from June 15th, 2008
A half century of football memories recalled in the context of Academy athletic expansionism.
“It’s the bad fans and booster mentality that destroys the football experience … (and the) exploitation of the athletes by the school leadership to make money and remind themselves of their glorious childhoods … GLORIOUS IN THEIR OWN MINDS ONLY.”
I started to enjoy the game of football in high school. I went to every home game at Norwalk High and the final showdown at Danbury High my senior year. We never had a great team and we were usually demolished by Danbury in the final game of the season. But the year was 1960, November 24th, and Jerry Fishman was the senior fullback at NHS. Norwalk had only one play, Fishman up the middle. He ran the ball 50 times behind the right and left guards and tackles for 342 yards and Danbury could do nothing to stop him. It was an heroic effort that is still mentioned on the Internet.
The next time I saw Fishman was in a game on nationwide TV between Maryland and Navy. Jerry would run the same play up the middle against Navy, get tackled, get up from the pile, and run back knocking down his own teammates on the way back to the huddle. No doubt he was hated by his own team. The other memorable event of that game was Fishman standing on the 30 yard line giving the finger to the midshipman section in the stands.
After high school I continued to go to my college football home games at Bethany College in West Virginia (the “Small College of Extinction“). I think we had one above average year while I was there, but the thing that stands out the most in my memory was when a senior halfback was tackled on the sideline after making a decent run down the field. I can still hear his screams as players huddled around. His knee was twisted and crushed by the tackle. He never completely recovered from this crippling injury and was force to wear a metal brace to walk, probably for the rest of his life.
I went on to the University of Pittsburgh to work toward my Ph.D. in Biochemistry. I made a point of attending nearly every home game at the stadium next to the medical school where I was working. During those years just before Dorsett and Marino, Pitt was ranked one of the worst 10 teams in the nation by Playboy Magazine and once in those years had a 1-9 season. On-the-other-hand, I was able to see players like defensive end “The Stork” Hendricks (Miami Hurricanes) who went on to the Dallas Cowboys, and Larry Czonka (Syracuse) who went on to play for the Miami Dolphins. I recall that Czonka seemed much larger than the other players. One year I went to a Penn State game where I saw Lydell Mitchell, with Franco Harris as a backup, and concert pianist/linebacker Mike Reid demolish Ohio State. Mitchell and Reid were two of the top picks in the draft and went on to the Baltimore Colts and the Cinncinati Bengals, respectively. Mitchell’s career fizzled while Franco Harris shined with the Steelers with his “immaculate reception” against the Oakland Raiders in the play-offs one year.
The best game I ever saw was at Pitt. By halftime the score was 34-0 in favor of West Virginia. It was pooring rain and nearly everyone had left the stands. I sat through halftime and stuck it out for the rest of the game. Pitt won 35-34 by methodically running up the middle and throwing short passes. If they had only recorded what the Pitt’s coach said at halftime, his statement would have become the Holy Grail of halftime speeches.
I went on to Baltimore to take a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins. My uncle was a retired Commander living in Annapolis so my then wife and I went to some games with him. We also wanted to see halfback Danny Howard play. Danny was the star at Mt. Lebanon High School just south of Pittsburgh and later became my brother-in-law. The most memorable game we saw in Annapolis was against Boston College. Danny had an unusual day running for over 200 yards and catching a bunch of passes to dominate BC. I reminded him of the game some years ago when we saw each other at my daughter Christina’s wedding. I described the magical way in which the front line would open up a large hole and Danny would just motor through….he was genuinely pleased that I had remembered the game. A few years later Danny died of a severe unexpected heart attack. His life had not been as rewarding as his promise after he left Annapolis.
After four years at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, I moved to heaven, Palo Alto California. I remember going to a local bar to watch the Super Bowl which was taking place less than a mile down the road at Stanford Stadium. This was the game when Montana threw the ball into the fog and Dwight Clark caught it in the endzone to win the Super Bowl. Mariah and I saw our last game at Stanford two months before moving to Woodstock at the very end of 1995, when Steve Stenstrom and his coach, “the genius” Bill Walsh, demolished Oregon State. There was a plane flying over the stadium with a banner saying “Genius in Your Own Mind.”
A few years later after moving to Woodstock there were two local developments in area football that got our interest. UConn hired a topnotch football coach, Randy Edsel, and went to Division 1. Along with this decision, the State funded a new 40,000 seat football stadium, Rentschler Field on donated land. Becki and I went to the first game at Rentscher Field and sat close to the 50-yard line with Mariah and young Ernie and Zack Wetzel. UConn rose to the occasion and trounced the hapless Indiana Hoosiers under a mid-day California sky.
Over the next two years we enjoyed many games but became increasingly uncomfortable with thousands of drunks that showed up for the games. After parking our car we would walk through a gauntlet of beer bottles, cans, garbage, and, oh yes, drinking tail-gaters who hardly watched the game after several hours of partying leading up to the game. We chose annual seats in the stadium with backs to a cement wall so that we would not be completely surrounded by drunks and beer spray. I often wondered if Randy Edsell realized how many drunks were in the crowd ruining the games for others. One inebriated fellow two seats away from us could hardly stand up and fell forward over the two people in the next lower row who were embarrassed and laughed the whole thing off. The games were fun but the crowd was undeserving. After it was all over, leaving the stadium was an exercise in skirting puddles of barf.
The other radical change was the shifting of noon games to night games and shifting from Saturday to Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday night games to make more money on national TV. Once these changes started to occur, we lost interest in season tickets. Since then it has not surprised me to see thousands of empty seats on the televised games. I’m sure many others felt the same way as we did about the drunks and the night games. I thought of writing Governor Rell about the situation but never got around to it. Certainly UConn was aware of the situation. The evidence displayed all around with the trash, the vomit, and thousands of staggering drunks.
The second important football news was the advent of a football program at the Academy. I later wrote an article here at the Cafe about the thrill of the First Game held in Putnam. I felt genuine happiness for the players and the coaches who were developing a program for about 80 students who wanted to play football. In the fall of 2005, there was no hint of exploitation of this program to fulfill the ambitions of others.
So, what will happen if the expansion of the athletic fields takes place. I don’t expect to see many drunks although there is word around town that alcohol is a serious problem for some students at the Academy. But I do expect the rules to change after construction of the athletic complex is completed and paid for by the taxpayers. The center of Woodstock will be changed permanently, but only for the benefit of the Academy leadership who hope to raise more money than they have in the past through football shenanigans and the synthetic glory that goes with high school Friday Night Lights.
Of course I still enjoy the game of football at the high school and college level. It’s not the players that are at fault or the problem. It’s the bad fans and booster mentality that destroys the football experience … and then, of course, there is the exploitation of the athletes by the school leadership to make money and remind themselves of their glorious childhoods … GLORIOUS IN THEIR OWN MINDS ONLY.
John
John,
I like it when you share these stories. I like the personal flavor they add to the cafe.
I only have one football story. As an undergrad, I attended Hofstra U. in Hempstead, Long Island for a while. The N.Y. Jets held their training camps on the campus at the time. This was in the late ’80’s when Mark Gastineau and Joe Klecko were the stars of the Jets. It was also during the NFL players strike when these two men were under fire for crossing picket lines to train.
Like you mentioned above, the size of the professionals was amazing; almost freakish actually. It was someting to sit in the cafeteria and see the Hofstra team players at neighboring tables to the pro players. There was really no comparison between the two. The professionals were a mammoth version of the human form. I’d never seen anything like them before.
In those days, I used to work as an officer for campus security and the security main office was directly across the street from the entrance to the Jets’ training area. I used to have a bad habit of walking with my head down, counting the cracks in the sidewalk, until one day, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a gorgeous Mercedes Sedan pull up a few feet away from me. Not even stopping to look up, I literally crashed into an enormous and scary looking man. As it turned out, I had just run smack into Joe Klecko! I can’t say that I recall him being especially pleasant or forgiving about it either. But at the same time, he didn’t go out of his way to complain. He probably didn’t feel a thing anyway. I’m the one who nearly broke something. It felt like this guy was made out of iron.
This story has nothing to do with the Academy. But at least I learned why it’s important to walk holding your head up high!
It is a common misconception that football programs at the college level are profitable enterprises. Most football programs are a tremendous financial drain on the university’s athletic budget. And on the high school level, the impact of running a football program is even more detrimental to the financial health of the school. If you add in the financial costs to this Academy field expansion, there is no financial justification for adding the football program. There also is no consideration of the financial impact of this field expansion under applicable zoning regulations, which is exactly the reason why the Academy is proceeding as it is. They know that financial objections can not be raised during the Planning and Zoning or Wetlands deliberations on the zoning application. Once the project is approved, the momentum established by the approval will not be able to be countered, even by very valid financial worries of the townsfolk. As soon as the land use boards grant their approvals, it will be GAME TIME for any opposition!
When I was in high school, there was an incident with an underclassman who was paralyzed for life after breaking his neck playing a game for the school team. His parents were in the audience. I barely knew him, but he was a friend of a friend of mine. I remember hearing the explanation that he had simply lowered his head while tackling someone and that was it - what a simple mistake to cause this lifelong, severe disability. I have never, ever forgotten this tragedy.
While raising my own children, I have been quietly pleased that our area did not have midget or high school football programs. Based on my son’s terrific speed, agility and great hands demonstrated playing with his friends, he is a walk-on as a wide receiver. I have asked him a few times to try out for the school team, and he has responded humorously “the team can’t throw the ball, so I would be running around in circles getting open for nothing”. The truth is he prefers other sports. I have never pushed it beyond that, and I am quietly glad he does not play.
While few football players experience the severity of injury I witnessed in high school, the truth is few escape uninjured from this sport, especially those who play in college. Most of those who play professionally retire young and wealthy but with severe and painful lifelong disabilities. And they don’t live long.
My concerns go beyond the violent nature of the game, however. It has to do with the mentality of the high school football players, encouraged by the adult boosters, that spreads throughout any high school. While this “teen hero-worship” mentality is true of other sports, lets face it - football players are bigger, stronger, and trained to play a uniquely violent game. So this “teen hero-worship” of boys awkwardly learning to become men and a student body stratified by levels of perceived “coolness” quickly and easily converts to the bullying of other students. And the administration, parents and teachers tacitly condone this behavior.
To those who say this is not true, or that there are exceptions, or that the Academy would never tolerate this behavior, I say give me a break - its high school - we were all there at some point.
While I believe the Academy should have a football program, and the athletic fields it proposes, I am concerned with the mentality of the people directing this effort, and the way they have manipulated the town’s politics to accomplish their goals, and the way they have bullied the town’s public education system and belittled it with the publc relations assault engineered by its boosters.
Then I step back and say, hey, its high school. And the school ought to have a football program.
Snuffy,
I agree with just about everything you have said. …. ( see Another Parents new article. Admin) … Snuffy, thanks for the lead in.
Interesting story and perspective. I am not quite so worried about football becoming an overbearing influence on the rest of the high school sports or community as you are, however. I don’t believe we live in an area conducive to becoming football mad in high school. I was born in the Ohio Valley myself and my dad graduated from and starred in a solid football program at Bethany College. My sister graduated from West Liberty. (I also studied Biochemistry at Boston U’s PhD program)
In the Ohio Valley, there are High School football talk shows ON TELEVISION. The local Fox Sports Net in Pittsburgh dedicates almost as much time to HS Football as they do to the Steelers. College is 3rd. Texas, where Friday Night Lights originated, is also a unique place. I don’t think Rural Connecticut is the same at all. I’m not sure I could identify what makes those other places so football crazy, but Windham County just isn’t that kind of place. I mean, the state tournament for football only takes 4 teams. We aren’t going to contend for the real big games with schools like Fairfield Prep and others up there and a 9-1 record basically being pre-requisite to making the playoffs. Due to strength of schedule tiebreakers, I think Woodstock would have to go undefeated to make it.
I personally believe that Woodstock Academy will have an overwhelming majority of parents and students at the games, not quite so likely to tailgate or be drunk as the UCONN crowd. Having a nice football field is a good thing for players. I don’t see what’s wrong with limiting the games to Saturdays though. Friday nights cost lots more.
Michael, It’s great to hear from you. One year when I was at Bethany, I went to a baseball game between Bethany and West Liberty. It was a memorable game because the scouts were there and Joe Niekro was pitching for WL.
As for the Academy expansionism, it’s all about the cost and the damage. The revenues that pay for the cost of this expansion come mostly from Woodstock taxpayers and are subtracted directly from the K-8 budget, one of the lowest funded K-8 systems in the state (164th out of 169 towns, I believe). The Academy is bullying it’s way through all of this while shielding itself with its pseudo-private status.
Joe Niekro and Phil Niekro went to my Dad’s high school, along with John Havlicek. That area was a hotbed for athletic talent in those days.
Thanks for the info on Woodstock Academy’s attitude. I thought about teaching there but ended up going elsewhere in the area. My kids will likely be students at Woodstock Academy in about 9 years, so I will be keeping a close eye on this project.
I know Eastford is on the verge of doing some repairs or expansion to its own school. There is no way we could swing and aid towards Woodstock beyond the tuition we already pay. It’s too bad that Woodstock taxpayers might have to sit back and take this. In whose pockets are the Woodstock town government anyway? Last time I checked I thought they were supposed to represent the taxpayer first.