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SPECIAL REPORT: YARD BY YARD

How Dieruff High School football is trying to get back in the game A slow,
Out of pain, promise exacting
The unity of teammates, the courage despite
absent relatives, the resolve after a winless season
process
at Sanofi
H1N1 vaccinemaker opens
production facility in hopes
of easing fears about safety.
By Veronica Torrejón
OF THE MORNING CALL

Forget the chicken. At Poconos vaccine-

maker Sanofi Pasteur, it all starts with the
egg — millions of them each week.
The key ingredient used to make omelets
is also a mini vaccine factory that will grow
more than 75 million doses of H1N1 vaccine
this year. The exact process has been a close-
ly guarded secret of the only company to
make flu shots in the United States.
But earlier this month, Sanofi offered re-
porters a rare glimpse of select parts of the
production process at its 540-acre campus in
Swiftwater, where vaccines are produced for
the flu as well as polio, meningitis, cholera
and other bacterial and viral diseases.
By opening their doors, company execu-
tives hoped to assure people the H1N1 vac-
cine is safe, made the same way that seasonal
flu shots have been made for decades.
“We see a lot of media reports and people
wondering about whether to take it,” said
Ryan Riboldi, senior director of quality assur-
ance. “We just want people to see that we’re
proud of what we do and what goes into mak-
ing it.”
MICHAEL KUBEL / THE MORNING CALL Many people fear the vaccine more than
Rodney Gilmore, given the Dieruff Most Valuable Player award after the game against Allen High School, cries on coach John McDowell’s they fear contracting the flu. In a recent
shoulder after the loss. ‘I learned you have to work as a team,’ Rodney says. ‘If you do not work as a team, you will not win anything at all.’ Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll, 67
percent of Pennsylvanians said they were
Last of five parts concerned about the vaccine’s safety and less

By Steve Esack
OF THE MORNING CALL
The senior sits at his locker in the base-
ment of Dieruff High School, reading the
child’s penciled letter.
Dear Giancarlos Sabino, I hope you win
the game … My name is Brilyn. I am in
third grade.
Giancarlos gingerly places the Mosser
Elementary student’s letter in his school
bag.
“It’s my last game,” he says, “and that
was very thoughtful.”
Three hours later at Allentown’s J. Bir-
ney Crum Stadium, Giancarlos, 17, would
wish he had a relative who cared as much
about the annual game against cross-city
rival Allen High School.
“Senior football players, cheerleaders
and band members report with your par-
ents in the end zones,” PA announcer
Scott Rosenberger bellows across the stadi-
um.
It’s time for the Senior Day parade.
Giancarlos walks toward the Dieruff
end zone with 11 other football players. He
gets in line and is handed a blue and white
mum. He stares at the flower, purses his
MICHAEL KUBEL / THE MORNING CALL
Lazarus Ramos is escorted by his mother,
Maria Ramos, as seniors are announced
before their game against Allen High School.
lips and hides it in his helmet so the crowd
cannot see he has no one to pin it to.
Slowly, subtly, Jeremy Hines, who is
his geometry teacher and an assistant
freshman football coach, and Principal
Jim Moniz slide next to Giancarlos.
They will not let him walk alone.
“It happens more often than you would
think,” Moniz would say later.
When the game ends in a 34-6 Allen win,
Giancarlos does not cry like other seniors.
“You really do not
know what you can
accomplish until you
are pushed.”
— Principal Jim Moniz
He smiles, looking back at his team’s win-
less season under a new head coach who
tried to instill commitment and trust in
his players. Giancarlos realizes he was
never really alone in that end zone.
“I was ticked off. I looked at everyone
else’s family,” Giancarlos says. “And then
I saw my teammates and knew this is my
family. I am grateful they didn’t let me
walk out by myself.”
It is a testament to the power of unity in
the face of adversity. Giancarlos hopes to
carry it for life after he becomes the first in
his splintered family to graduate from
Please see DIERUFF NEWS 12
than half planned to get the shot. Sanofi
hopes to assuage those fears by helping the
public understand how the vaccine is made.
“It’s a highly controlled process,” said
Sanofi scientist Samson Lee, who is responsi-
ble for the production of the H1N1 vaccine.
Production begins, unofficially, at special
farms across the country devoted to produc-
ing eggs that will grow the viruses used to
make vaccines.
The farms look nondescript from the out-
side, but inside they are kept completely ster-
ile, Lee said. Hens are fed plenty of food and
water and allowed to roam freely. Fertilized
eggs are trucked to Sanofi soon after they are
laid. Exactly how soon is just one of many
Sanofi secrets.
But why eggs?
“Viruses require a living cell to propa-
gate,” Lee said.
In short, eggs are a perfect little petri dish
Please see SANOFI NEWS 2
RESOURCES
Information, including upcoming
seasonal and H1N1 vaccine clinics
themorningcall.com/health

If they build it, who will come?

As Easton contemplates high school sports
hall of fame, cautionary tales abound
of other sports museums gone bust.
By Michael Duck
OF THE MORNING CALL

A new, multimillion-dollar national sports museum

springs up in the heart of a downtown, promising to overhaul
a neighborhood while bringing in tens of thousands of tour-
ists. With easy access to a market of millions, organizers grab
headlines with splashy concept drawings and bring in top-
flight athletes like former pro footballer Tiki Barber.
That sounds a lot like Easton’s vision for its proposed
National High School Sports Hall of Fame Museum, but it’s COURTESY OF SPILLMAN FARMER ARCHITECTS
also a description of the nearly $100 million Sports Museum of An artist’s rendering of the National High School Sports Hall
America. That attraction opened in Manhattan to huge fan- of Fame, planned for downtown Easton. Experts advise a
fare in 2008, but closed this year and then filed for bankruptcy realistic projection of annual visitors.
in March after failing to meet attendance projections despite See our ad on A4
being in one of the nation’s biggest sports markets. Smith, executive director of the National Wrestling Hall of
If the planned $10 million Easton museum is to avoid a Fame in Stillwater, Okla.
similar fate, experts say, it will have to work closely with “All you have to do is look at how difficult it is for a hall of
nearby attractions, market itself well and, above all, stick to fame or sports museum to do well. … Exaggerating visitor-
realistic estimates about how many people will go to a sports ship is probably one of the most often heard-of problems with
museum.
“Done rightly, it can be a success. [But] you’ve got to be
very careful with what you’re projecting,” said Lee Roy Please see MUSEUM NEWS 2

FOR HOME DELIVERY CALL 1-800-666-5492 OR VISIT themorningcall.com

NEWS 12 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
YARD BY YARD How Dieruff is trying to get back in the game
“I was ticked off. I looked at everyone else’s family. And then I saw my teammates
and knew this is my family. I am grateful they didn’t let me walk out by myself.”
— — Senior Dieruff player Giancarlos Sabino
Dieruff High School football player Giancarlos Sabino is escorted by Principal Jim Moniz (left) and Jeremy Hines, his geometry teacher, before they play crosstown rival Allen High
School. In June, Sabino will be the first in his family to graduate from high school.
DIERUFF
Continued from NEWS 1
high school and looks to join the Marine
Corps.
Giancarlos isn’t the only one who
learned something this season.
In his five months at Dieruff, head coach
John McDowell learned more about charac-
ter and courage from players like Giancar-
los than he did while playing on winning
teams in his home state of Oregon or coach-
ing teams to playoffs at his last job in Califor-
nia.
“When you are not winning a lot of foot-
ball games, you think, ‘Are we getting better
at this? Are we getting better at that?’ ” Mc-
Dowell, 29, says. “But it’s easy to forget the
other stuff, the reasons why kids play foot-
ball — life lessons and working as a team.”
Measuring success
Moral victories.
They count for a Husky team outscored
by at least 25 points in all 10 games.
They count for Dieruff educators who try
to instill a sense of school pride in 1,742 stu-
dents, many of whom worry more about
dodging life’s arrows than understanding
punt formations or Shakespeare.
“We haven’t won a game, and for that our
school is looked down upon,” says sopho-
more lineman Donzell “Fonzi” Hines, 15.
“I’m used to adversity. I don’t really have a
lot of money. Some nights I may not eat or I
may not get clothes. But I’m not a quitter
and I’m more mature now. I feel older.”
Football did that. Donzell will be back
next year.
“I have a lot of respect for the kids we
have and the [crap] they put up with,” Mc-
Dowell says. “Yet they still come out.”
McDowell was hired to rebuild
Dieruff’s once-mighty football program. It
has been in a tailspin for the better part of
two decades as the poverty rate has risen
and parents, fans and alumni have drifted
away.
McDowell came with an offensive plan,
the Fly, and confidence. He thought he
could win two, maybe three games this sea-
son, enough to get players to trust him and
his plan.
Instead, he endured the worst losses of
his life, stadiums devoid of fans, uninter-
ested parents, players who shrugged off
practices and about a dozen who quit.
But something else happened too. Play-
ers who stuck by him learned about com-
mitment, a tenet of McDowell’s coaching
philosophy.
In his home state of North Carolina and
in Allentown, senior Rodney Gilmore got
by on his athleticism and felt practice was
a waste of time. Coaches overlooked his
absenteeism because they needed him in
the games.
But McDowell laid down a strict no-
practice, no-play rule and benched Rodney
whenever he skipped practice. For that,
Rodney has been humbled.
“I learned you have to work as a team,”
says Rodney, 18, who cried on McDowell’s
shoulder after the Allen loss despite win-
ning the game’s Dieruff Most Valuable
Player award. “If you do not work as a
team, you will not win anything at all.”
That goes for the adults too.
Dieruff coaches and administrators
have contributed to the lack of commit-
ment by allowing students to quit one los-
ing sport for another.
After about five players quit McDow-
ell’s team to play basketball, causing a
plunge in morale and nearly wiping out
the junior varsity football squad, junior
linebacker Michael Burgos, 16, said the ad-
ministration has to set a rule forbidding
coaches from accepting players who volun-
tarily quit a team.
“You just can’t go to another sport,”
Michael says. “It’s about dedication.”
Moniz, the principal, agrees. “We have
to talk about that as a program, and get it
out in the open,” he says.
For the players who remained with
him, McDowell on Monday, Nov. 2, handed
each a navy blue warm-up suit with his
last name stitched on the right sleeve.
“This is the first year we got them for
free for sticking it out with them,” says
senior lineman James Lukow, 17. “Before
we always had to pay for them ourselves.
“It makes us feel like the school is actu-
ally behind us,” he says, “because as you
have seen, we haven’t gotten a lot of back-
up from the rest of the school.”
For dads like Tino Babayan, Robbie
Schappell, Greggory Graddy and Robert
Squires, who attended games, bought kids
drinks or food, drove them home at night
or helped build a bonfire on the eve of the
Allen game, McDowell offered his thanks
during a potluck dinner for players and
cheerleaders. To moms Lynda Lukow, Pau-
la Squires and Melissa Schappell, who pre-
pared the dinner, he gave flowers.
“I’m proud my son played,” Babayan
says of his honor roll son Josh, 17. “His
teammates, they are great kids; a lot of
them are already behind the eight ball.”
Sophomore wide receiver Shawn Delga-
do admits he is one of those behind-the-
eight-ball kids. Shawn had never played
organized football in his life. He signed up
to stay out of trouble in his first year in
Allentown, where he moved in with a rela-
tive to escape the drugs and violence he
says had become a part of his life in Read-
ing.
“I’m 17 and in 10th grade; that’s pretty
bad,” Shawn says. “But I’m not dumb.
Grades were never a problem. It’s my after-
school activities.”
Students like Shawn are why defensive
coordinator Brian Miller, also a gym teach-
er at Northampton Area High School, de-
cided to coach at Dieruff instead of staying
on the coaching staff of Muhlenberg Col-
lege in Allentown.
“I am so proud to be out there,” Miller,
29, says. “Some of them might not be the
best players on the field and they might not
be starters, but football helps the kids stay
on the straight and narrow.”
Taurean Valentine, 26, wide receivers
and defensive backs coach, knows the feel-
ing. He grew up like some of the Dieruff
players. His mother shipped him from Flor-
ida to Allentown while he was in middle
school to get him away from fights and
drugs. It worked. He played on losing
Dieruff football and basketball teams, but
through sports got to Edinboro University
near Erie, where he played football and
graduated last year.
Valentine came back to his alma mater
to try to reverse the losing and to teach
players they too can change their fortunes.
“This,” he says, “is bigger than Xs and
Os and wins and losses.”
As junior Jubi Gillans sees it, the coach-
es put the team in the best position to win.
But not enough players tried hard enough
in practice to win.
“You can’t coach toughness, you can’t
coach heart,” says Jubi, 17, a defensive end
and offensive tackle who lives in a foster
home. “We play like losers. People have to
work harder in practice.”
Michael, the junior linebacker who
doesn’t like quitters, agrees. While foot-
ball taught him how to be independent, it
also taught him he wants to win.
Next year, he says, coaches need to be
tougher. Run them more, demand more.
“More rules will help players under-
stand this is an organization and we are
trying to win games,” Michael asserts.
Those rules are coming, and so is a bus.
THE MORNING CALL
MICHAEL KUBEL / THE MORNING CALL
MULTIMEDIA
A Photo galleries and videos
A Interactive look at players, coaches and
cheerleaders
A Historical Dieruff football news pages
A Comparison of football teams from
the area
mcall.com/sports/varsity/dieruff
MICHAEL KUBEL / THE MORNING CALL
Quarterback Rodney Gilmore sails in for
Dieruff’s only touchdown against Allen.
Above, Dieruff High School players rev up the
crowd at the pep rally on the Friday of the big
game against Allen High School.
On Nov. 13, McDowell, Moniz, varsity
line coach John Glass Jr. and freshman
coach Jake Purnell set up a perimeter in-
side the locker room around 42 juniors,
sophomores and freshmen, who are sitting
on nicked benches and folding chairs for
the last team meeting of the 2009 season —
and the first for next year.
“This is not about trying to beat Allen,”
Purnell, 45, says. “Our goal is to win a state
championship next year, plain and simple,
and this is no bull. That is our goal.”
To help Dieruff’s staff make that hap-
pen, the administration and school board
are helping. For the first time, they have
allocated money for an “activity bus” to
help Dieruff and Allen students get home
at night after team practices and other ex-
tra curricular events.
The buses, Moniz says, means players
no longer have an excuse for not staying
late in the weight room when training be-
gins Dec. 1.
“You really do not know what you can
accomplish until you are pushed,” he says.
That push comes with new rules:
A You will be kicked off the team if you
miss scheduled workouts, skip three prac-
tices or do not participate in fundraisers.
A You will be asked to recruit players
to the team, but only those willing to com-
mit to what it means to be a Husky.
A You will have a greater say in the
direction of the program through leader-
ship councils.
A You have a right to talk to your coach-
es about anything in your life.
“We all got issues and problems,” Glass,
29, says. “Don’t be afraid to talk to us.”
Scanning the tired faces of the 42 boys
before him, McDowell offers a last bit of
advice: “Don’t be afraid to succeed, don’t
be afraid to take that extra step. No more
excuses.”
Only Husky pride.
steve.esack@mcall.com
610-820-6506