Day 20: Football journey…part 2
My wife asks me all the time how I can remember stories 50+ years ago but can’t remember to buy the coffee we needed for tomorrow. I have no idea, but these memories are clear as a bell, as they say, so I just share them.
Want to see something crazy? Go to https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/9681 and there is a picture of our football team my senior year in the fall of 1967…I am #52 in the front row. Mike Aldridge is number 13, Tim Foley is number 42 and David Hahn is number 84. Isn’t the internet wonderful???
It was homecoming 1967. I don’t remember who we were playing, but we were behind, and it was late in the game. We had failed to make a first down and we were deep in our own territory. Coach Bud signaled for us to punt, but Mike Aldridge, our quarterback went over to the sidelines and told him we wanted a first down.
Mike came back to the huddle and said, “What play do you want to run?” We all agreed on 14. Now, we were an old fashion double tight, T-formation backfield, which meant two halfbacks and one fullback. It was a real “pound-it-in-your-face” offense, typical for that day and time.
The “1” back was Tim Foley, who went on to play at NC State the next year and our best running back. The “4” hole was between the right guard and right tackle. The fullback would lead, then Tim would follow through the hole.
I snapped the ball and Tim took off. He broke the line-of-scrimmage and was on his way. Tim was also a high hurdler, so to see him run was beauty in motion. I was following behind him as fast as I could. What happened next, I’ll need to explain.
In these days, let’s just say, the rules were a little looser than today. You could throw a full body block anywhere on the field at any time. What is a full body block? Well, I would use my body as a flying projectile to wipe out one or two players at a time.
Tim was just ahead of me and there was someone following him. Now, today’s rules do not allow you to hit any trailing football players, but back in the day, anyone was fair game. In fact, hitting any player anywhere on the field got me into the Shrine Bowl and into college.
How? Scouts would be looking at a film and towards the end of the play, they would see a streak come across the screen and some kid get laid out…and that was me doing the hitting. As a center, I didn’t always have a nose tackle on me, meaning I was uncovered and I had made a commitment to “hit” someone “every play”, so if I wasn’t covered, I went “head-hunting” and took out any player foolish enough to not be looking for me. Today I would be kicked out of probably every game I played, but back in the day it was open season. I didn’t take dirty, cheap shots…they saw me coming, but usually too late.
So, back to Tim and his run. I saw this trailer behind him, so I launched my body to take him out. He saw me and jumped up. I hit the ground and slide on my stomach. As I looked at my hands while sliding across the grass, the player came down and his inch-long metal cleats cut across the back of my hand, opening up a serious cut.
Tim scored and we went ahead and won the game. But after he scored, I was to snap the ball for the extra point. I had clenched my fist from the pain and had to force my fingers open to put them on the ball and snap. They didn’t care about blood in those days, so no referee said anything.
To add insult to injury, somebody jumped over the pile and landed on my ankle, and I sprained it pretty bad. After the extra point, which was good. I limped over to the sidelines; a trainer wrapped my ankle as tight as he could and bandaged my hand so it wouldn’t bleed, and I finished the game.
We won homecoming and it was all good. Back at the school in the locker room, David Hahn’s father came in to see how I was doing. We called him Poppa Hahn. I had no Daddy there at the game, so it meant the world to me that Poppa Hahn came to check on me.
The next morning, I woke up and tried to stand up to get out of bed and fell flat on the floor. My ankle was a balloon, and I couldn’t walk. Mama took me to Dr. Trevathan, our family doctor and he wrapped it up and gave me crutches. We had film that morning around 10 or 11 and I showed up with a heavily bandaged hand and on crutches. Coach Phillips was very concerned and ask me if I broke my ankle. I said no it was just a bad sprain.
Now this is funny, and it could never happen today, but Coach said, “Well, if you want to play next week, you are going to have to lose those crutches and walk on it.” So, I did. It hurt like hell, but by next Friday night I was in the starting lineup.
I got a lot of sympathy at the homecoming dance, even the local radio DJ wished me well. But that was life back in the 60s and it was all good.
If you would like to hear an audio account of these stories go to https://goodnewspublications.com/2022/08/ and listen to my podcast.
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