From The Moody Blues song Driftwood written by Justin Hayward.
You’re so right Jus. You’re so right.
The 2025 season means two things. 40 years on, in 1985, was the last season I played high school football, and it was also the last season Indiana High School Football players on the line often looked like they were submarines along the turf of the football field.
This was the last season lineman were not allowed to extend their arms and “push” to block. We were made to keep our arms in, lead with our forearms and shoulder pads. It looked nothing like the dance moves that play out on high school fields today. Hope that your dancers are stronger and more agile than the other team’s.
That photo up there shows a pad that went around me above the waist to protect my back. I only played one full honest to goodness REAL season of high school football. That was my 9th grade season in 1982. And it was a good one to be a part of. That winter, in 1983, I injured my back in a weight room mishap. Don’t ever go under a squat rack after you just ran three miles on the cross-country course when the temperature is 20 degrees out. Your back will be cold. Mine was. The weight on my shoulders came down. We did not come up. The disc between my L-4 and L-5 vertebrae made an unkind gesture. I have been mindful of it ever since.
I played, really played, as in starting at center and doing my punting and kicking, the last five games of my senior year. That was fun.
All I have left is to shake the hand of the kid who kicks a longer field goal for North Harrison than I did. I thought I would carry him or her off the field when that happened; that is not going to happen.
Like most of us, I have a pesky “news feed” on my phone. This invention is forever annoying. My phone knows what I am about. Plenty of updates on music about the heroes I adhere to. I won’t turn off a George Strait song on the radio. Rarely would I be listening to a station where you would find George Strait. When George sings about saying goodbye in Marina del Ray, I listen up. Being a man prone to writing about football, I get a great deal of that coming my way. The sound bites and press conference clips are GREAT. For every one of those, however, someone is imparting a “list” on me. How many times can I see a list ranking the stadiums of the SEC? A list ranking the coaches of the Big Ten. A list ranking the bathroom facilities of the stadiums in the ACC. No, I have not seen that one. But I will say the facilities at Wake Forest are first rate.
So, I sit down to write a meaningful list about football. I’d be delighted to read more lists like this one. I don’t need to see a list telling me the most annoying fan base in the Big Ten. I already know that is a tie between Ohio State and Wisconsin.
This list reads like the titles from the old TV show The Waltons. Simple. Simple. and Simple.
The Bus Ride
On a perfect autumn night in 1982, I was one of the North Harrison Cougars riding home from Brownstown Central. That night the 6-1 Cougars beat a 7-0 Braves team on their home turf by a score of 27-14. Never before or since have I heard such laughter, team-love, and accomplishment on the bus ride home.
The grass at Brownstown gave way to artificial turf some years ago. That old stadium is gone. And the goalpost shown that I would split two years later is now on a practice field. Pat Prince, a senior guard, would get us started on the bus. “We’re the Cougar Football Team (we’d repeat it back), “We’re lean and tough and mighty mean…” A variety of incantations followed. The one on the way home from Brownstown that October night in 1982 was special.
The Hoosiers
There is so much talk about Indiana Hoosiers Football these days; I feel I am living in an alternate universe at times. My distinct memories of Indiana Football go back 50 years. In 1975, the Utah Utes came to Bloomington. This was my first tangible proof that Utah existed on anything other than a map. Frank Stavroff, the Indiana kicker, put one through the uprights from 52 yards away. Amazing.
My love affair with Indiana has been on again and off again. The day they fired Coach Bill Mallory in 1996, Halloween to be exact, I was furious. Cam Cameron and Gerry DiNardo came and went.
Like so many others, I thought Coach Terry Hoeppner was going to lead Indiana out of the bowels or lethargy, my apologies to Jack Dundee. Coach Hep gave us two great seasons. He didn’t live to see a third. He didn’t see Austin Starr kick that 49 yarder against Purdue the following season that made the Hoosiers 7-5 and heading to a bowl for the first time since 1993.
A great picture of me and my mother, Tressie Johnson. We were about to pile into that van and head to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport in 1993. This is town my dad went to high school at St. John’s.
I know Memorial Stadium in Bloomington better than I know most places. When I look out before a game, I can still see the likes of Mike Harkrader, Duane Gunn, Van Waiters, Tim Clifford, Pete Stoyanovich, Chuck Razmic, Courtney Snyder, Joe Norman, Mark Hagen, Tim Wilbur, Alex Smith, Chris Dittoe, Thomas Lewis, and so many more. We don’t have time. But we do need to mention Anthony Thompson. The 1989 Maxwell Award winner and runner-up for The Heisman Trophy, AT is the only Hoosier in ANY sport to have his number retired. And for good reason.
FAST FOWARD…Thanks to Coach Curt Cignetti, Indiana has come a long way in a short time. Don’t be shocked if they keep shocking and making the SEC faithful cuss. Paul Finebaum beware.
How much have things changed at IU?
In 2019, I sent this photo to a cousin in Mississippi. I told him we were three hours away from hosting Ohio State and things here in Bloomington are abuzz!
Last year Indiana hosted College Football Gameday. This picture was taken shortly after 6 AM. The place really WAS abuzz.
That’s not to say IU didn’t have a few growing pains associated with unprecedented success. The Coach Cig towels placed on each seat on GAMEDAY Saturday were a little windblown.
The Sectional
In 1985, Indiana High Schools began postseason Sectional play. Similar to basketball, every team has a chance in the postseason now. The first sectional game in North Harrison High School history was October 25, 1985, against the homestanding Mitchell Bluejackets. I was a senior on this team. I was playing center that night. I kicked a field goal and an extra point to give us a 10-0 lead. Mitchell came back and led 12-10 late in the fourth quarter. During a time-out, with fourth down and goal from the 2, I told my coach-my dad that we had the two-hole. We went for it. Jason French ran along my right butt-cheek. Touchdown. We beat Mitchell 17-12. We had done something no NH team had done before. We won a playoff game. Yes, that ride home was pretty good too.
This is my brother, Darrell, and me taken not long before that Mitchell game was played.
The Friendships
Football can bring guys together for life. There are chaps I know that I don’t see very often. When we meet up, we have a bond that only going through two-day practices can give. There is something very special about it.
I ran across this photo; taken by my friend Jim Plump 50 years ago. I am also partial to it because the guy on the left, Jim Brown, is a dear friend who is more like family. These guys were playing for my dad’s Brownstown Central team in 1975. This captures a great deal of what this game can give.
The Voices
Never once do I turn a college football game on and fail to think about Keith Jackson. He was the greatest college football announcer we ever knew.
This was Keith Jackson’s last television appearance at a college football game. This was the 2017 Rose Bowl. He schooled these two that night. I have it recorded, and I never tire listening to it.
Keith Jackson was the soundtrack of College Football. He died in January 2018.
I wish I was not such a traditionalist at times. When it comes to football announcers I don’t have much patience. I can’t watch College Football Gameday. Too much noise. I tune in to see the last segment when they give the big picks of the day and to watch Lee Corso. That too is almost over.
A guy from Shreveport is my go-to announcer these days. Tim Brando is the best. What I would give to hear him call the Championship game. It would be so much more enjoyable. Tim is knowledgeable and knows when to get out of the way like Keith Jackson did. We have spent our lives hearing the adage sometimes less is more. There really is something to that.
Tim called the Indiana-Purdue game in Bloomington. IU won 66-0. TB was having a bit of problem with his voice. He was a gamer! He got through it. He is a winner.
The Herd
My dear wife, Carrie, and I have a soft spot for Marshall University. We have seen more games at The Joan (Joan C. Edwards Stadium) than I can recall. We had season tickets in 2010. Remember that UNREAL catch by WR Aaron Dobson, the one where he caught it with his hand turned backwards, against East Carolina in 2011? I saw it. That was the most amazing thing I have seen on a college football field.
The first time we saw a game at Purdue was against Marshall. We saw both games of a home and home series. The home team won both times.
.
Watching the Rebels
My Mississippi roots run deep. My mother and father were both born in Mississippi. Over the years I have seen the Rebels play in Lexington, Nashville (Vandy and Music City Bowl), Jackson, Winston-Salem, and Oxford. I live in Indiana.
The last game I saw at Oxford was in 2003 when Eli Manning was a senior. This was a 43-40 win over Lou Holtz and South Carolina. In earnest, Carolina came back furiously after Ole Miss had a large lead. We all left exhaling and glad they played quarters and not fifths.
Being there and listening to Hotty Toddy is a thing to behold. I loved every minute of it. My Aunt Barbara Hines was my Ole Miss buddy. I miss her.
The Bengals
This was the first glimpse I ever saw of the Bengals new striped uniforms in 1981 after a preseason game. I was fan long before that happened. The Bengals were my team. Growing up Ken Anderson was my football hero. He played for the Bengals from 1971 to 1986.
This 1982 Monday Night Football shoot-out between the Bengals saw Anderson throw for 416 yards and Dan Fouts of the Chargers throw for 425 yards.
I am not a great fan of pro football these days. Once upon a time, I never missed a game. Don’t get me wrong. On Sunday night at 8:30, I will be tuned in to NBC, after I have sampled the other Sunday games.
Thanks to Peyton
Peyton Manning made football in Indiana.
I saw the interest in high school football for twenty years before Peyton Manning was drafted and played for the Indianapolis Colts.
I saw the interest in the Indianapolis Colts the fourteen years before Peyton Manning made his way to Colts in 1998.
Peyton Manning made football in Indiana. Thank you, Peyton.
The Last Word
My little brother had to pee. We walked to the restroom figuring the game was over. Walking down the ramp of old Cardinal Stadium toward the john, we heard a collective and loud gasp from the homestanding Louisville Cardinal faithful. It was 1989. Louisville was playing Southern Miss. The USM quarterback, some guy named Brett Favre, threw a last second pass that bounced off the helmet of a Card DB and landed in the hands of Golden Eagle receiver who ran the rest of the 79 yards for six! Did I see it? No. My brother Darrell had to pee. Still a good story all these years on. When Darrell’s son Brennan is old enough, I will tell him that one!
Have a great college football season. For all of college athletics’ problems, the games are still the games. Your 11 against our 11. Game on. That is our saving grace these days. College APR stats are jokes now. It insults my intelligence that this stat is even brought up in this era of college free agency. I hope some of these college kids are socking their money away. Some will never see any payday like of the sorts again in their lives.
Enjoy the season. My calendar has one circle. September 20. Illinois comes calling to Indiana. The Illini are media darlings and Hoosiers are still an enigma. Of course they are.
College Football camps are in full swing. This week Indiana Football Coach Curt Cignetti had his first post-game presser. As amazing as it seems, we are still interested and glued to the same old questions being asked and hoping, I suppose, to hear something different out the coach. We have been getting that.
The reporter has to ask something, even as mundane as some of the questions may be. Still, he has to ask something. Coach Cignetti does a good job of taking those questions and frames an answer that is “process oriented”. Wink.
In reality, August feels like the longest month to wait for your favorite team to kickoff the season. The build-up and the media blow-off is at epic proportions. I get it. Having called high school football games on the radio and knowing there is air time to fill, sometimes you know when the media guy or gal is saying “something” because he or she has to say “something”. The less is more days of Keith Jackson are solidly placed in the history books and he is revered. He is not, however, the model. There is too much time and advertising space to adhere to these days to go back.
So how about these new players in camp for your favorite college team? Recruiting too, as we knew it, is a thing of the past. Personally, as the traditionalist that I am, I miss it. You know what I mean if you were back there. Only twenty years ago, former North Carolina Recruiting Coordinator, Coach Bruce Hemphill called recruiting an “inexact science”. “As many background checks as you do, you never know how kids are going to react to a college setting. They are away from home, from family, and instead of being the kingpin pf a 1,000-person high school, they are in a setting with 30-50,000 other kids…without parental guidance.”
Coach Hemphill was right. And yes, there will always be the “how will the kid react” intangible to deal with. In these times of college football free-agency, this dynamic does not hold as much water as it once did. The gulf between the next place to play is more like a puddle. The inundation of communication and social media drives decisions these days. If you have adapted well to these times, and I would say, given the performance of the college football earthshattering, SEC pain in the butt stemming season the Indiana Hoosiers had for the first time in the modern era of college football, Coach Curt Cignetti was made for these times. I nod to Pat Conroy with that last sentence.
At the end of the day, at the end of August, you just hope the recipe for your team has all the ingredients it needs and that no ingredient tries to add more to the recipe than it needs to win when that stadium pot starts to boil and we can finally exhale and move on to 1st and 10 from our own 32. That is when the fun starts.
A PRO FOOTBALL NOTE…
I did pay a little attention to the NFL Hall of Fame Game last night in Canton, Ohio between the LA Chargers and the Detroit Lions. In earnest, I was more interested in the Canadian Football League week 9 matchup between Calgary and Ottawa. I rarely miss a game that league plays.
I’m still sore at The Pro Football Hall of Fame not enshrining former 16-year Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson. He deserves to be there. Look up what former teammate and former football announcer Bob Trumpy has to say about Ken Anderson.
I have yet to step foot into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I have driven past it. I know I have been through Canton eight times. But, yes, I am that stubborn. Not unlike my feelings for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in nearby Cleveland. The Moody Blues finally were inducted in April 2018 after being eligible for 25 years. I got there two months later to look at their display and say, “It’s about time.”
When I was 7 years old, all I wanted was this guy’s autograph.
At age 17, I marveled at how he patiently stood there and signed for EVERYONE asking. He didn’t leave anyone behind. This picture was taken 40 years ago. Ken Anderson is in my Hall of Fame. I hope I finally visit The Pro Football Hall of Fame one day.
I am breaking from journalistic protocol. There is no mention or inference of Bob Hammel in the title of this post. There should be. There might be a future post just about him. There should be. From me and every other writer who was ever in his presence. Bob Hammel was one of the last GREAT sports writers. That’s what he wrote about. He was not superfluous and never tried to impress you with his knowledge. With the amount of knowledge that he had about sports, writing and telling us about it was the only way he could get to us. To be in a room with fifty other people knowing only a thimble of what he knew was no doubt at times a lonely existence. Bob Hammel was a sports reporter for the Bloomington Herald-Telephone and Herald-Times for 40 years. In 2020, retiring Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said, “Bob Hammel is simply the most important Big Ten writer in the last 50 years.” Bob Hammel passed away on July 20, 2025. He was 88. His seat at the top row of the press box at Memorial Stadium will be tough to look at this fall.
Let the games begin.
Here’s a blast from the past on a cool November day.
So Indiana University had its time at the podium during Big Ten Media Days yesterday in, of all places, Las Vegas, Nevada. Elvis would be proud. He loved his touch football games. Seeing this take place in Vegas seems like a portent of doom for the future location of the Big Ten Championship Game. Every one of them thus far has been played out at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
During his time at the podium, Indiana Head Coach Curt Cignetti did not disappoint. There was the normal Coach Cig speak. You know the phrases…”fast, physical, relentless”… “What’s cheap doesn’t last. What lasts isn’t cheap”… “… 98% of this game is between your ears.” Great coach speak. Great.
Coach Cignetti is not wrong. The Indiana Hoosiers were 11-2 last season after a playoff loss to eventual runner-up Notre Dame. Coach Cignetti meant all the things he said last year, after his team was picked to finish 17th out of the 18 teams in The Big Ten. Coach Cignetti has the “secret sauce”. It took years of waiting and the right day to catch Athletic Director Scott Dolson to uncork the “secret sauce”. Imagine how many other schools who turned down Coach Cignetti when he came calling to them and how they are kicking themselves now. I am sure the list is long. I am also this is part of what he is driven by. That’s just human nature. Scott Dolson saw what so many others did not. Shame on them. Good on Indiana Football.
There is plenty of talk before the season. Coaches are blowing off. Players are blowing off (see QB Diego Pavia at Vanderbilt). It is a wonder what a win over Alabama will do for a returning quarterback’s ego. And the media is in the middle of it like never before. Today’s college football is made for the soap operas that are The Paul Finebaum Show, and, to an extent, the bombast of wherever Pat McAfee is running his mouth.
Every year we look at the PREDICTIONS! Let us take a look at some of the predictions from media types on how the Indiana Hoosiers Football season will play out.
CFBHome: Indiana 13th The Big Ten.
Athlon Sports: Indiana 5th in The Big Ten
Lindy’s: Indiana 9th in The Big Ten
Phil Steele’s College Football 2025: Indiana 5th in The Big Ten in a tie with Illinois, USC, and Nebraska. Phil’s rankings look like a PGA Leaderboard. The next team ranked is Iowa at 9th. Indecision may or may not be Phil Steele’s problem. My apologies to Jimmy Buffett.
Big Ten Media Collective: Indiana 6th in The Big Ten.
ESPN Football Power Index: Indiana 6th in The Big Ten.
Have we ever seen a team that finished with a conference record of 8-1 the year before being given such a slight with predictions we are seeing here? I doubt it. More fuel for the Engine Room of the team. Lift those weights. Study those teams. Run those sprints. Get the timing down on that twenty yard back shoulder throw. The Hoosiers success this year is there for the taking. There is a nucleus of players returning for Indiana that now know it can be done. This time last year they were still trying to believe it could be done. Raise your hand if you ever felt better after you knew something worked out better than you expected it to. Look out.
The games will continue to be played. The mind games. The media games. The betting games. The scheduling games. And then, on that last Saturday in August, the REAL games will begin in earnest. Can Indiana shut up the naysayers in 2025? We shall see. If they do it will be short lived; we will be reliving their assent all over again. We will be here again next summer talking about how so many writers and talking heads will still want to put the word “farce” next to the ascension of Indiana Football. If you have been around this game and this school long enough you know the college football world is still not ready for football success in Bloomington, Indiana. The Hoosiers think otherwise.
Lee Corso’s college football road is coming to an end the first week of this college football season. Coach Corso will be on the ESPN Gameday set one final time during week one of the 2025 College Football season. Word is the Gameday set will be in Columbus, Ohio to take in the Texas Longhorns visiting the Ohio State Buckeyes. Let’s hope Coach Corso picks Bevo and his prognostication is true.
I am in earnest. What worst place for Corso do his last show than Columbus, Ohio? If you have been there, you know what I mean. Let’s hope Bevo and Arch Manning show up in Buckeyeville and hand Ohio State their collective NIL jock strap.
Look, my wildest college football dream already came true.
I was there last October when Coach Corso came back to Indiana University for College Gameday. The Hoosiers were playing the Washington Huskies on the Big Ten Network. Still, ESPN College Gameday was there.
This was Indiana Football’s finest hour.
I was near tears in the press box knowing this is what we IU Football fans had all dreamed about for so long. We never thought we would ever get HERE. But, thanks to Coach Curt Cignetti, we got here. And I will face the music. No one was more skeptical of Cignetti’s hire than I was. I wrote about it. I own it. I apologize.
I assure you; I will revisit all of that and move forward with the 2025 season, which I am very optimistic about. Today, I celebrate Coach Corso.
This was the coach of my youth. Lee Corso was the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers from 1973 to 1982. These were the years I was in kindergarten to the ninth grade. During this time my dad was a high school coach at high schools that were 50 or 90 miles from Bloomington. I attended MANY of Coach Corso’s games at IU. During Coach Corso’s days, the home bench was across the field from the press box. For what reason, I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to be on the side where the chains were located. I don’t know.
I would give ANYTHING, well, almost anything, to have the cassette tape my dad made of a Lee Corso speech Coach Corso made at the Coaches Clinic in Louisville in what year I have no idea. I know the speech. My audible memory remembers it. In that speech, Coach Corso taught me about discipline on defense and how to give your starting backfield so much room.
As a kid of nine years old, I was listening and studying the man who would one day being putting on a team’s headgear during the last segment of ESPN’s Gameday. We had no idea. Neither did he.
I am weary of the current college football horizon. My delight in watching the Canadian Football League, I have seen all of their games so far this season, and knowing they make a pittance compared to some NCAA players and ALL NFL players, makes me a CFL fan even more.
Still, I can’t keep my eyes off the Indiana Hoosiers. I expect Coach Corso will pick them to win in week#1.
Okay, what I am about to report will give you more insight into why I sincerely have a hard time with the current state of college football.
On October 23, 1976, it was reported that Indiana University was EXTENDING Lee Corso’s football coaching contract for another three years. Athletic Director Paul Deitzel believed this was needed to establish needed continuity moving forward. At the time of this contract EXTENSION…Coach Corso’s record at IU was 8-30-1.
1984. No, not the George Orwell 1984. Or the 1984ish foolishness we are currently suffering through.
No. The real 1984. The year. The 1984… with 12 months and 365 days. Yeah, that one.
Talk about the best of times and the worst of times. I was a junior in high school and our football team won the first game of the season. We beat up on my friends in Brownstown to the tune of North Harrison Cougars 59 Brownstown Central Braves 0. The bus ride back home was blissful. Reliving Mick Rutherford picking up a blocked punt and returning it for a touchdown was worth the time to go up there by itself.
Yep, it was nice. And yes, we were a confident bunch. No team had ever stepped onto Brownstown’s field and scored that many points. No other team has since. Next game up? The county rivals the Corydon Central Panthers. The same night we beat up on Brownstown, Corydon beat up on Paoli 26-0. And yes, we were a confident bunch.
Did I say we were a confident bunch?
I don’t know what Russ Brown had against my dad. Understand my dad was the head coach of my high school team. Once upon a time, Russ Brown was a sportswriter for the Courier-Journal in Louisville. You’re old Uncle Dan remembers when high school sports were covered nicely by that paper. I read it online now, I can’t get it delivered anymore, and there is not a word about Southern Indiana sports. Most of the news in it today is no less than two days old. Sounding like a grouchy old man was never easier.
Before my dad coached North Harrison, he coached Brownstown Central. Yes, the team we beat in 1984 59-0. In 1975, he took his BCHS team over to Paoli and they decided to celebrate the country’s bicentennial a little early. The Braves beat the Rams 76-0.
A few days later, Russ Brown wrote a story that highlighted that game and made it clear that the Braves had a good shot at beating the favored Charlestown Pirates. The Pirates were loaded. Kem Martin is still a legendary Pirate name. He ran for 271 yards. Charlestown won 41-8 in a game that featured fog so dense at times, you could barely see the other sideline across the field. I haven’t seen anything like it sense, and that will be 50 years in October.
Photo by Stan Denny
Russ Brown did it again nine years later. After the 59-0 beating North Harrison put on Brownstown Central in 1984, Russ had another story. This one was on the front page of the sports section. With the help of Brownstown Central coach Howard Jackson, whom Russ called up to whine a little, it was decided that the next day Corydon Central would have no chance against the county rival North Harrison Cougars. After all, remember, we were a confident bunch.
Corydon beat us, the confident bunch, 46-20. I think it is time for me, journalist to journalist, to give Russ Brown a call and find out what his beef was?
We won the next two games. We were 3-1 and feeling pretty good. Then we played Providence and lost half of our defensive power to injury. Dad was at the hospital tending to an injured player and yours truly, a junior on the losing team, had to call the score in to the Courier-Journal. The stringer asked me a few questions about the game; they printed every word verbatim.
We were 3-6 heading into the last game of the season. Earlier that year, it appeared we, the NH Cougars, might be in danger of only playing 9 games. We did not have a tenth game on the schedule. According to the head coach, the athletic director was fine with that. The coach was not. I don’t think those two got along very well. Coach Johnson raised cane and ultimately, there was a 10th game scheduled…in Illinois. Well, that is what Mick Rutherford said when he got off the bus 80 miles and six pig trails from North Harrison at a place that was geographically flat as a pancake, “Where are we? Illinois?”
The North Daviess Cougars hosted the North Harrison Cougars. In the process the North Harrison Cougars made Indiana Football History and put a kid in the Faces in the Crowd section of Sports Illustrated.
That night the North Daviess Cougars ran the ball 59 times. Brett Markel ran 53 of those for 411 yards and 8 touchdowns. The 411 yards were a state record, besting 380 by Andy Knecht of Covington in 1980.
I think I may have set school record that night for the most punts in one game. The first half I punted barefoot because I wanted to. After all, we were a long way from home. At halftime, I was hailed by a ref, “56! Hey 56! Come here. Look son, you’re going to have to put your shoe back on to punt in the second half. “Why?” I asked. Turns out that was the rule according to them. I asked if they had a rule book on them. They didn’t take too kindly to that. In the second half, wearing a shoe on my right foot, I had two punts blocked. I told the ref, “That wasn’t happening in the first half, thanks a lot.”
You know that fog that they played in during that game in 1975 that I mentioned? I think some of it showed up at North Daviess in 1984, but the North Harrison Cougars were the only ones who saw it.
Gil Speer played football for my dad at Brownstown Central High School from 1974-1977. Each time I think about Gil, two things are thrown from my memory, before I can refocus and manage whatever real thought at hand may be in play. I think about the picture above of Gil with a Snoopy towel hanging out the back of his pants to give Clark Kidwell, the quarterback, an opportunity to wipe off his hands before the next play. I think this was the Corydon game. The other thing I always think about is how I wore the number 56 when I played in high school. Gil played center on offense. I played center on offense. This is probably a wonderful coincidence. In real life, we wore the number of the jersey we were thrown and told to wear. Most of us keep our number for however many years we play. Gil wore 50 as a freshman. Then 56 was his for the next three years.
Below is a photo of the seniors on the 1977 Brownstown Central Football team. Gil Speer is wearing #56 on the second row.
My Dad coached football for more than twenty years. He ran into his share of teams. He ran into his share of characters. I can tell you that my dad enjoyed this team more than any other team he ever coached. And when I think about it, my apologies to the guys I played with, this is my favorite team too. Whenever I run into one of these guys, the time just melts away. They are still my heroes. I keep up with #71 Barry Hall about as closely as I keep up with anyone these days.
My appreciation for Gil Speer has multiple layers. He played football for my dad. We went to church together as long as my family was in Brownstown. That is a great many dinners in the church basement. Gil was a youngster of many talents. In March of 1977, Gil was in the school production of Fiddler on the Roof as a suitor of one of Tevye’s daughters. At least 8 of his football teammates were a part of the production. That would be a tough ask these days.
I am sitting here thinking about Gil right now because I wish I could be in his presence this evening.
This evening Gil Speer is going to be inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame. I couldn’t be prouder. Over the years Gil has given a great deal of himself to the game of football in the state of Indiana. More importantly, he has given a great deal of himself to the players he has worked with and the coaches he has been associated with. Be it as a high school player, a high school coach or a college coach, Gil Speer has been very good for the game of football.
Photo Credit: IFCA
I will appreciate this guy as long as I can remember my own name. In my memory, I will always see something like this 1976 photo taken by my friend Jim Plump for the Seymour Tribune…
With apologies to Mrs. Englehart, my senior English teacher, I will say to Gil what I said about myself after I gave a letter-perfect speech about the poet Dylan Thomas. When I had finished my speech, Mrs. E was beaming with a smile on her face and holding up a speech critique sheet that had a large A on it. I sat down next to her and exhaled. “I done good, didn’t I!” Mrs. E grabbed the paper out of my hand and put a minus- mark next to my A.
Today though, this sentiment comes out with ease. I think it is what my dad would say tonight.
Looking at the trajectory of the ball in the photo above, I am quite certain that this was the most embarrassing kick I ever made. The ball is blurry in the photo. It came off my foot in a hurry. In the time you could blink and take half of a breath, the ball struck the cross bar and came furiously back toward the line of scrimmage with nearly as much force. I had to duck to miss the ball’s return. Needless to say, the fans in the stands enjoyed this Keystone Cop scene; I have never heard a crowd collectively laugh at a football game the way this one did. I get it. The good thing is that we won 33-0 over a Mitchell team that came in about as cocky as any group I have ever seen. This was 1984 and Mitchell’s first football visit to North Harrison. I am certain that some of their players figured we would run out of the locker room and run to the tennis courts by mistake. The best part is we went to Mitchell the next year for North’s first ever sectional game and beat the Yellowjackets on their own turf.
This kick was not without consequence. As I said, we won the game 33-0. I was in a computer programming class during first period that semester. Huge computers and floppy disks that looked like pizza coasters. Our teacher was Mr. Harvey Trowbridge, a high school computer pioneer. Harv also filmed our football games. On the Monday after the game, when I walked into class, Mr. T said, “Well if isn’t the old crossbar kid!” I was not amused. I walked over to his desk, leaned in, and said something I won’t repeat here. I’ll give him credit. He had every reason to send me to Mr. Davis. He didn’t. I think we both made our point and that was that. Mr. T never held it against me. I didn’t hold it against him. More than forty years on, it’s still a good story.
Special Teams. That is the dumbest title ever given to any athletic endeavor. It is worse than calling that little flat ball they use in hockey a “puck”.
When teams punt or try to return the punt, or when a team kicks off and the other team tries to return it, or when a team attempts a field goal or extra point, this phase of the game is called “special teams”. Offense is offense. Simple definition. Defense is defense. Simple definition. Special teams is a terrible name for a phase of the game that is an urgent endeavor that takes skill unlike offense or defense. Urgent, eh? Yes. URGENT TEAMS! That’s the name this phase of the game deserves.
Look, I have been on the football field when it was my responsibility to deliver a punt with my feet doing everything they could not to step backwards on the backline of the end zone. Doing so would be a “safety” and would give your opponent 2 points. Do you think I was out there thinking about what a SPECIAL time that was? No! Urgent. The was an urgent time. Urgent times call for URGENT TEAMS. For the love of mankind, can we not give this phase of the game the moniker it deserves? “Special Teams” does not get it. URGENT TEAMS is much better. Seriously. Call it URGENT TEAMS and maybe you won’t see so many high school kickers happy getting a kickoff to travel inside the 20. No, an urgent kicker wants that ball inside the 5.
The die is cast. The mission is on. The football lexicon that we know needs to come alive and realize the importance of that third phase of the game that goes so very far in deciding a team’s field position. You read it here first. It may take twenty years. It may take seven. But I will rattle every cage and bug enough coaches that sooner or later they will either get their heads out of their butts or they will do what they have to do to shut me up. URGENT TEAMS will one day be a thing. I believe it.
Believe it. Just like I believe the Indiana Hoosiers Football program will have to continue to deal with good old-fashioned Deep South envy and hate. Indiana had nothing to do with Ole Miss getting beat by Kentucky last year. Indiana had nothing to do with Alabama getting beat by Vanderbilt last season. Last year the Indiana Hoosiers beat both of the teams that were in National Championship game the year before. Nobody wants to talk about that. No SEC team can claim that. I know. Geography is everything. Maybe Geography is everything. I read three pre-season magazines with total dedication. Athlon Sports, Lindy’s Sports, and Phil Steele.
What a shock! Lindy’s Sports in published out of BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA. There is a pattern here.
Lindy’s has picked the INDIANA HOOSIERS to be the 31st best team in the country. THEY HAVE TO. Paul Finebaum might look ill on them if they don’t.
Athlon, published in California, has the INDIANA HOOSIERS to be the 16th best team in the country.
Big Ten Predictions? Lindy’s picks in Indiana to be the 9th best team in the conference.
Athlon picks Indiana to be the 5th best team in the conference.
Get your popcorn ready. As the Indiana Hoosiers of 2025 rack up win after win after win, there will be SEC pundits, see Paul Finebaum, that will do everything they can to poo-poo the teams on Indiana’s schedule. It is the SEC way. I don’t blame them. The SEC TV contract is chasing The BIG TEN. There, I think I said it all.
I’ll warn you. There is a great deal of “stuff” here. Read at your own risk.
Today at my desk at school, as I was eating cubes of turkey, broccoli, and a baked potato, I did something I must say is uncharacteristic of me. I am not ashamed of it. I’m not. Perhaps the whim came for a reason. It was a “dink” lightbulb over the head moment.
I am sad to say that I am of an age where many of the folks that I have known and have made a great impact on my life are no longer with us. For whatever reason, I thought about Bruce Hemphill today. Forty years ago, when I was 17, Coach Hemphill was an important man to me.
The last time I talked to Coach Hemphill was on the phone many years ago when he was working in athletic administration at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Tarheels. This was more than 20 years ago. That was that. I don’t remember the context of the call. No doubt, I needed something.
Fast forward to 2016. I think about Coach Hemphill again and use the mighty power of the internet to find that he is now the athletic director at McNeese State. I wrote him a letter. I like to write letters. They are much more personal than this forum. Less than a month later, I heard back from him.
Coach Hemphill remembered me. How did remember me? Well, once upon a time he was the receivers coach at Louisiana Tech University and in charge of the peons on the recruiting list.
Don’t get me wrong. It meant the world to me in 1985 when I would get a letter in the mail from him. I remember he sent me a postcard that started “Thinking of you as we are flying to West Texas State…”
I was no great recruit. I was a walk-on. I was a walk-on with connections. My second cousin played for the Woodlawn High School Knights State Championship Football Team in Shreveport in 1968. Seventeen years later, his high coach, A.L. Williams was now the head coach of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs in Ruston. On a visit a week after I played my last high school game, we, my dad, my cousin Nick, and I were walking through the Tech locker room, and my cousin came upon the Tech Offensive Coordinator. “Billy Laird!” my cousin shouted. Billy Laird said, “Nick Hodge!” They shook hands like it meant something. Billy Laird played quarterback at Woodlawn eight years before my cousin played there. A couple of the quarterbacks that came after Billy Laird at Woodlawn were Terry Bradshaw and Joe Ferguson (on my cousin’s team). There is more than 30 years of NFL experience between them.
That night the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs were playing the Northeast Louisiana Indians led by a quarterback name Bubby Brister. NLU beat Tech 13-9. This was a HUGE rivalry back then.
After the game, Coach Hemphill literally came to see me and my Dad and my cousin at a reception we were attending after the game. I still remember how Coach Hemphill and my cousin talked about the loss and “what it meant”. They understood each other.
My time at Louisiana Tech was short. I spent one season swinging my leg in practice. I doubt there is any proof I was ever there. I do remember smiling when I looked and saw that my name had been added to the team “training table” for the winter quarter. This meant I was approved to eat the team food. All I have are a few memories. And some things I wish could forget.
I enjoy remembering Matt Stover holding a 54-yard poke I put over the goal post and Matt telling me that was a “good ball” or “hell of a kick”. I held his kicks too. When that happened, I knew I was out of my league. He had a pop in his leg I had never heard before. Matt Stover in currently the National Football League’s 6th all-time leading scorer.
My favorite memory of that time was when I got knocked out by a 2nd round draft choice. True story. I heard Coach Mills, the coach of the scout team yell, “I NEED A FULLBACK!” He was just down the hill from me, and I sprinted. I don’t know what got into me. I got down there and said, “I’m your fullback!” Someone said, “Coach, he’s a damn kicker!” Coach Mills grabbed my facemask and gave me look, and said, “Nah, boys, he wants to play football! He don’t even have a mouthpiece!” I got in the huddle and was instructed to play fullback and to break to the right flat and look for the ball. I did just that. I caught the pass. I lowered my helmet, and was met by defensive end, Walter Johnson, and to this day I have never been hit like that. I was out! It didn’t last long. When I came to my feet, Coach Mills said, “Damn son! You held on to that ball. Now get out of here before you get killed!”
Walter Johnson was a 2nd round draft pick of the Houston Oilers. He played in the NFL for a while.
So, all these things came back to me today. I have never written of this stuff before. It was not a good time. My grandfather was dying of lung cancer in Shreveport, and I was just plain out of my head. Nothing made sense. That is why I only lasted one football season there.
In 2019, I caught wind that Coach Hemphill, now the AD at McNeese State University, was in poor health with a heart ailment. I wrote him some words of encouragement right then and there. Not long after that, he wrote me back.
So, I have been avoiding the rest of this. Today, I thought about Coach Hemphill. In a search engine, I typed the following: “F. Bruce Hemphill obituary”. My suspicions were correct. He passed away last year. I wish I would have known. I don’t know why I thought all this. Bruce Hemphill was 68.
From here, my mind wandered. I never stopped kicking the football. As time went on, I started punting the ball as much as I kicked it. I knew an old-fashioned square-toed kicker had no chance in life. My punting was my ticket, I thought. The more I punted, the better I punted. The length of the football field couldn’t hold two of my punts. I remember a hangtime of 6.96 seconds. A few years ago, I was talking to someone who had paid attention while I was in my punting heyday. He said it looked like the ball was dropped from an airplane. These are days I enjoyed, and I like to remember.
I was working in the stock room at Sears in 1990. A lady came looking for me and told me there was a Frank Lauterbur on the phone wanting to talk to me. I told her I didn’t know him. She then said he was an NFL Scout. My attitude changed. My 1966 Mustang had a bag of balls in it. I crossed the Ohio River into Louisville and picked up Coach Frank Lauterbur at a motel and we travelled, in my Mustang, to the practice field at Manual High School. This is where Coach Lauterbur worked me out. Those of you who know me know that I have an audible memory. It has something to do with the songwriting I do. Anyway, I can still hear Coach Lauterbur yelling out, “Hell of a kick!” I can also hear him yelling, “Aw, come on, show me something!”
This is the actual critique sheet that Coach Frank Lauterbur was using that day. He gave me one. This one. He told me I had good numbers. If you look toward the bottom, there is a “Touch To Toe” category. This means how much time it takes the punter to catch the ball and kick it. I did not excel here. I was slow. That was that. The reason Coach Lauterbur gave me this one is because he wanted me to work on it. He told me to call him when I got them all at high marks.
When I drove Coach Lauterbur back to his motel, he asked me to come up to his room to chew the fat. It was discovered that a good friend of his, legendary NFL Scout Coach C.O. Brocata, was also my Dad’s high school coach in Shreveport. Coach told me all kinds of stories, including one about Ohio State punter Tom Tupa and how a special teams coach in the NFL has “messed him up.” I assure you I paraphrase.
Coach Lauterbur chewed my butt that night too. He told me to get back into school. He told me I would be a good football coach someday. And so, a friendship was settled.
Over the years, Coach Lauterbur wrote me a few kind letters of reference. Know this… Coach Lauterbur was the head coach of the Toledo Rockets during a time when his 1969 and 1970 teams were a collective 23-0 and winners of back-to-back Tangerine Bowls. He then was hired as the head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. He didn’t find that kind of success in Iowa City. After the 1973 season, the AD told Coach to fire his defensive coordinator. He refused. The AD then fired the entire coaching staff. Coach Lauterbur went on to long career as an NFL assistant coach. He then transitioned to scouting.
For me, the best of it all is Coach Lauterbur signing this letter, “Your Friend.”
This friendship came in handy in 1996. I was working at a high school that did not have a football program. A school board member came to me and asked if I would be interested in looking into starting a football team there. I called Coach Lauterbur and told him about it. He told me to contact Bill Mallory at Indiana. Coach Lauterbur and Coach Mal coached against each other in the MAC in 1969 and 1970. I can still hear Coach Mal. “Frank? My God, how do you know Frank?”, and away Coach Mallory and I went.
This school’s flirtation with football was short lived. A week after the school board member asked me about coaching the team, the school’s principal found me and told me otherwise in no uncertain terms. He said there would never be a football team there. Many years later, this school did acquire a football team and I smile when I think about that.
Only recently have I given up on my football coaching dream. I hoped that I would be there when a North Harrison kicker kicked a field goal longer than the one I kicked 40 years ago this coming fall. I saw myself running out to the field and throwing the kid over my shoulder and carrying him to the sideline.
Much has been made of the NFL Draft this spring that saw Shedeur Sanders, the former Colorado QB and son of Deion Sanders, fall from faith and hope and land clumsily and sheepishly to the 5th round of the NFL draft. Drafted by the Cleveland Browns. The Browns drafted a quarterback, Dillion Gabriel of Oregon, in the third round. Like I said, this was clumsy and sheepish and just downright awkward.
Some NFL pundits, see Mel Kiper, thought Sanders would and should have been a high draft pick. Sanders landed where he landed. Why? Who knows? There have been stories circulating as to why he fell from grace, be it poor behavior during interviews with teams or his so-called entourage that apparently followed him around from place to place. I said it already. Who knows?
Was it the writing on the wall at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado? Maybe so. Who else gets their number retired and their name on the stadium when they had a record of 13-12? He is Deion Sanders’ boy. Do you want to draft a quarterback that was 13-12 in college and gets his number retired? No, you don’t. You’re like me, you would pass. You don’t want that record. You don’t want his dad calling the GM complaining about fill-in-the-blank. It could be anything.
Dave Schnell is no household name among Indiana University Football fans. In the late 1980s, he produced a 20-13-1 record as the starting quarterback of the Indiana Hoosiers. He is the only quarterback in school history that beat Michigan and Ohio State in the same season. That season was in 1987. Dave Schnell passed away in 2011. He had leukemia. You won’t find his name on the wall in Bloomington. Maybe there should be a petition to put Schnell’s #11 on the side of the Memorial Stadium? No. That is not going to happen. The only number in Indiana Athletic History, including all those championship players coached by Bobby Knight, is #32 worn by Indiana running back Anthony Thompson. If you don’t know this, you won’t know. There is no grand mention to be found. A.T., as he as affectionately known, was a teammate of Dave Schnell. All four years from 1986-1989. ALL FOUR YEARS. Remember those days? Dave Schnell was the one who handed the ball to A.T. Schnell was an Elkhart boy that did good.
Look, when they write the history books one day, providing they hold any truth whatsoever, the age we are living in right now will be subtitled THE AGE OF HYPERBOLE. This due to how things are playing out these days. The age of hyperbole is how we get Shedeur Sanders’ number retired and his name on the side of the stadium. It is a sign of the times. Strange times indeed.
The question left over is can this Sanders kid throw an NFL ball? We have all been fooled before. We thought Ryan Leaf was going to shell the corn. His popcorn was burnt. We thought Jamarcus Russell was going to save the Raiders. He’s the reason NFL rookie contracts have been held in check since. Brock Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant. The last man drafted. He is now a star for the 49ers and earned his Jamarcus Russell-like payday. Remember Tom Brady? If Drew Bledsoe hadn’t been knocked out a game to make way for Tom Brady to take the field, who knows what would have happened?
I thought for sure this afternoon one of my casts while I was fishing in Blue River was a trash cast.
Then a catfish came along to prove me wrong.
Moral of the story: time will tell. I assure you the Age of Hyperbole was nowhere to be found along Blue River this afternoon. I like it that way.
