Kevin Dice found himself in the perfect role at Wyomissing
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Kevin Dice didn’t know a thing about Wyomissing football or the Wing-T offense when his family moved into the area in the summer of 1980, a few weeks before the start of his freshman season.
He quickly found the school, the team, and the offense to be a perfect fit.
“Right from the start it felt comfortable for me,” he said some four decades later, after being selected for induction into the Berks County Football Coaches Hall of Fame.
Dice became one of the key pieces on a team that would lay the groundwork for the Spartans’ first league championship and set the tone for a program that years later is considered one of the best in the state.
He rushed for 1,611 yards in 10 games as a senior in 1983 – still the program record — and set a high bar for other Wyomissing fullbacks; few, if any, have reached it.
“He was something special,” said longtime Spartans coach Bob Wolfrum, then the offensive coordinator for head coach Jack Paris.
You’ll never draw Wolfrum into a conversation comparing or ranking the Spartans’ greatest players but it’s clear 40-plus years later that he has Dice at or near the top of that list.
“Nobody was any better than him, let’s put it that way,” Wolfrum allowed.
Dice wasn’t just a good at football. He was a power-hitting third baseman and one of the top baseball players in the Berks Conference. He was a starter for the Spartans in basketball.
He was good enough with a football tucked under his arm to earn a scholarship to Lehigh University.
He became just the second player in Spartans history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season and finished with 2,981 over three seasons – a figure topped only twice in the ensuing seasons, many of which lasted 14, 15, or 16 games due to the expanded playoff system.
He scored five touchdowns in a game once, set the program record with 29 TDs in a season, and was a standout at linebacker, as well.
That it all happened at Wyomissing was, well, sort of a roll of the Dice, you might say.
Kevin and older brother Denis had attended parochial school when they lived in Scranton. The plan was to attend Holy Name after they moved to Berks County, where their father Denis had taken a job with General Battery.
“We’re very Catholic and almost went to Holy Name,” Dice said. “We were an inch away from going.”
After a visit to Wyomissing Area his parents were impressed with the staff and the school and figured that would be a fine fit for their boys.
They had no idea about Inter-County League football culture, about the intense backyard rivalry between the Blue Jays and Spartans, or even about the state of Wyomissing’s football program, which in those days took a back seat to Inter-County League powers Central Catholic, Holy Name, and Conrad Weiser.
Kevin Dice didn’t know much about the Wing-T offense, either, but it proved to be a natural fit for him.
“That really worked well with my running style,” he said. “Some kids are faster and run for the corner. I was better in traffic than going north and south.”
In the first game of his senior season Dice went for 291 yards against Freeland, setting a Berks County single-game record. That was the first of his eight 100-yard games that season.
“He was quick and could go the distance,” Wolfrum said, “but he was also really strong; he could run over you. He was very good at using his blocks. We ran that two-dive a lot because we knew he was gonna break one eventually.”
A day after most Spartans games you could be sure to pick up the local newspaper and see “Dice rolls” in a headline. That play on words never got old, at least not for Wyo fans.
Dice was leading the league in rushing and the Spartans were 5-0 when they met David Gilmore and unbeaten Central Catholic in a Week 6 showdown at jam-packed St. Lawrence Stadium.
The build-up was intense because of the teams’ records and because of their star running backs, and the game lived up to the hype. It was to that point the biggest game in Spartans history; it remains one of the defining moments in I-C history.
“It was an absolute clash,” Dice recalled.
The Spartans were within 34-21 and driving midway through the third quarter. Dice took a pitch at the goal line but mishandled it, fumbling into the end zone. Wyomissing’s momentum was squelched and the Cardinals – behind a record-setting six-touchdown, 356-yard performance from Gilmore – pulled away for a 56-28 victory.
A year later Wyomissing finally got over the hump, beating both Central Catholic and Holy Name in the same season for the first time to win their first I-C championship. Dice and others who had been part of the program’s ascendance basked in that victory.
“I definitely felt like every single year (I was there) that the program got better,” said Dice, who saw the Spartans set a program record for wins with an 8-2 finish in his senior season, 1983. “We got the program to this point where you’re just right on the edge. The things that we did, how hard we played, that carried through to the following team. They saw what we did and took advantage of it.”
In the four-plus decades since Wyomissing has known just one losing season. It has won 21 league titles, a dozen district titles, and a PIAA championship.
“That ’83 team, we were a year away,” Wolfrum said, “but that team was every bit as good as the next couple that came along. We just had a bunch of really good kids, and they really got it. They set the tone for what came after it.”
Dice has remained close to Wolfrum and the program over the decades. He was an instructor at the United State Military Academy when Andy Wolfrum, Bob’s son, was a cadet there.
He looks back with pride at what Wyomissing’s football program has become.
“It is somewhat amazing,” he said of the sustained success. “That doesn’t happen by accident. What Jack Paris and Bob and all those guys were able to do . . . it just shows how hard they’ve worked.”
Dice went on to even greater things following high school. After his first season at Lehigh he injured his ankle so severely during a pickup basketball game that his football career came to an abrupt end.
With football no longer an option he reapplied to West Point (he had been accepted out of high school). His father was an officer in the Army and taught at the Academy, and Dice wanted to follow that path.
“I felt that I was missing something that was special,” he said.
Dice served in the Army for 11 years, as an Airborne Ranger and as an instructor at the Academy; he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Now 59, he’s CEO of Rapid Pump & Meter Service, a multi-million dollar business in New Jersey.
Dice has experienced a vast range of successful ventures but continues to hold his football experience at Wyomissing in high esteem.
“It was one of the better organizations I’ve ever been a part of,” he said.
