Football Career

This will be a short blog because I had a very short career.

I only played football one year. It was part of the Optimist program and I was a C.B. Berry Bear. At that time there was only one team from each school and it included 5th and 6th graders.

There was no weight limit. Rankin had two kids over 200 pounds. One was Roger Reeder at 6' 2" - 225 lbs. The other kid was 205 lbs. Reeder went on to play at Sam Houston and accepted a scholarship to Rice. That was back in the Southwest Conference days and Rice was a good football school. He had offers from all of the big schools and should have gone anywhere but Rice. He wasn't very smart and flunked out his freshman year. At Berry we had no one that big but we did have some big guys who probably would have exceeded today's weight limits. There was no limit on the ball carriers either. James Mantooth was a running back for the Thornton Tigers. He was tall, big, and pretty fast. I think I weighed about 76 pounds. It may have been 92. I really can't remember, but I was little.

My brother Gary was the big star of our team. He was the main running back and also played defensive back. Mike Nicole was our QB. I think Kathy, Jessica's mom, dated him a couple of times shortly before Jack and Jessica got married. I played left end on both offense and defense. During the season we lost to Crow (today's Cowboys) once (24-6) and tied them (0-0) once and finished 2nd in our division. Still, we played at UTA in a consolation game prior to the championship game.

The highlights of my career were two plays, one on defense and one on offense. Against Thortnon, Mantooth was coming at my end on a power sweep. I side stepped the blockers, got down low, and hit him slightly below the waist with my left shoulder. As he went over me I stood up, sending his legs and feet high in the air and dumping him on his face. My Dad was across the field from the play and said that all he could see was the guys feet up in the air. It happened right in front of our bench and my coaches were all congratulating me.

On offense my big play came against Crow. We had the ball on our own 20. Our big play was a power sweep to the right with Gary carrying the ball. We snapped the ball, pitched back to Gary, and he started on the sweep to the right. I went about 10 yards downfield, behind the safety who was running hard for the sweep. Gary stopped and and passed the ball back to me. I caught it and ran for the touchdown! The safety (Gary Hill) closed to about a yard or two back at midfield but I outran him the rest of the way A 60-yard touchdown pass and run (the field was only 80 yards). Those were the only points we ever scored on Crow.

In the week before the UTA game, we had a piano lesson that conflicted with practice. Since Gary was the star, he got the first lesson and made it to practice on time. I was 30 minutes late and got benched. I lost my starting job and didn't play in the game until late in the second half when we were down 20-0. Do I still sound bitter? Well, that's because I am!

So much for my football career.

Some of the guys on our team were Mike Nichol (QB), Steve Hodges (FB and a good pitcher), Owen Barnett (RB and later Sam Houston's star basketball player), Tommy Waterson (G and a good baseball catcher), Mike Cade (T, I punched him in the nose the last day of school), Bruce Pratt (T), Steve Musser (sub and Mandy's husband), and Dorian Anderson. Dorian was a substitute guard but was moved to starting end when I was late for practice and got benched. His mom was my 3rd grade teacher and he lived down the street from Tommy Hawkes in high school. Some of these guys will end up in later stories.