Three generations of Tattersalls seek Wilmington Friends' football title
Rob Tattersall was 12 years old when Wilmington Friends School won the 1984 Division II state football title, still the only championship by an Independent Conference school since the tournament’s 1971 inception.
The Quakers’ title seemed almost inconceivable at the time, except by the team that won it, which was coached by Bob Tattersall, his father.
“I have very vivid memories of that season,” said Rob Tattersall, who succeeded his dad as Friends coach this season. “ . . . . Those guys, they truly believed they were gonna beat everybody and win the state championship from the beginning.”
Friends will play for the second state football title in its history Saturday at 6 p.m. at Delaware Stadium. The Quakers and Caravel Academy match 12-0 records in the Class 2A, the new version of Division II, title game.
This time, Friends playing for a state football championship doesn’t seem so implausible. The Quakers reached the Division II title game in 2016 and 2018, losing each to Woodbridge. They’ve gotten as far as the state semifinals four other times since 2014.
It was a 4-team Division II tournament in 1984 that was later doubled in size and now, as Class 2A, starts with 12 teams.
“We went week by week [in 1984],” Bob Tattersall said, “not even thinking about the state tournament until the very end. Now it’s all anybody talks about.”
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More memories are certain to be instilled – and already have – with this year’s Friends trip to the state finals for the Tattersall family. They’ll be more personal than in 1984.
Senior Robby and sophomore Ryan Tattersall are standout players for Friends and the sons of Rob Tattersall and grandsons of Bob Tattersall, who remains on the staff as associate head coach.
Robby is a quarterback, defensive end and punter who was Class 2A Offensive Player of the Year and will play college football at Yale. Ryan was a second-team All-District 2 pick at safety and his brother’s likely replacement next year at quarterback, having thrown four TD passes in a 33-14 win over St. Andrew’s when Robby was hurt.
Neither can even recall a time when Friends football wasn’t part of their lives. That makes the generational ties that have long characterized Friends football as strong as ever.
“Since we were old enough to come to practice, we would,” Robby said. “We’ve been here through the whole thing.”
“If we’re not here,” Ryan said, “we’re watching college football or the NFL or just watching film with my dad. I feel I’ve always had a great passion and Robby has, too, for Quaker football and just football in general.”
Both are quite aware of the 1984 team’s accomplishments, the stories having been handed down over the years.
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“They definitely do have like a legendary status,” Robby said. “And we see the banner in the gym.”
It has always inspired subsequent Friends teams to earn a championship flag of their own.
The 1984 Friends team’s 22 starters averaged less than 160 pounds, with none bigger than 184-pound center Chris Benfer. Behind the running of Rob Buccini, the Quakers stunned Flight B champ Dickinson, which had been Division I state champ just four years earlier, in the state semifinals 20-0 and now-closed Claymont 22-6 in the title game.
The 2022 Quakers have size up front the 1984 team did not, but they share one important identical characteristic. Friends has 11 seniors, just as the 1984 team did, roughly one-third of the roster. That’s an important dose of experience. Four are on the offensive and defensive lines.
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“We’ve taken a lot of effort to just worry about the moment and what’s in front of us right now,’’ Rob Tattersall said, “whether it be practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, game time, not looking ahead. Those were lessons I saw with that team in ‘84.
“They were never looking ahead. They were in the moment. These guys have really taken that approach.”
Friends has long succeeded by taking kids who attend the school not for football but because of its fine academic reputation and made the sport a popular part of a multi-faceted education. Most of Friends’ football players also compete in other sports but are also involved in music, theatre and additional activities.
Likewise, the football team’s success has been rooted in Bob Tattersall knowing how to get the most out of those players.
A star quarterback at William Penn High in the 1950s, Bob Tattersall gave up playing baseball at the University of Delaware when he was asked to help coach middle school football and basketball and junior varsity baseball at Friends and earn a modest income doing so. He later became a full-time teacher and Friends’ head basketball coach in 1966 and head football coach in 1968.
His Friends football teams went 331-161-7 from 1968-2017 and 2019-21, making him the winningest coach in state history. Rob, a long-time assistant, had stepped into coach the 2018 team after his dad had heart surgery.
“Rob has certainly embellished and put his own stamp on it,” Bob Tattersall said, “but the basics of what we do, how we do it, the practice, I don’t think that’s changed a whole lot.”
In Caravel, Friends faces a talented foe with a proud history it would like to enhance. The Bucs have won four Division II state football titles – in 1989, 1990, 2005 and 2012.
“We just gotta be as close to perfect as we can be,” Robby Tattersall said. “We feel confident in what we’ve been doing all year. But I know my grandfather and my father talk about how, it’s just every week, you gotta get better.”
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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Wilmington Friends School Tattersall DIAA high school football
