Edina's football run hearkens to 1978, when Edina West became a champion

There's an uncommon buzz around Edina these days.

Long known for high-achieving athletic teams, from hockey to soccer to basketball to tennis, Edina can boast more Minnesota State High School League championship teams than any school in the state.

But the team creating the interest now is the football team, which will play in the Prep Bowl on Friday, taking on Centennial in the Class 6A championship game.

It's the first Prep Bowl for Edina High School.

It's not the first one for a high school in Edina.

The history of Edina football isn't deep — the school claimed a number of mythical state titles in the 1960s, before the state tournament began in 1972 — but there remains one shining beacon in the school district's past: In 1978, Edina West won the Class AA championship with a 21-0 victory over Fridley.

Much has changed. The Prep Bowl hadn't yet been conceived — the Metrodome was still in the planning stages in 1978 — and Edina West is gone. Edina had two high schools for eight years starting in 1972, before declining enrollment drove a decision to close Edina East and turn Edina West into Edina High School.

But pride lives on at Edina West, and it's boosted now by the football success of 2023.

"I've got a lot of buddies from that team, and we're still close," Dan Hare, a junior defensive back on that team, said this week. "We always laugh about that team, but everyone is pretty excited about this team."

A snowstorm had dumped nearly 10 inches on Minneapolis' Parade Stadium the night before the 1978 championship game. There was no snow removal plan in place, so Edina city manager Ken Rosland arranged to have his city's equipment brought to the stadium to clear the field.

"There wasn't any snow left on the field," said Mike Weiss, a linebacker on that team.

Much was expected of the 1978 Edina West football team. Coached by legendary Stav Canakes, Edina West was stocked with talent, a championship-quality team. Fans knew it, coaches knew it, players knew it.

And when the 1978 season started, that was the problem. The Cougars were a little too impressed with themselves and lost to Minnetonka 30-12 in the season opener.

"I think maybe our heads were a little too big," quarterback Scot Housh recalled this week. "The coaches weren't too happy."

Housh, a junior who didn't become a starter until the season was a few games old, recalls sitting on the bus after the game, in full uniform, listening to grousing from fans.

"We had to hear people walk by us, saying things like, 'I thought they'd be good this year. I guess not,'" he said.

The next day was Saturday, normally a day of light practice and film-watching. Not this time.

"The coaches had us out running the hills by the school and doing crab [walks] in the mud," Housh said. "That was, far and away, the toughest practice we had all season."

That wasn't all. Canakes and his assistant coaches wanted to make sure the players were sufficiently chastised.

"While we were running, they has us yell, 'We're from Edina and we're not tough,' and, 'We're Edina cake-eaters,'" Hare said. "They weren't holding anything back."

Weiss said: "We never thought about the state tournament again after that. It was all about the next game and not looking down the road."

After that, the coaching staff, seeking to improve conditioning, instituted a mandatory mile run, in full pads, at the end of practice.

"They said we would never lose the fourth quarter again," Weiss said.

The message obviously got through. West went undefeated the rest of the regular season, but it didn't come easily.

"Stav used to say, 'Every game is a white-knuckler,'" Hare said.

Edina West defeated school district rival East, which was quarterbacked by future Gophers football and baseball player Greg Olson, the same Greg Olson who caught for Atlanta in the 1991 World Series against the Twins.

The Cougars defeated now-defunct Bloomington Lincoln 28-7. Lincoln was quarterbacked by Bruce Grant, Bud Grant's son (and Mike Grant's brother). Former Vikings wide receiver Jim Gustafson also played for Lincoln.

In one of its most memorable victories, West defeated hated rival Richfield 7-6, scoring on a halfback pass and holding the lead when Weiss blocked an extra point.

West played its first-round playoff game in a sleet storm at Brainerd.

"It was a long bus ride up there," Housh remembered. "They were better than we expected. But we hung on and won 7-0."

Behind a string of strong games from star running back Mike Sullivan and a stubborn defense, Edina West got on a roll. It beat top-ranked Rochester John Marshall 28-0 with a performance the players believed was their best of the season. "Our defense was stellar," Housh recalled. "After that game, we felt we could beat anyone."

A 17-0 shutout of St. Thomas Academy followed, leading to the victory over Fridley in the final. Sullivan ran for 140 yards and two touchdowns in the game.

After a season that started in such a disappointing way, the Cougars were at their best in the playoffs, shutting out all four opponents.

The two Edina high schools merged to become one in 1981, and West's campus became the location for the current school. A lot of the players from 1978 stay in touch, and there is an annual golf get-together to commemorate the championship. Many plan to attend Friday's Prep Bowl.

Housh said he sees parallels between the 1978 Edina West Cougars and the current Edina Hornets football team, which lost three consecutive games early in the season before beginning a string of eight victories behind running back John Warpinski.

"Like us, they lost early, but they turned it on with a great running back," he said. "There are a lot of similarities."