans. I remember both sets of stands were full and there were spectators all around the fence line about 20 people deep,” he continued. “I had never seen that many people at a high school game.”
“I don’t think at the time I understood the legacy of the rivalry. It wasn’t until we walked out of the locker room and I looked around at jam packed stands and the crowd all standing around the fence waiting for us to walk out is when I realized how big the game was,” said Schroeder. “Seeing former coaches from Pop Warner there rooting us on got the adrenaline and butterflies going.”
“I have never seen an entire city come together around a high school football game like people did for that game,” added Goldenberg.
Salem, which wound up outgaining Beverly (290 yards to 251), broke a scoreless tie in the second quarter when Artie Mercier, coming in for his first series at quarterback, raced 83 yards to paydirt. It was his 20th career touchdown, and Craig Lombard’s kick gave the Witches a 7-0 halftime lead.
Mercier (113 yards) was one of two Witches to go over the century mark on the ground that day; junior Matt Horgan, who wound up leading Salem to a Super Bowl title the following season, had 106 on 21 carries.
At halftime, said Shairs, Beverly wanted to make some offensive adjustments to try and neutralize Salem’s linebacking corps, who had been blitzing relentlessly. So the Panthers decided to use their ‘80/90’ play: a pop pass to the right end right off the snap.
“I’d take the snap, get on my toes without dropping back and hit Corey Harrington or Joe Levesque right off the line of scrimmage,” said Shairs. “That play came up huge a few times on our scoring drive.”
‘You might as well call a play’
The Witches remained stout defensively in the second half, however, turning the hosts aside on each drive. When Beverly got the ball back on its own 33-yard with just 3:06 to play, it was now or never.
Shairs found Levesque (13 yards) and Harrington (21) to move the chains before The Run happened. One of the reasons Goldenberg broke free was that Shairs threw a cut block on Schroeder.
“I swear the coaches were telling me to just get out of bounds, but once I bounced off the defenders and spun the other way, I was like holy (cow), I have some daylight back the other way,” recalled Goldenberg. “I ran with every last ounce of energy towards the right corner of the end zone. I thought I could get there … but sadly my greatest moment landed me on the 2-yard line, not the end zone.
“If you look at the film, I can barely stand after the play. I was so dead tired.”
Moore, who gained over 1,000 yards rushing that season, broke the plane on a quick pitch left with 1:16 remaining. Shairs then went over to the sidelines to confer with Rosinski about the conversion.
“He wanted to kick the extra point, mentioning something about the series being tied and keep it that way,” recalled Shairs. “I told him flat out, “If you call a kick, I’m gonna pull it off the tee and run it in, so you might as well call a play.’”
Beverly ran the exact same play that Moore had scored on, only out of a back over set with Goldenberg as the lead blocker. Shairs “almost threw the ball away” on the pitch, putting it on Moore’s shoulder, but he snagged it, spun and ran into the same left corner of the end zone.
“Needless to say the Beverly crowd, including a bunch of my properly (inebriated) friends, were losing their minds in the stands,” said Goldenberg.
Salem had one last chance to pull out a last-second victory, moving the ball over midfield in the waning seconds. But Mercier’s downfield pass was intercepted by Panther Matt Amatucci as the clock ended, and bedlam ensued on the grass at Hurd.
“It wasn’t the outcome that we prepared for, that we worked for our that we expected,” said Potvin. “But the buildup, the relationships (he and Shairs are now friendly), the type, the crowd … it’s without a doubt a memory that does, and will always, stand out in my mind. And I’m proud that I was part of the game that lived up to the hype.”
Salem (10-1), which is bound for the Division 6 Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium next Thursday against Fairhaven, is a huge favorite this morning over 1-9 Beverly in the 125th edition of this rivalry.
Looking back on his team’s historic victory two-and-a-half decades ago, Goldenberg said he’s appropriately thankful for what happened to him that day.
“It’s very cool to think that even as the years and decades have passed, our team would have a very small place in history of one of the greatest high school rivalries ever,” he said.
Beverly 8, Salem 7
100th Meeting: Nov. 26, 1998
at Hurd Stadium, Beverly
Estimated attendance: 11,000
Salem (6-4) 0 7 0 0 7
Beverly (9-1) 0 0 0 8 8
Scoring summary
S — Artie Mercier 83 run (Craig Lombard kick)
B — Eugene Moore 1 run (Moore rush)
Individual Statistics RUSHING: Salem — Artie Mercier 9-113, Matt Horgan 21-106, Adam Schroeder 4-9, Dan Emack 1-1, Eric Gonzalez 1-(-2); Beverly — Mike Goldenberg 14-96, Eugene Moore 17-61, Justin Shairs 9-55, Joe Levesque 1-12, Corey Harrington 1-(-4).
PASSING: Salem — Emack 2-2-30-0-0, Mercier 4-7-29-0-1; Beverly — Shairs 3-7-37-0-1.
RECEIVING: Salem — Craig Lombard 2-24, Gonzales 2-14, Schroeder 1-15, DeWayne Penn 1-6 Beverly — Harrington 1-21, Levesque 1-13, Moore 1-(-3).
Contact Phil Stacey
@PhilStacey_SN