Friday, November 8, 2013

Team Play by class of 1958

I don't remember the exact dates or location, but it was told to me by a "somewhat reliable" source who says he remembers it well, and here is how he told it to me:  We were playing football in Chanute and we were well into the second half of play.  Neither team had scored.  We were pretty well matched up that night and we were in a dog fight.  We had trudged up and down the field, only to get close to the goal line and Chanute would stop us and take over on downs. They would march down the field and our defense would stop them.  Back and forth we went.

Somewhere in the middle of the fourth quarter, we were again marching down the field.  The play calling was excellent and the team was playing well,executing the plays we had practiced all week in preparing for the game.  We made it to Chanute's ten yard line, fourth down and five yards to go for a first down.  Since we had not kicked an extra point all year,let alone a field goal, we decided to go for the first down.  We called a "time out" and Gary went over to talk to the coaches about what play to run.  

He came back to the huddle and said "we are going to run # 47", (that's the play where Mark blocks for me and I carry the ball through the hole he created).  This time the whole Chanute team piled onto Mark and no matter how hard he fought, there was just no hole and we were stopped again. Chanute then took over on downs on their own ten yard line and we then went over onto defense.

We don't know the names of all the players involved, but Fletch was a line backer, Jerry (Fletch's brother) was defensive end, Mike Buffington and Mark were in the defensive line.  I was behind them and Gary was our "safety".  On the first play by Chanute, the halfback crashed into Mark and Mike.  There was a collision that could have been heard for miles.  Mark and Mike went down, and so did the Chanute ball carrier.  The collision was so violent, it caused the ball carrier to fumble the ball and it went directly into the arms of Jerry, who was on the ground right by the pile up.  Fletch saw the play and he grabbed Jerry by the shoulder pad and pulled him over the goal line for a touchdown!  

The referees did not see the fumble or the recovery, but they saw Fletch and Jerry with the ball in the end zone for the only touchdown scored in the game.  We missed the extra point (we had not made one all year) and the final score was six to nothing, thanks to the fine team-play on the right side of the line on that play!

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