October 15, 2020
The scene looking out the back porch this afternoon looks somber.
I am feeling anything but somber.
I didn’t have a head of white hair thirty-eight years ago, as I was trolling up and down the visitor’s sidelines at James T. Blevins Stadium at Brownstown Central High School on a cool October night in 1982.
Today I did.
This was the story thirty-eight years ago. A least it is a good part of it.
I was a freshman. We had a good team. Being there was enough for me. I had been there before, Brownstown, that is.
For North Harrison, it was our finest hour. Brownstown Central…they get out of joint if you don’t put Central in there mind you…was coming in with an 18 game winning streak. North, a fledgling program five years in the making was there to take care of business that night. We did.
The Cougars featured a potent wishbone offense the likes I don’t know if we have seen since in the Mid Southern Conference. Yes there are variations of a Wing-T floating around and that’s nice. But this was different. This was Thomas Lott and Billy Sims and David Overstreet and Kenny King in the form of QB Kevin Samons, FB Mark Smith, RB Anthony Sieg and RB Jeff Brown showing up from Ramsey to run the Braves over and that is what they did. Thanks in large part to Rick Gunter, Pat Prince, Tony Lawson, Jeff Rudolph, Randy Kilgore, Ted Smith and Brian Henrich with David Hood and Jim Titus running in the plays. No one saw this coming. A victory over the Braves? Yes, that was on the table. A butt-whipping that was 21 to 0 at the half? No. But we were glad to take it to them. Coming into the game, Brownie, A. Sieg, and Burger King (Mark Smith) were three of the top four leading scorers in the conference.
Kevin Samons and my Dad.
In earnest, I stopped by the BCHS football field today because of the sky. As my dear wife, Carrie, and I were driving home from Columbus this morning, I told her I wanted to stop at BC and look at the field. I wanted to take this picture…
It was on this space that I remember kicking a football over a goal post for the first time as a child. I went on to tell Carrie that there is not a better day to kick than one that is cool and overcast. The ball looks different under a grey cloudy sky. I like that look better.
As I turned away, it hit me. “Carrie, today is October 15th. Thirty-eight years ago today we had some fun on this field.” In fact, there were fire trucks waiting for us in Palmyra to escort us back to Ramsey. It was a nice night.
In 1984 this was also the first space I ever kicked an extra point in a game. Two years after THE GAME we would be back at Brownstown Central to defeat the Braves 59-0. I told Carrie it still means a great deal to me that on the two occasions I came to the field I grew up on as a child, I walked off with the winning team.
My Dad coached the Braves from 1970-1978 and the Cougars from 1979-1985. To say I was there, would be an understatement. I lived it.
I must say this. As I looked at that same North goal post, some 70 yards away, it was the first time I ever felt a little age on a football field. How did I ever take two steps and kick a ball over a goal post from here, I asked myself? 60 was kind of routine at one point. But with a kind wind behind me one day in Shreveport, LA in 1986, I two-stepped one in Caddo Stadium, now Lee Hedges Stadium from 70 with room to spare.
I had to take a picture of the kicking net. I have had some fun kicking a football around. Whether it was splitting the uprights in The Rose Bowl, or putting North up 3-0 in the first ever sectional game in school history (we won 17-12) or having Matt Stover hold for me as I nailed one from 55 and he told me it was a nice kick, or swinging legs with my dear friend Jerry Brown in the summer time kicking balls over an electric line at Medora Junction.
But for this field and these two teams, I think I might enjoy this kick the most…
(Photo by Brian Smith)
Ben Waynescott was true on the last play of the game in 2017.
NH 17 BCHS 14.
Walking on the new artificial surface at Blevins Stadium was like walking into a place I felt like I was familiar with but couldn’t quite place. It was not home. I know there are merits to artificial grass. I’m just glad I was there when I was.
It was a great game.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson