Former Algonquin stars Eddy and Mall make another shared accomplishment
The record-setting connection nearly didn’t connect.
If the quarterback chooses a different school. If the receiver doesn’t react to a coach’s threat to keep the ball on the ground.
Marc Eddy and Dallas Mall are again headed into a Hall of Fame, this time at the school where they piled up numbers not seen at the national level.
On Saturday, Bentley University inducted the Algonquin Regional High School graduates — plus eight others — into its Athletics Hall of Fame during a ceremony inside the university's LaCava Center Executive Dining Room.
Eddy and Mall are also part of the Algonquin and Northeast-10 Conference Halls of Fame.
The pair teamed up to lead Bentley to a 37-7 record over four seasons between 2001-04 and helped the program to its only two NCAA Tournament berths.
“It’s validation of the success that we had as a group at Bentley,” said Eddy, who threw a Division II record 121 touchdown passes, 77 to Mall. “It wasn’t just me. Dallas was a big part of that. It’s that final piece of getting that recognition of what we were able to accomplish.”
“You put in a lot of hours at a college or university,” said Mall from his home in Tennessee on Wednesday, “so anytime you get recognized by them, it’s always an honor.”
Eddy threw for 11,035 yards, breaking Doug Flutie’s New England record, and while his touchdown record has been broken, it is still ninth all-time in D2.
Mall caught 24 touchdown passes in his first season at Bentley, breaking a freshman record previously held by NFL Hall of Famer Randy Moss. His 78 career TD catches are the most all-time in college football history in any division. Mall was named AP Little All-America and earned first-team All-America honors from Daktronics, collegesportsreport.com and Don Hansen's Football Gazette.
Mall is the top scorer in New England college football history with 478 points.
“We weren’t thinking about the records when we were playing,” Eddy said. “We were just trying to win games. We were not focused on records at all.”
Eddy nearly chose to attend St. John's of Shrewsbury
The duo started their lethal connection at Algonquin, where Mall reeled in 32 touchdown passes in just two seasons and Eddy threw for 6,197 yards and 78 touchdowns in four seasons.
But Eddy, a Southborough native who played youth football in Westborough and Marlborough, nearly chose to attend St. John’s of Shrewsbury.
“It was back and forth,” said Eddy, who lives in Seekonk. “For St. John’s, there wasn’t an opportunity to play quarterback, so I chose Algonquin. At either one, I would have had an opportunity to be successful, but Algonquin just worked out.”
Mall, who entered Algonquin known more for his basketball talent, played football as a sophomore in 1997, but the Tomahawks were a running team behind Evan Berte, who piled up a school-record 1,789 yards and 19 touchdowns.
Mall did not have many receptions that season and wasn’t all-in for the sport. His attitude changed thanks to a coach’s reaction on a play that went awry in practice.
“At some point late in the year, (Eddy) probably overthrew me,” Mall recalled. “And the offensive coordinator just went berserk, about how we’re never going to pass the ball again; we’re just going to run the ball. I just remember being really angry. I thought, ‘when I come back next year, we’ll see how it goes.’ I remember that vividly.”
Mall graduated from Algonquin in 2000, a year before Eddy, and attended Worcester Academy for a post-graduate year. The pair reunited at Bentley in ‘01, but both say it was a coincidence.
Mall said his quarterback at Worcester Academy, Joe Burgoyne, aspired to play at Bentley.
“All he wanted to do was play for Bentley,” Mall said. “That’s how I got interested in it because he was so gung-ho about it.”
“It wasn’t like we planned that out from the beginning,” Eddy said. “I wanted a business school and I wanted to go to a school where I could make an impact right away. Seeing Dallas was potentially going to go there helped. That was part of it, but it wasn’t the plan.”
It all started at Algonquin
Mall played three sports as a senior at Algonquin, catching 17 touchdown passes that fall. He averaged 22 points per game on the basketball court as the Tomahawks, with Eddy playing down low, reached the state semifinals. Mall batted .350 in the spring and was later named Middlesex News (now MetroWest News) Male Athlete of the Year.
Eddy started his high school career on the bench behind junior Brad Blanchette, but was quickly inserted into Algonquin’s season opener in ‘97 against Shepherd Hill. After Blanchette left the game with a concussion, Eddy, a freshman, took over and threw his first high school touchdown pass to Mike Fanale.
After starring at Bentley, Eddy played in Austria and reunited with Mall for the Tulsa Talons of the arena2 league. The pair also linked up with the Marlborough Shamrocks. Their last time playing together was in 2007 for the New England Surge in the Continental Indoor Football League, which played home games at Worcester’s DCU Center.
Eddy said the indoor game wasn’t tailored to his style of play. “I can be elusive, but I’m not much of a runner,” he said. “I did all right with it, but it didn’t suit my strengths the way the outdoor game did.”
He said Mall could have played in the pros coming out of Bentley.
“I still think,” Eddy said, “he’s an NFL-level wide receiver who never had the opportunity to show it in the big leagues.”
Family life and a look back
Mall moved to Nolensville, Tennessee, last summer with his family that includes wife Angela, also an Algonquin grad, and three children. He teaches physical education at a middle school and coaches girls basketball, plus baseball and football.
Eddy and wife Amy, a former Bentley swimmer, have four children, including two in high school: Caroline, a senior at Seekonk High who is headed to the University of New Hampshire; and Madison, a junior soccer player at Bishop Feehan who is being “heavily recruited by a number of schools,” her father said.
Mall said Saturday’s induction gives him time to reflect on a long and successful career.
“Where we started as young kids to how it ended, and where Bentley was as a program when I first got there compared to where they were when I left, it’s fun to look back and realize you had an impact on an institution,” he said. “That always makes me feel good.”
Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached attdumas@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimDumas.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Algonquin graduates Marc Eddy, Dallas Mall enter Bentley Hall of Fame
