We had won the very first game we had ever played in. The whole community was a buzz about the game and how we had played. I worked at the grocery store at nights and all day on Saturdays, all anyone wanted to talk about was the game. What a fun time.
Our next scheduled game was against Crestland of Early, Iowa, and their “B” team in Early. It was on a Monday night and quite cold if I remember. It was on October 10th.
We played ok, not alot that stands out in my mind about the game. I know that Doug Kruchten scored on a 3 yard touchdown run right before halftime. We had alot of penalites, 110 yards worth and stopped Crestland inside our own 10 yard line in the third quarter. We did move the ball to the 1 yard line late in the fourth quarter but the clock ran out before we scored. We could have scored if we had wanted too, we just let the clock run out. We had 278 yards of offense, I was 2 for 4 in passing, both to Dennis Stafford for 24 yards. We played ok, just alot of dumb penalties that every time we got something going we would stop ourselves. A win is a win and now we had won 2 in a row.
Our next game was with the Newell “B” team on October 17th. It was a much better night to play football and again our defense carried the day for us. We won the game 12 to 0. We had 220 yards of rushing offense and 40 yards of passing offense. I do remember that I had a 60 yard touchdown run off of the option and threw a 38 yard touchdown pass to Dennis Stafford to quote the Fonda Times ” The pass to Stafford was a perfect strike that he took in full stride and outran two Newell defenders to the goal line.” I had 100 yards of rushing offense on 4 carries, so all in all it was a good night. Gerald Johnson had 9 tackles, Doug Kruchten had 8 tackles, and Dennis Smith continued to dominate on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Defense continued to carry our team. We seemed to have a nose for the ball and ran to the ball well. We had some very tough people up front who just didn’t know that we weren’t supposed to be this good yet.
Our first “A” game of the year was scheduled against Lawton-Bronson, they had just started football as well so we would be playing someone just like us for the first time. The game was scheduled in Fonda for October 24th and I do remember is was a very nice evening again.
Lawton-Bronson was huge compared to us, outweighing us 10 to 15 pounds per man on the line. What they didn’t measure was the heart of our linemen and how hard they would play. Lawton took the opening kick off and moved right down the field throwing alot of short passes to take a 6 to 0 lead in the first quarter. We moved the ball some however, were forced to punt and Lawton took over on their own 20. The Lawton quarterback went back to pass and was hit by 2 of our linemen, knocking the ball loose. Don Smith picked up the ball and ran it in from 8 yards out to tie the score at 6 to 6.
Neither team did much after that with it being a very defensive game again. Midway through the 4th quarter we would get lucky again. Lawton had the ball on our 30 yard line after a partially blocked punt, our line broke through on several occasions to sack their quarterback and with the penalties they were assessed, we had them 4th and 65. The punted to midfield where we took over the ball and started our winning drive. We got the ball down to the 13 where I handed the ball to Pat Murphy who got to the 11. Ttwo more running plays by Doug Krutchen got us to 6 yard line making it 4th and 3. I ran the quarterback option and pitched the ball to Dennis Stafford who did get the first down. Doug Krutchen ran it over on the next play to put us ahead 12 to 6. The game ended that way.
For the evening we only had 150 yards in total offense of which 45 yards came from passing. Chuck Orr caught two passes and Alan Goetchius caught the other. Doug Kruchten had 41 yards of rushing, Pat Murphy had 26 yards in rushing and Dennis Stafford had 31 yards of rushing. We were now 4 and 0 and had one varsity win under our belts. It was incredible to just keep winning, the whole community was really behind us now and we had one more game to play to complete the season. Our final game was a rematch with Newell to play their “B” team again. Unfortunately, the night of the game the weather was terrible, so cold and windy that the game was cancelled due to inclement conditions. I remember being really disappointed as a TV station out of Sioux City was coming over to report on the game, I thought it would be a good way for my friends in Sioux City to see me play, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen.
Our season was perfect, no one got hurt, we learned alot about football, life’s lessons, learned that you never give up and that you support each other. You play for each other and that you are there to win the game.
At the end of the season we had a football banquet at the Checkerboard cafe. Was nicely attended. Coach Parman had very nice things to say about everyone and was especially nice to me, commenting on how I had to learn the plays, call the plays and how I had lead the team. Was very nice of him to say those things and very much appreciated still to this day.
Now on to basketball and see if we can get this team on the right track as remember we had lost 19 games in a row and with a new coach it would be interesting to see just how well we would do.
