Oh, To Be An Athletic Coach (Cont.)
Screen 3 of 6At the end of the two weeks, Thurrnan very charitably announced I had "passed the course--but just barely." He did, however, express considerable doubt about my complicated plays which by that time I had put together in a notebook marked "secret."
The summer passed too hurriedly. A course in chemistry, one in educational tests and measurements, and Thurman's condensed football course were all I was able to complete before I returned to South Hill for the "big season." My proposed study of baseball and track had not materialized. Time was too short. But I didn't worry then about those spring sports. There would be time later on, I thought, to work on them. Perhaps during the Christmas holidays. The boys on the football squad--all seventeen of them-- reported on time and immediately rallied to the cause. We all worked hard during those two weeks before the first game. A few of them--those with "seniority"--had complete uniforms. All the others lacked something here and there. Some had no shoulder pads, others no kidney or hip pads; and a few of them wore tennis shoes, both for practice and the games. Money was too scarce to buy all the equipment we needed. But somehow we got by, and no one protested--at least not to me. Of course, some of those without all the usual pads complained occasionally during blocking and tackling practice. I'm sure they were frequently shaken up, having to work against each other as they did--we had no stuffed dummies to use for these exercises--but fortunately no bones were broken.
Only two games had been scheduled when I returned to South Hill. Others were to be set later. Schedules were made rather haphazardly in those days. Rarely would a whole season be scheduled in advance, but surprising as it may seem most teams seemed to be able to schedule and play enough games.
We won the opening game against Clarkesville by a score of 12-6. Everyone was excited and of course highly pleased--the team, student body, faculty and townspeople alike. Some even predicted after that game that we might go through the season undefeated!
The second game was against the high school at Littleton, North Carolina. Its team was reported to be strong. And it was. We played over our heads during the early part of the game and at the half we were behind only 20-0. In my halftime pep talk to the team, I reminded them of Army's 21-20 comeback victory over Navy the previous year, after Navy had led at the half 20-0. This true story must have impressed them, for they left the dressing room slapping each other on the back and shouting, "We can beat them. We can do it!" That seemed a bit optimistic, even to me who had just told the story, because the squad was now down to just fourteen players who by this time were very tired--most all of them being used both on offense and defense. Just the week before, one boy had been hurt, another had moved away, and the third one had quit (he had said in leaving he "had better things to do").
The sad end to this game showed on the portable blackboard set up at the end of the field just for the game. (This was well before the time electric scoreboards began to be used in rural Virginia.) In large letters and figures written with chalk, the final score could be easily seen:
LITTLETON, 39 and SOUTH HILL, 0
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