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A chance to play football; the big time; the Senior year 1973-'74 - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 10/31/2011 1:45 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
As it turned out we only ended up with about 20 guys on the Varsity football team. Hardly enough to even work up a team scrimmage. At first I was tagged to start at offensive guard. This I had expected for some time. Not a glamorous assignment, but heck, Green Bay Packer Jerry Kramer wrote a best selling book about the position - Instant Replay. But as fate would have it, a fellow named Pete who was supposed to start at defensive end, had a perennial shoulder injury to nurse along. Coach Crummey put Pete at offensive center and decreed that would be the only position he would be allowed to play with said bad shoulder.
"Be careful what you wish for," a teammate of mine said. I was called on to take that defensive end position Pete gave up, as well as still play my offensive guard position. I would also find myself playing on all the special teams. I became a 60 minute guy again like I had been on the Junior Varsity team two years earlier.
I remember our first game, a non-conference rematch with Jefferson, and how overheated I got playing full-time at the varsity level. This was not the jovial and docile JV rubric anymore. Many of these guys would be playing in college the next year. Then, early in the game I got whacked in the head and sat in the middle of the field stunned. I kind of came to as our star pass receiver Mark Baily was dragging me back to the offensive huddle. Mark went on to play for Northwestern University and then to try out for the Chicago Bears. I played the rest of the game in a daze. Nowadays, after a hit like I had taken that night, I would be carted off in an ambulance to the hospital. I found out the next day we had actually won the game.
With headache in tow from the previous game, my heart sank the next week as we only came up with a tie against longtime rival Elkhorn. The anxiety heightened because we had been pegged by state media to be a rather good team. But more importantly, Coach Crummey had made it known before the season started that this was his last year of coaching. I had a sick feeling as I suspect everyone else did as well, that we were on the precipice of letting this regionally well-known, universally liked, and time-tested great coach..., down.
Between Coach's tirades and our own self-ridicule we overcame our early setbacks. Game after game we crushed our opponents. Several of the games we scored over 50 points. I actually scored a defensive touchdown after picking up a fumble against East Troy. Mom said my dad sprung to his feet in the stands. It was a great burden for him to attend away games while trying to get away from the farm for a few hours.
Here we were again at the end of our season and having to play Burlington in the interconference championship game. We all had a feeling this year's rematch might not be so easy. Burlington had a grudge with us to address regarding their loss in the championship game the previous season. Our intuitions were sound. They were always a much bigger school in number and player physical size. It always seemed like they had a hundred football players pile out of several buses just before game-time each time we had a game with them.
The night of our last practice before the title game, Coach Crummey gave us an impassioned and tearful speech, and a goodbye. I remember him mentioning that we were one of his best teams he ever coached, perhaps second only to the 1956 team. "Would you agree Jack?" Coach asked Assistant Coach Mead. Of course Coach Mead just nodded in affirmation.
Each of us seniors then said a couple words to the team. I still remember what I said. I had prepared a little something no one had ever bothered to say to me in any previous end-of-season testimonials. It was something I thought a couple other underrated guys I palled around with during our rough and long ascent to being mainstream players might have at any point along the way liked hearing, and would now hopefully appreciate:
"I would like to thank all the second string guys for taking all the practice punishment all season. We had to practice on somebody and it had to be you. I hope it makes you tougher for your future challenges. Good luck next year."
Gridlock languished on late into the championship game with a low score. Late in the game we drove down for a hard earned touchdown. I remember thinking, "Well, it was not pretty, but it looks like we will win." But with seconds left, Burlington was slinging passes in desperation. With no time left, one of the passes connected and my heart sank. Remarkably Mark Baily who also played defensive safety as well as offensive pass receiver, ran the guy down on the goal line.
To this day, people still cringe when they look at the film. The call could have gone either way. It looks like the receiver went out of bounds right at the goal line. Had he gotten in (or maybe he really did, it's too late now), Burlington would have won with no time left.
Instead, the referee ruled in our favor and we won our second conference championship in a row. In those days we had no state divisional classes. There was no state playoff system back then either. We were rated by state coaches and media right along against the biggest teams in the state. We placed fourth overall in the entire whole of Wisconsin - even though we were one of the smaller schools in the state.
A few weeks after the season, a guidance counselor came into one of my classes to get me. I thought I was in trouble of some sort. In his office he handed me a letter. To my stunned amazement, I had been chosen to the first team of the Southern Lakes All-conference Team as Defensive End. And, it was a position I was never originally slated to play and had never played coming up through the ranks. Fate and Pete's bum shoulder found me in that unlikely role.
Everyone seemed to want to spread some gratitude around to us guys. I remember several banquet invitations by several civic groups. I remember one dandy fried chicken dinner one night at a supper club. All of us sitting and laughing, but also becoming well aware it would probably be the last time we would all be together as a team. Coach got up to say a few words and of course, he had lost his notes.
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It was 1999 or so and Heide and I were doing our living-in-the-boonies gig out in the middle of Green County, Wisconsin. There we were on our farmette with a bunch of fat house cats, on a winding narrow country road with a herd of cows as neighbors. We lived with no listed address, an unlisted phone number, and only a Post Office box number. Somebody found me. An invitation came in the mail inviting former football player Bob Keith to the dedication of the athletic field behind the new high school in Whitewater. It was to be named after Jim Crummey.
For some reason we trekked the 60 miles to the humble event. At the time I was still working and taking classes in Madison. A couple years later I would be making the 60 mile commute regularly to work at, and go to school at UW-Whitewater. But in 1999 it seemed like an ordeal.
There was a small group of people assembled at the dedication site. The new field was still rough around the edges. The new school sprawled in the back ground. It was a robust economy Clinton era construct - large and spared no cost. There in the midst of the small crowd was Coach. He still looked the same - in his humble suit coat and tie, thick classes, and tuft of unruly hair on top of his head. Some old teachers and dignitaries of his football era got up to speak. They had of course aged considerably in over 25 years. Mark B. the hero of the last game of Crummey's career, and the same guy who once tried out for the Bears, got up and presented Coach with a box of Wheaties with a picture of..., Coach Crummey on the cover.
Finally, Coach Crummey got up to say a few words. As usual he started out with a determined look, just as he had done in those pregame pep talks so long ago. He hesitated for second, looked like he might choke up like he had a knack for sometimes doing for an important rhetorical ass-kicking, and then to my astonishment, he said...,
"Now where the hell are my damn notes? Who took my damn notes?"
Afterward, being that the crowd was small, Heide suggested I say a couple words to Coach before the dedication broke up.
"No, that's ok," I said, "I just want to remember him like this - losing his notes and stuff."
As we pulled out of the parking lot, there went Coach driving slowly by us on Walworth Avenue in front of the new school with his family in his big old car. I think it was an old Cadillac or Lincoln. It would be the last time I ever saw him. He died a couple years later.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
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