(Columns may contain opinion)
Building on tradition.
That’s been the theme at Aquinas over the past few years as the school embarked on a $12 million capital campaign for a new athletic complex and student endowment.
On Halloween, the Fightin’ Irish football team chalked up another for tradition as Coach James Leonard put his 100th game in the win column.
The win could’ve come earlier in the season, but if tradition was the guiding factor, the 34-0 win over the Academy of Richmond County couldn’t have been more appropriate.
Leonard comes from Aquinas coaching royalty. His grandfather, Denny Leonard, who died in 1999, was Aquinas’s first football coach, retiring from the gridiron years before James Leonard was born.
Under Denny Leonard, the Fightin’ Irish’s biggest rival had to have been the Musketeers.
Read more: Irish eyes smile on new Aquinas stadium
“This is one of the oldest rivalries in Augusta football history that dates back to 1956. Sixty-seven years ago, Boy’s Catholic High (which merged with the all-girls’ school Mount St. Joseph in 1957 to form Aquinas), held ARC scoreless in a game that ended in a 0-0 tie. For years, the game was played every Thanksgiving and was a big deal for the city,” wrote Christopher Rickerson in a 2023 Augusta Good News column.
That 0-0 tie was considered an upset.
Doug Herman, a 1959 Aquinas High School graduate who played football for the Irish, remembered the rivalry games and how big they were for the city, in a 2023 Augusta Good News article.
“We called it Turkey Day games,” Herman said. “It was an intense rivalry; ’56 was a huge game.”
Herman said that Boys Catholic High School wasn’t known for winning games. The team didn’t get its first win against the Musketeers for a good 10 years after the teams started playing.
Others still recall those early days.
“Would’ve loved to have seen that when I was a student at Aquinas in the late 50s and early 60s,” wrote Jim Waters on Aquinas Football’s Facebook page after the win.
While Boys Catholic and later Aquinas might not have been known as a football powerhouse under Denny Leonard, it was under the first Coach Leonard that the foundation for the program was established.
And with James Leonard’s 100th victory, he has truly built on tradition.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
