SPORTS CATEGORY

Played football for the Bristol West End Athletic Club

CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS YOU WERE ON

Member, West End Football Team, Bristol West End Athletic Club 1929 - 1941

ALL-LEAGUE/ETC. YOU WERE ON

Honorary Right Tackle – All East Football Team 1937; Foundation member – Connecticut Professional Football League (organized 1939)

STATISTICS

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Domenic “Berdie” Monico was the acknowledged star tackle of the legendary Bristol West End Athletic Club (1908 -?). It’s football team, the Bristol West Ends consisted of approximately 20 players, including for the most part, former college stars recruited from within the borders of Connecticut. Home games were played at Muzzy Field on Muzzy Street, Bristol. The Bristol West Ends later became a founding charter team of the Connecticut Professional Football League, which in its day represented the highest level of football played at that time in the Nation – the NFL during the depression period (1929 – 1939).  This was a simpler time – a time much before television. It was a time when Bristol’s historic Muzzy Field reverberated to the cheers of 5000-7000 hometown spectators for a Sunday afternoon football game, when halftimes saw the award of 25 gallons of kerosene range oil or 10 gallons of gas to a lucky spectator, a time before specialty teams, offensive and defensive squads.

It was a time when player Number 14, Domenic Berdie Monico controlled the line of scrimmage and ruled the field for the entire 60 minutes of grueling play.  Berdie was a legendary city gridiron athlete for a ten year plus period spanning the late 1920’s and 1930’s.  He began playing with the “Enders”, minus any previous football experience at the age of 16 (1929) and quickly rose to football stardom throughout the Northeast.

The famed Bristol West End Athletic Club football team he stared on competed against the top semi-pro teams from across the Northeast and the country.  Among these were:

Fordham Collegians

Los Angeles Bulldogs

Brooklyn Dodgers (National Professional Football League)

Brooklyn Eagles

Boston Shamrocks (American Professional Football League)

Stapelton Buffaloes (American Professional Football League)

Orange Tornado Pros (American Professional Football League)

New York Blackhawks, Newark Bears, Long Island Blues, Norristown Pennsylvania Pros, Waterbury Indians, New Haven Annex and arch rivals – the Danbury Trojans……many the forerunners of the first NFL teams.

His first year out, Bill Flynn, then coach of the Bristol Eleven, used Berdie as a reserve end. The next season (1930) Berdie was switched to the tackle position and found his own. He soon matured into the West Ender’s preeminent linesman filling the positions of both Right Tackle and Right Guard. He remained the bulwark of both the defensive and offensive lines throughout the remainder of his illustrious football career and the hay-days of the Bristol West End Athletic Club football.

The Sunday, Nov. 7, 1937 official game program described Berdie as follows: “Whenever a discussion arises concerning Bristol’s better football linemen and when such a discussion takes place for years to come, the name of Berdie Monico is bound to come up. Monico is, without a doubt, one of the best semi-pro tackles turned out in Bristol and one of the better ones Connecticut has shown in recent seasons.”

Team manager Henry Brophy referred to Berdie as “The big fella” and the “key to our line”. In the September 1937 game against the LA Bulldogs, Berdie broke his arm and according to news accounts the team “lost the services of their outstanding lineman” for that season.

According to the Bristol Press, when the Boston Shamrocks, defending Champions of the American Professional Football League, were “unable to gain through the line because of Berdie Monico”, they were forced to take to the air.

While ‘the Iron Horse’ Lou Gerhrig, the ‘Yankee Clipper’ Joe DiMaggio and ‘Lefty’ Gomez were playing the NY Giants in the 1937 World Series, Berdie competitively selected and won appointment to the honorary ‘All East Football Team’ as right tackle and in recognition was honored with the award of a silver football pendent.

During the football season of 1939, the managers of the Wallingford Walcos, the Fairfield Tigers, the Stratford Rams (formerly Holy Name), the Bristol West Ends, and the Electric Boat Diesels recognized the need for organized football in Connecticut to promote ‘wholesome and high class football entertainment for the Connecticut public’. These teams had been organized for at least ten years. In their past playing independently and without league affiliation, they had kept faith with Connecticut football fans and ‘proved themselves to be outstanding football organizations’ in the state.’ It was agreed by the teams that a meeting be held during the first week in January 1939 in New Haven, CT to organize a professional football league for Connecticut teams. In so doing the ‘Connecticut Professional Football League’ – a professional league for Connecticut football teams was organized and its constitution penned.  Under the leadership of Rebelle Carpenter (President, West End Athletic Club), Henry Brophy team manager and Joseph Sugar Hugret (captain), Berdie was inducted as a charter member.

SCHOLARSHIP/ACADEMICS

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