JOHN "WHITEY" Sullivan did more than win numerous games during his wildly successful career as Father Judge High's football coach.

He also caused 'em.

Perhaps you think Labor Day weekend football is a long-standing tradition in Philly's three city leagues (Public, Catholic, Inter-Ac). Let's go with medium-standing, and not one inch further.

With Freire Charter having dropped the sport due to a player shortage, the city leagues include 53 schools this season. All but six will be playing somewhere, anywhere (St. Joseph's Prep is heading to Wheeling, W.Va.) tomorrow and Saturday.

Far cry from 1980, when no one played during LDW.

But then the '81 season loomed and the wheels inside Sullivan's ample brain began turning. Games are more fun than scrimmages ... Our last scrimmage is against St. John Neumann and the new coach there, Bill Brannau, was my coach at Judge in 1960 ... Let's turn this into a game!

"There were no limits in the Catholic League on the number of games you could play," Sullivan said. "We just had to get permission to play one before school opened. It wasn't hard at all, really.

"After playing two scrimmages already, it just seemed to make sense to go with a game. A little break from the two-a-days routine. Everybody was for it. Kids, parents, coaches."

Saturday, Sept. 5. Eleven o'clock in the morning at Northeast High. The first LDW game in city history! Oh, boy!

The kickoff is in the air and ... no one's in the stands. Well, almost no one. If you had made everyone sit together, the, ahem, crowd might have filled one section.

Judge frolicked, 41-14, as Jerry Magallanes, now a prominent head referee for college football games, rushed 22 times for 148 yards and four touchdowns after Brian Reidy busted a counter 35 yards for a score on the game's fourth scrimmage play. Also, Bill Hartigan fired a 65-yard TD pass to Pat Glennon as the Crusaders accumulated 503 yards.

"One problem. No one was there," Sullivan said. "It wasn't too hard to figure out where they were: down the shore. So we all agreed, let's take it there next year."

Actually, that first meeting almost took place in Sand Land after the Rev. John Kowalewski, then Judge's athletic director, heard assistant coach Bill Edger comment a few days beforehand, "We should play this game down the shore." Time constraints prevented that.

Sullivan, now 66 and entering his 45th year as a Judge teacher (he's still the golf coach), remembers that Ocean City was the original choice for a seashore site because OC's high school field, as it still is, was right off the boardwalk at 6th Street, creating the potential for high visibility.

"Ocean City didn't work out, for whatever reason, and we switched gears to Wildwood," he said. "We called it the Beach Bowl, went with the 4 o'clock start so people could hit the beach first, did a lot of promotion [including planes with banners; T-shirts everywhere] and it turned out great."

The crowd for Beach Bowl I, claimed by Neumann, 8-6, as Ralph DiMeo ran 16 times for 74 yards and Larry Barretta flipped a 5-yard, fourth-down scoring pass to Len Nelson, was announced at 2,000.

It appeared to be much larger and Wildwood/school officials much later placed the number at 3,800.

"Win-win for everybody," Sullivan said. "To generate that kind of money ... Hey, you always need new helmets, right?

"The game just made the whole weekend seem great. Better than just taking a dip, walking the boards and sleeping on your sailboat."

Sullivan coached Judge for 25 seasons (1974-85, 1987-99), compiling an overall record of 196-95-10 and winning four Catholic League championships, plus a City Title in '75.