Don Horkey | Special to The Michigan Catholic

Detroit — In his 53 years of coaching nearly 550 high school football games, Al Fracassa remembers details of the 16th Annual Soup Bowl Game played Saturday, Nov. 9, 1963, at the University of Detroit Stadium.

The 50th anniversary of the game was spotlighted during the Prep Bowl.

Several players from both squads were introduced and chatted with Fracassa.

The game featured Harper Woods Notre Dame and Royal Oak Shrine, where he had started his coaching career three years earlier. The former CHSL director, the late Walt Bazylewicz, coached the Irish.

The game ended in a 0-0 tie.

As he watched his Brother Rice Warriors team prepare for the Prep Bowl A-B title game, he was asked if either team had come close to scoring.

“Well, we had one touchdown called back because of a penalty,” Fracassa said. “And Jim Seymour stepped out of bounds running for a touchdown. The referee said he was this much on the line” — holding up his thumb and forefinger.

Notre Dame was declared the winner because it totaled four more yards on offense than Shrine did.

Two weeks later, on Friday, Nov. 22, Notre Dame played Denby in the Goodfellows Game.

President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas that afternoon.

With a shocked nation in mourning and hundreds of events across the USA canceled, some 46,000 people turned out at Tiger Stadium to watch Denby win 7-0.