My love affair with Wabash football began September 20, 1969.
The Little Giants took on St. Joseph’s College. Running back Mike Henry ’70 carried four defenders on his back downfield for a big gain. It was the first time I heard the Wabash pep band strike up “Old Wabash” and the cheerleaders yell “W-W-WAB, A-A-ASH, WABASH!”
I was hooked for life.
We had recently moved to Crawfordsville and my father suggested we go to a game. I couldn’t get enough. I started watching practice almost daily. One day, Coach Max Urick saw me sitting under a tree at Mud Hollow and asked if I liked football. He said I could talk to the players and coaches before practice if I didn’t get in the way.
In 1970, my goal was to attend the very first Wabash Cannonball Football Clinic—not necessarily to become a better football player, but to meet the players. They held a drawing at the end to select ball boys for games. It never happened, but I did become friends with quarterback Don Van Duersen ’72, a lefty like me.
I would go on to meet Bill Nielsen ’72, Don Shelbourne ’72, and several other players. I became friends with assistant coaches Dave Lantz and Bruce Hamman.
Not being one to just watch, I started shagging kicks and returning footballs to kicker Billy Gardner ’74. Before long, I was also helping Coach Lantz with defensive back drills.
I helped the student managers put equipment away and carried bags of footballs as big as me into the locker room and dropped them off in the “cage,” where I met “Chick” Clements H’70. This became my after-school routine for much of the 1970 football season.
In the final week of the season, Coach Urick called me to his office. He reached in his desk and handed me three tickets for the last home game against DePauw. Then, he told me once I was inside Little Giant Stadium, I was to come to the sideline for the game.
I would be on Wabash’s bench and help Chick with equipment. Coach Lantz had me help with pre-game drills and I chased footballs again as Billy Gardner did warm-up drills.
My dream had come true. I was working the sideline as a student manager. I had never experienced a Monon Bell game. Little did I know a career had started—and what a way for it to begin—at the greatest small college rivalry in the nation!
I was an unofficial student manager until I graduated from high school. I faithfully showed up for practice, home games, and even a few road games. Athletic Director Max Servies ’58 asked if I was interested in attending Wabash. Without hesitation I said, “YES!”
The process was set into motion. In 1975, I became a Wabash student with the added benefit of finally becoming a real member of the Wabash football team.
Among my fondest memories with the team was after our first playoff game against St. John’s in 1977. As we came off the runway at the Indianapolis International Airport, the pep band was playing and hundreds of Wabash fans, including Chairman of the Board of Trustees Barney Hollett ’36 and his wife, Fran (H’85), were there to greet us.
In 1979, senior student managers and trainers did not join football players and parents on the field for Senior Day like they do now. But the coaches arranged an announcement at halftime of the final home game to thank me for 10 years of service. The “Big Cookie” Rem Johnston ’55 took pictures of me just like he did all the seniors. To my surprise, Coach Stan Parrish honored me with the “Spirit of the Little Giant” Award at the year-end football banquet.
Our family has had a long history of athletic success from my father’s high school baseball career leading to an opportunity to play with the Chicago Cubs, to my brother’s championships as a basketball player and coach including a state championship, and my good fortune managing Wabash’s football team that played in the Stagg Bowl national championship in Phenix City, Alabama.
But in early in 2013, I received a letter that thrilled me like none other.
Even though my father was in the initial stages of dementia, I knew he would still understand what I was about to tell him.
“You won your championships and got to try out for a professional baseball team,” I said. “And David (my brother) won championships, and I got to be part of a Wabash football team that played for a national championship, but there is something missing from our family’s sports accomplishments. Until now. Wabash is inducting the 1977 football team into the Hall of Fame. So now we have a Hall of Famer, too.”
My father smiled. I knew he understood.
These memories are still fresh on my mind even though the years are fading further into the past. Too frequently these days, I receive news I don’t want to hear. Coaches and teammates from my time have passed—Coaches Frank Navarro and Stan Parrish, captains Dave Harvey ’78 and Tom Dyer ’78, and Toni Barrick ’80, Bert Lekarczyk ’79, and Bruce Pickens ’78.
My stroke in 2019 was a wake-up call that my time at Wabash football games is growing short. I deeply miss the men from my golden years on the practice fields, the bus rides and plane trips, and game days, and the part I played in making special memories with Wabash football.
But every year brings names of new coaches and players that keep me wanting to go to games as the football tradition continues. It is my hope to be attending my 53rd year of Wabash football when the 2022 season rolls around.
For me, like so many of my Wabash brothers, Wabash football is not only a college tradition, but a deeply personal story.