Working on the chain gang, 46 years and counting

“I know I’ve seen at least 365 St. Bede varsity football games in that span. I’ve been married 44 years, but I’ve been away for a year, so I’ve only been home for 43,” Schultz said.

“I was dating her when I started this, so that’s all she knows — that nine Fridays in the fall, I’m pretty much gone.”

He was recruited by a friend, Sandy Ptak, to join the chain gang in the fall of 1967 after coming home from college, the same year St. Bede varsity coach John Bellino was a senior member of the Bruins football team.

“He was a great ballplayer. He was a tough kid,” Schultz said.

He’d never given it much thought about lasting so long.

“St. Bede football is a lifelong passion with me. When I was younger I was a radical fan, but I guess I never thought that far ahead,” he said.

A 1960 graduate of the Academy, or “a golden Bruin plus 2,” he jokes, Schultz is not sure how many more years he has in him. As the senior member of the chain gang, he moves the box with the down marker down the sidelines.

“I’ll be 70 in November, and it’s a little less work if you hold the chains,” he said. “I think my next move is the sidelines, I think. I doubt if I make 50 years, but I’d like to make a couple more years.”

St. Bede rewarded their longtime booster this fall with an admission into the Academy’s Athletic Hall of Fame. He was surprised by the phone call because he said he was hardly athletic.

“I only played football for two years at St. Bede, and I was third string at that,” he said. “My actual athletic accomplishment is zero. Of course my involvement has been long. Forty six years has no meaning to me. If it was my 50th or if I was retiring, but it definitely surprised me. It came out of the blue.”