Excerpt from Chapter One of Play-by-Play,
“The Cleats I Never Wore”

The playground at the late Longfellow Grade School in Muskogee,
Oklahoma, became a hallowed field of athlete-wannabes who played
tackle football at recess, after school, on weekends in the rain (preferably
so we came home filthy)—with no pads, no helmets, and no football
shoes. Other times, we put our teams together and played on
vacant lots, some where the depression-strapped folks had staked out
their milk cows to help with their food bills.

Those games were sometimesdangerous, maneuvering around the cow’s
leavings and metal pipes where they staked out their bovines. But we never lost a player.

I don’t recall anyone breaking any bones, but there were plenty of
sprained ankles, black eyes, and bit tongues. We discovered that it is
possible to crawl across lawns for six blocks back to our homes.

My classmate, Richard Goad, who went on to play high school and college
football, carried the ball with his tongue stuck out; he nearly bit
it off during one ferocious tackle. So when I went to West Junior High
School in Muskogee for the seventh grade, the first thing to do was
to go out for football—never mind that I weighed about seventy-five
pounds and stood maybe five feet, and that’s probably pushing it.

It was a shock to see those guys, huge guys in my estimation, in
pads, knocking, tackling, blocking, and hitting each other in practice.
We freshmen were not given uniforms the first day and, in my case, I
never was. The coach looked at some of us and determined he would
have no reason to have broken bodies, certainly not death, on his conscience.
The coach diplomatically suggested we might grow and gain
weight for ‘‘next season.’’

He suggested I become a manager. Those were the days of heavy canvas pants,
heavy shirts, heavy leather helmets, heavy shoes—heavy everything. I grew muscle
just lifting that stuff. I was the actual water boy on game nights; I carried
a wooden traylike contraption with bottles of water. I also had to sit
out during half-time rain, snow, and cold and protect the equipment
left on the field.

You can learn a lot about football just listening to the coach while
sitting on the bench. I also learned the dangers of the game when West
played a bunch of coal miner’s sons—it even might have been the coal
miners themselves—down at Keota in Southeastern Oklahoma.

The field was sparsely covered with grass and veins of coal pushing
through. When the Keota team came on the field, it was that old ‘‘the
earth shook’’ feeling.

During the annihilation of our properly dressed team of city boys, the coach sat
on the bench and said to me, ‘‘Aren’t you glad you aren’t out there?’’ I must admit
that I was comfortable on the bench with my water bottles.

I carried on this type of profession for a couple of years. My height,
weight, and muscular growth did not occur. My best football playing
was back on the hallowed grounds of Longfellow Grade School without
pads, uniforms, helmets, or cleats. Everyone reaches his playing
level!

My father and I were glued to the radio back in the 1930s, listening
to every available football broadcast. I say ‘‘available’’ because, depending
on the weather and unless we could move the radio around,
the static killed many broadcasts coming out of the big stations in the
East.

After years of listening to those famous broadcasters, Graham
McNamee, Ted Husing, Bill Stern, Red Barber, and others, I perceived
a niche for myself. There were some obviously less-than-talented
broadcasters then, as there are now, and I recall once telling my dad
that I was sure I could do that. Why I thought so, I don’t know, because
I couldn’t stand up in class and make a speech without sweating
and mumbling. But, radio was my teacher and my broadcast instructor.
We listened to football broadcasts every Friday and Saturday for
at least thirteen years, right up to my joining the Navy in World War II.

One of the greatest football players to come out of Muskogee and
Oklahoma, Jack Jacobs, lived across the alley from us. Jack was what
they called a ‘‘triple threat.’’ He could run, pass, and kick—not only
punt, but drop-kick amazing yardage for extra points and field goals.
The Muskogee Central High Roughers ran out of the single- and
double-wing formations and Jack was the tailback.

(read the next excerpt on Tuesday, August 7 or buy the book by clicking the link below!)

(click here to read excerpt 2 from the book)
(click here to read excerpt 3 from the book)
 

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