January 25, 2006
'Jud' Verreau, 92, recalls playing days with 1931 St. Francis High basketball team
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Julius "Jud" Verreau was part of the winning 1931 St. Francis High School basketball team that became the best Class D team in the north. For the second year in a row, the team became regional champs but was shut out at the state finals in East Lansing.
Now 92 years old and living in the same house he was born in near St. Francis church and school, Verreau recalls a team of boys who worked hard and played hard. Vernon Emerson, a player on the 1927 team, coached the team through the 1935 season.
"We had a lot of exciting games," said Verreau, who graduated in 1931, one of five seniors on the team.
Verreau filled in for the team as a forward or guard during his playing days. He squeezed his basketball practices and games around the two jobs he held all through high school. Most boys worked in that era, which squashed a movement to start a football team at the school; 20 years later, St. Francis finally fielded a football team.
"A couple of guys over at Central tried to help us but it interfered, like myself I had work to do and other guys had jobs," he said. "So it broke up."
Getting to away games was a challenge solved by a generous local family. The 11 boys on the basketball team and any fans, family or friends traveled to games around the north courtesy of a moving van from Mr. Denoyer.
"He'd take one of his big moving vans and fill the back with blankets and take anyone who wanted to go," recalled Verreau of trips to Northport, Leelanau St. Mary's and Elk Rapids. "We had a lot of fun as well as playing."
The old St. Francis School featured a separate building where home games were played. The building doubled as a gym and auditorium.
"It was a small building, a low ceiling, we called it an old cigar box," said Verreau. "It didn't have any kind of stands, except for maybe two or three rows of seats on the stage."
"The people would sit around the outside of the basketball court and going down the court we would trip on somebody's feet, but we got by," he added.
Reflecting on the current St. Francis High School basketball team, which includes many large players, Verreau contrasts them to the 1931 team.
"We were all shorties practically, there wasn't anybody who was six foot tall on our team," he said.
A middle child of nine, Verreau's father died when he was six. He and his siblings helped their mother as best they could. Verreau worked his way up from a newsboy with the Traverse City Record-Eagle, to a career that included positions in the mail room to the printing operation.
"My job up there as an apprentice printer, I did all the jobs the guys didn't want to do: tearing the pages down and putting the type away," he said.
He retired as head of the company's composing room in 1975. He worked there steadily except for a three-year break as an aviation engineer with the Army during World War II.
"I was a rich kid in those days," he said of his two high school jobs, including one at Brown Lumber. "I was very fortunate to have those situations. I even bought a car, a 1927 Model T Ford from Grand Traverse Auto."