1982 is a season in North Harrison High School Football history that some folks still look back on fondly.  Football was a fledgling sport at the time.  Only in its fifth season, the team had been very competitive the previous two years and anyone who knows how difficult it is to be competitive in the early stages of a football program knows there were some good things happening.  A few more touchdowns would have brought a few more victories in many close games.  But that is but my personal lament.  Losing to Brownstown Central in overtime in 1980 by the score of 9-6 will do that to a fella.  Me more than most.

In 1982 the North Harrison Football team finished the season with a record of 7 wins and 3 losses.  An Eddie Bagley Clarksville run just beyond the outstretched grasp of Jeff Brown who ran after him for 60 yards with his arms extended trying to catch him was the difference.  13-8  Clarksville wins.  Going into week 8 the Cougars were 6-1.  An undefeated Brownstown Central highly ranked team was next.  The trip to Brownstown was kind.  NH 27 BC 14.  I will never forget it.

Being the only Brownstown native on the NH roster that season, you’d think that was the most important game to me that year.  Well…it was.

But this morning as I was walking the track,  my mind hearkened back to that 1982 season.  I was a freshman.  I played center on the JV team and spelled a defensive tackle now and again.  At this point in my high school career, I had not thought about kicking a football.  My how things change.

This morning I thought fondly on the first JV football game of the 1982 season.  The NH team was playing host to the Charlestown Pirates.  In earnest, the Pirates got off the bus probably thinking they would be playing a bunch of hayseeds that didn’t know a blitz from a quarterback sneak.

Little did they know.

We, the North Harrison JV team,  beat the Charlestown JV team 20-0 that night.  I remember it well.  I was in pain the whole game.  I had an ear infection.  I was sick as a dog, so they say.  While I was enjoying the result, I remember leaving the locker room that night.  As I walked past the coaches office on my way out, Coach Tim Harbison called my name out.  “Cheeze, get in here!”  He extended his hand to me.  I shook it.  “I know you were hurting tonight.  You were a hell of a football player tonight.  You were a man.”

Thirty-six years later those words put a lump in my throat this morning as I made laps around the field where it all happened.

You want some context?  Charlestown was a team that, in the early days, routinely put a beat down on NH.  We won our JV game 20-0 in 1982.  The first North Harrison varsity victory over Charlestown came in 1999.  How ’bout them apples?

This Friday night the North Harrison Cougars varsity team looks to run its record to 4-0 in a game at Charlestown.  I have no doubt that the Cougars can take care of business.

I know what that feels like.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson