On a December evening in 1939 at Boston's Lenox Hotel, BostonCollege junior end Eugene Goodreault was given the inaugural GeorgeH. Bulger Lowe Trophy as New England's outstanding collegiateplayer.
'I am sure Mr. Lowe was a great football player,' the formerHaverhill High star told an audience of 200 members and guests. 'IfI achieve half of his success, I will be satisfied. And if I canmanage later in life as he did, I will be very happy.'
Mr. Goodreault lived up to his words: As an All-American hissenior season of 1940 when the Eagles went 11-0, defeating Tennesseein the Sugar Bowl; as a 1980 inductee to the Haverhill High Hall ofFame, an original inductee to the Boston College Varsity Club Hallof Fame in 1970, and a National Football Foundation College Hall ofFame inductee in 1982; and as the successful and popular proprietorof a wool brokerage firm.
Mr. Goodreault, whose uniform number was retired at BC's AlumniStadium in 2001 at a halftime ceremony attended by a busload offriends from Haverhill, died Tuesday from complications of aninfection at Lafayette Residential Care in Walnut Creek, Calif. Hewas 91.
'He just appreciated everything about his life and nevercomplained,' said Mr. Goodreault's son, Joe of Orinda, Calif., aformer football captain at Haverhill High who also played at HarvardUniversity. 'He was very humble. He never tried to promote hisaccomplishments. Even on the day his uniform number was retired, hewent back into the stands to eat a hot dog with his friends andfamily members just wanting to be one of the crowd.'
Mr. Goodreault, along with his sister and four cousins, wasbrought up by his mother, Rosebud, after his father died in the fluepidemic of 1918 and his aunt died in 1923 of cancer.
He had a speech impediment as a young man, but when he enrolledat Boston College, Billy Sullivan, then BC's sports informationdirector and later a founder and owner of the Boston Patriots, helped him get therapy to overcome it.
In a 1982 Haverhill Gazette story, Mr. Goodreault said hisphilosophy of life was to 'distinguish between right and wrong, towork hard and share good friendship. . . . Football is a wonderfulattribute, but there's more to life. It should serve as a steppingstone to a successful future.'
A star on coach Jim Mansfield's 1936 Class A champion HaverhillHigh team, Mr. Goodreault thought he would be headed to Notre Dame,which had offered him a four-year scholarship, but the offer wasrescinded. The next day, a recruiter from BC came calling.
'It was easy to read between the lines,' he said in a 1965 Globestory. 'I weighed 170 and Notre Dame had found some bigger, morepromising ends.'
He played at BC under head coach Gil Dobie, then for two seasonsas a 185-pounder for Frank Leahy, whose 1939 team went 9-2 and tothe Cotton Bowl (losing to Clemson). A year later, Mr. Goodreaultplayed in the Sugar Bowl despite a leg injury that caused him tomiss the two previous games.
He donated his Cotton Bowl souvenir watch to BC's facultydirector of athletics, requesting that it be given to someone fromthe team who didn't have one. 'I already have a watch,' Mr.Goodreault said, according to one of the many newspaper articlesabout him.
Mr. Goodreault's much-praised tackle of teammate and roommateCharlie O'Rourke in the BC end zone following the second halfkickoff by the College of the Holy Cross in the 1939 regular seasonfinale was a factor in Mr. Goodreault's selection for the LoweAward. The heads-up play resulted in a touchback and the Eagles gotthe ball on their 20-yard line en route to a 14-0 victory.
O'Rourke remarked in a 1939 Globe story that two of the hardesttackles he ever absorbed were from Mr. Goodreault - as a highschool opponent (when O'Rourke played for Malden) and the surprisehit in the Holy Cross game.
Mr. Goodreault, who earned a bachelor's degree in mathematicsfrom BC, was drafted by the National Football League's DetroitLions, but instead joined the Navy, serving in the Pacific duringWorld War II. He was discharged as a lieutenant in 1946.
He worked his way up the ladder in the wool business, in the1970s establishing his own firm, Goodreault Inc., which was locatednear South Station in Boston, and moved to Haverhill in 1999.
Mr. Goodreault worked until six years ago, when he moved to hisson's home in California. 'My dad loved the phrase `Wonderful,wonderful, wonderful,' and he lived by those words,' said his son.
Mr. Goodreault was married to his 1937 high school classmate,Margaret (Costello). She died in 1989.
In addition to his son, whose full name is E. Joseph Jr., Mr.Goodreault leaves six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held July 31, which would have beenhis 92d birthday, at Santa Maria Church in Orinda. A funeral Masswill be said at noon Aug. 14 at Sacred Hearts Parish in Haverhill.
Marvin Pave can be reached at marvin.pave@rcn.com.
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