Hall of Fame
Goalkeeper
USF Career Years: 1951
Angelo John Carmassi was born on March 29, 1929 in San Francisco. He attended USF and played soccer for the 1950 Dons team that defeated UCLA 3-1 to win the Northern California Intercollegiate Soccer Conference Championship. The first undefeated, untied season for the Dons was in 1950. They finished 10-0-0 with 47 goals and four goals against. Key victories in 1950 for USF were 5-0 over Stanford, 6-0 and 4-1 over rival Santa Clara, 7-0 over California, and 6-1 over Fresno State. Ahead of the Soccer Bowl, the Dons tied an exhibition match 2-2 against a semi-professional team known as the Los Angeles Aztecs..
During the All-NCISC game, Carmassi recorded 0.4 goals against average. The match drew a crowd of 4,500 spectators at Sportsman's Park. The match was played in partly cloudy conditions, with unseasonably warm weather for winter. The high temperature that day was 61°F and at kick off the temperature was around 56°F. The first goal of the match was scored by San Francisco's Dick Baptista. Penn State's Harry Little scored a goal to tie, off a deflected shot. Baptista would score the go-ahead goal later in the match to give San Francisco the 2–1 lead. The score remained unchanged until late in the fourth quarter. The center official allowed for six minutes of stoppage time, and with 10 seconds left in the match, the center referee, Harry Lyons, awarded a penalty kick to Penn State. Several San Francisco players protested saying that there was no hand ball to prompt the penalty kick. Penn State's Little would score the tying penalty kick ending the match in a 2–2 draw.
There has been disagreement about whether both sides agreed to end in a draw, or whether San Francisco refused to play overtime against Penn State. Nevertheless, the 1st Soccer Bowl was declared to be a shared title between Penn State and San Francisco, a national title recognized by both programs, the ISFA, and the American Soccer History Archives.
This extraordinary team was denied a playoff for the national championship when the University of Connecticut replied to USF’s letter requesting a postseason match-up, explaining that they had “already won the national championship,” totally disregarding the fact that they only played in the northeast part of the country. Carmassi, along with six other Dons players were named to the Northern California Intercollegiate Soccer Conference First Team: Dick Baptista, Bob Korbus, Jose Leon, Joe Matute, Steve Negoesco, and Olifumni Osibogun.
The San Francisco soccer teams of the mid-20th century were known for recruiting international talent, partially due to the city's cosmopolitan and international recognition. While the team was traveling from San Francisco to St. Louis, the team was going out to dinner at a local restaurant in the area. The waiter refused to serve San Francisco's Olifumni Osibogun, a black Nigerian player on the team. Head Coach, Gus Donoghue, rounded up the team and they left the restaurant and relocated to a hotel and restaurant in East St. Louis, where integration was allowed.
Following USF, Carmassi served in the military during the Korean War. Afterwards, he entered the field of Education, first as a teacher, and later as Vice Principal at El Camino High School and at Parkway Junior High, both in South San Francisco.
