Season Pass … by Dennis Cox, Sports Editor
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As a rule, today’s high school athletes enjoy the best facilities, diet and work out techniques and training methods, but once upon a time, natural ability was more than enough to get a young man noticed.
Ron Gastineau excelled during such an era.
Ron, a 1960 graduate of Penney High School, who passed away Monday at the age of 68, left his mark on not just Hornet athletics, but the Grand River Conference’s, as well.
I wasn’t one of the fortunate ones that saw him play, but growing up in the Hamilton school system, it wasn’t long before I knew exactly who he was.
A four-year high school football starter, Ron was twice named all-state (1958-59). He rushed for over 1,000 yards in both his junior and senior seasons. As a sophomore, he threw for 11 touchdowns and ran for 10 more out of Coach Bill McCrary’s (another PHS grad) wing-T system. Ron would later excel for Coach Kenneth Craven in 1958 and 1959.
Hornet football teams lost only four games from 1956 to 1959. Cameron came into the GRC for football in 1957 and beat Hamilton, 12-7, when the Hornets, despite out-gaining the Dragons in yardage, 213 to 146, fumbled seven times.
Hamilton’s 13-7 victory over Cameron in 1958 snapped the Dragons’ 39-game winning streak.
A Gastineau-led Hornet team would not lose again, rattling off 25 straight victories through the end of the 1959 campaign. Ron ran for 1,096 yards that year, with a 9.9 yards per carry average, despite missing all of the King City game and most of the Gallatin and Grant City contests with an injury.
He was slighted at the all-conference selection meeting and denied a third first-team honor when he was given only honorable mention recognition, but he would receive both all-district and all-state awards that year.
Perhaps the only Hornet football player to ever run for, throw for and catch a touchdown pass in a single season, Ron finished his high school football career with 43 rushing touchdowns (8 as a freshman), 19 touchdown passes and two receiving touchdowns. He also finished with 36 extra points (PATs were one point) in an era when there were no extra-point kickers. I’ve lost track, but at one time, he was second only to Matt Woods (1988-91) in total career touchdowns, after holding down that record for many years.
Ron’s prowess didn’t end in November with the close of football season. During his senior year, he scored 40 points in a basketball game against Cameron, during, what many say, was a personal duel with Dragon standout athlete Ray Bob Carey.
Again, with less than great facilities at his disposal, Ron was just as dominant in track and field.
A great sprinter, Ron ran today’s equivalent of the 100-yard dash in the low 11 second range. He also consistently jumped beyond 19 feet in the long jump.
I first met Ron in the summer of 1986 when I was working on a series of articles chronicling the Hornet football success during the 1950s, and later got to know Ron well through Lions Club activities and when he and Elaine ran the Koffee Kup Café in Gallatin, and he was always fun to be around, especially at high school sporting events. The family has asked that memorials be made to the Penney High School football program, or to Fishing Derby Day for Kids at the Hamilton Reservoir.