JJ SAYS: We lose another connection to our past

With the passing of Fran Burke Petaluma loses another connection for the Petaluma Leghorns and our past.|

Petaluma’s Leghorns continue to slip away. We lost another of the vanishing breed last month when Fran Burke passed away. He was 96. With his passing Petaluma loses another link to its sports history.

Petaluma’s defining Leghorn roosters are becoming scarcer than the proverbial chicken’s teeth, but even more ominous we are also losing the equally legendary Leghorn football players.

During their prime in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, Leghorn players dominated Argus-Courier and Press Democrat sports pages. Sadly, today their names are chronicled in the Life Tributes section.

Fran Burke was one of the best of the breed of hearty athletes, many former college players or ex-military personnel, who took on, and mostly whipped, all-comers on what became the dominate semi-pro football team in Northern California.

I wasn’t especially close to Fran, although I called him friend and liked and respected him. I knew about some of his background - about his glory days with the Leghorns and his background as a track star. I came after his successful tenure as St. Vincent High School football coach, but I certainly had heard about his success.

I mostly knew Fran for his advocacy for the Merchant Marine Academy. He was one of the many unsung heroes of World War II, another too-rapidly disappearing breed of true heroes. He sailed the dangerous Pacific waters during the war and later attended and graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy.

Fran often visited me to urge the Argus to better tell people what a great educational and athletic opportunity the academy is for young people.

Of course, I never had a chance to see him play for the Leghorns. I was still in grammar school during their glory years, but I do know that Fran, a linebacker and defensive lineman, was good enough to be named to the all-time Leghorn defensive team.

Now he, like so many others, has moved on.

He and all the others - people like Gene Benedetti, Don Ramatici, Fred “The Fox” Klemenok, Bob Acorne and so many more - are not just part of Petaluma’s history, they are part of what Petaluma is today.

The Leghorns and the way the community embraced their heroes are the roots of the community we call Petaluma. They are the reason we embrace our local legends and local players. They not only remind us of a simpler, less complicated time, but they tie us to that time.

They are a big part of the reason that, while we root for the Giants and 49ers, we embrace our football champions, our state meet qualifiers, our Spencer Torkelsons and Jonny Gomes, our Little League World Series heroes.

The Fran Burkes and all the other Leghorns are more than history, more even than legends. They are what Petaluma was, is and will, hopefully, always be.

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