SLIPPERY ROCK — Their last chance proved to be their best dance.

Most of the 18 seniors on the 1984 Slippery Rock High School football team grew up together. They won the Butler County American Legion baseball title while playing for Prospect the previous summer.

They won Midget Football league championships with Prospect and Slippery Rock as youngsters.

But their varsity football seasons at Slippery Rock as sophomores and juniors both finished with 3-7 records.

“We all gained plenty of experience those two years and we seniors were so tight,” wide receiver-defensive back Keith Wagner said. “Coach (Joe Walton) knew what he had in us. He kind of let us take over.”

And they produced.

The 1984 Rockets finished 11-1 — 10-0 in the regular season — and won the WPIAL's Class A Tri-County North League. It marked the program's first-ever section title.

That team — which lost to Rochester in the WPIAL semifinals — is being inducted into the Slippery Rock Area Hall of Fame this weekend.

Many on the team's 34-man roster plan to be in attendance when the 1984 squad is recognized Friday night at the Rockets' home football game against Grove City. The Hall of Fame banquet is Saturday night at Slippery Rock Area Middle School.

“Just about every one of the seniors from that year plan on being there,” senior quarterback Mark Miller said.

That's not surprising.

That senior group never split apart.

“There's still a core of us who live in Western Pennsylvania,” Miller said. “I live near Cleveland now, but about 10 of us still get together once a year, sometimes more.”

Wagner said the group has always been competitive with each other as well as its opponents.

“We used to go over to (teammate) Joe Vaccarello's house to play basketball,” Wagner said. “They had a hoop up on the side of a barn with an overhead light. We'd play at night and those games were fierce.

“Now we go over there to play bocce ... and it's probably more competitive than it was then. Guys used to brag about winning Little League championships over other guys.”

Walton — who went on to become a line coach at Slippery Rock University for years — had a coaching staff of Wil Mapes, Mark Eberle, Glenn McKissick and Eric Whiteman.

That 1984 team had 12 all-conference selections: Miller, Wagner, John Grupp, Scott Daugherty, Ralph Brenen, Dave Lunn, Vaccarello, Joe Vaccarello, Dan Milich, Kurt Marburger, Travis Croll and Dan Hartman.

Miller, who threw for more than 1,600 yards, was the team's offensive captain. Lunn rushed for 1,032 yards. Grupp caught eight touchdown passes.

Milich, a linebacker, was defensive captain.

“We were pretty balanced,” Croll said. “And we had a bunch of smart football players. We could do different things that a lot of teams couldn't do.”

One of those was Miller calling audibles at the line of scrimmage.

“No high school team did that back then,” Miller said. “We installed a very complex audible system. There were 18 to 20 different plays I could call at the line of scrimmage once I saw how the defense was set.

“Guys would try to disguise if they were blitzing or not, but (high school) defenses didn't shift back then. We could see where the weakness was in the defensive formation and call a play to exploit it. That really helped us.”

Slippery Rock intercepted 13 passes defensively that season as well.

Slippery Rock won close games that year against Union (25-21), Shenango (14-7), Laurel (14-7) and Riverview (21-20 in overtime), the latter game being the Rockets' playoff opener.

The defense stopped Shenango inside the Rockets' 5-yard line twice to win that game. Joe Vaccerello rushed for the winning score with 42 seconds left against Union. Troy Thompson caught the winning TD pass against Laurel.

Miller ran for the winning score in overtime against Riverview with Hartman kicking the deciding PAT.

“Our team just wasn't going to be denied that year,” Wagner said. “We always found a way.”

Milich said everyone on the team “had accountability to each other. We were all dedicated to each other.”

Bill Sommers was Miller's backup quarterback. His younger brother, Dan Sommers, played on the 2003 Slippery Rock team that finished 12-2 and reached the PIAA semifials.

“We always argue over which team was better,” Bill Sommers said, laughing. “Our winning percentage was 91.7, which was slightly higher than the 12-2 team. We had shirts made up with that 91.7 win percentage on them.

“We were such a close-knit bunch of guys.”

Miller, Croll and Wagner all went into the Slippery Rock HOF individually in recent years. Now their team is joining them.

“I think it's phenomenal,” Miller said. “This is how it should have been in the first place.”

Milich marvels over how close players on that team remain today.

“We're the first team to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and that's a tremendous honor,” he said. “But even bigger than that, most of the best friends in my life were on that team.

“We went on to become good fathers, good husbands, have successful careers. Some went into the military. Football helped us transition into life.”

SeniorsJohn Boehm, Mike Bonetti, Mark Bosch, Ralph Brenen, Scott Daugherty, John Grupp, Dan Hartman, Lon Hazlet, Dave Lunn, Dan Milich, Mark Miller, James Pflugh, Bill Sommers, Dave Stevenson, Rob Taylor, Teroy Thompson, Joe Vaccarello, Keith WagnerJuniorsGreg Bell, Ron Croll, Travis Croll, Todd Hinkle, Vern Lawrence, Kurt Marburger, Mike Miller, Dick Ross, Rob Taylor, Jim Trettel, John Vaccarello, Ken WilsonSophomoresSteve Arblaster, Harry Benson, Todd Feevey, Jim Maker, Mark Maxwell