Centre Football and Baseball, 1967-68
I was scheduled to begin work at Hefler and Snyder road construction company in Plainfield, N.J. on Monday, July 17th, 1967. Unfortunately, there were race riots in Newark and Plainfield starting on Friday, July 14th, a day after I had played for Dreiers' Sporting Goods at Greenbrook Park, Plainfield, N.J. (I went 2 for 3 and drove in a run.) On Saturday, the violence spread and by Sunday Plainfield was under siege by heavily armed insurrectionists. An arms manufacturer in nearby Middlesex that made M-1 rifles for the civilian market was broken into and 46 semi-automatic rifles were stolen. These were immediately distributed among the conspirators. At one point the Plainfield Police Department building was peppered with gunfire for five hours. The building still shows bullet holes in its exterior to this day. There were snipers across the city but mostly located in the West End of the city.
I was going to drive down in our old Corvair, but my father insisted on driving me to make sure it was safe. The company had a construction yard in a residential neighborhood in the West End on Monroe Avenue, which was not far from Greenbrook Park where a large mob of rioters and protesters had gathered the day before and worked themselves into such a lather that they ended up murdering a policeman. This led to another night of rioting, this time with stolen rifles in the hands of the insurrectionists.
As we got to within five blocks of the company yard, we ran into a police roadblock. I told the officer that I was trying to get to work. "Where are you working?" he asked. I said, "On Monroe Avenue." He said, "Son, you don't want to be working on Monroe Avenue. You will be ducking bullets all day." The next day the situation had calmed down and I learned that the yard had been open the previous day and that crews had gone out in their trucks to job sites, but on the insistence of my father that Monday we did the prudent thing and retreated to Watchung.
The dead cop was beaten with a shopping cart and then shot to death by the mob with his own gun. During the same weekend in Newark just 20 miles away, the riots were much more violent. Over several days 16 civilians, 8 suspects, a police officer, and a firefighter were killed; 567 civilians, 67 police officers, 55 firefighters, and 38 military personnel were injured; and 811 suspects were arrested. Property damage exceeded $10 million.
After that explosion of violence, things quieted down in central New Jersey.
Working construction as a young college student in the summers at union wages gave me advantages in my sporting life. Whereas the summer before I had been playing checkers and ping pong with children at the town recreation program for thirty-five dollars a week, now I was digging ditches, jackhammering streets, and driving dump trucks at the union rate of $3.85 an hour, a rate that was adequate for many laborers to raise a family. And the rate went up .25 cents an hour every year for the three summers i was employed. Most of my friends home from college were lucky if they could make $2 dollars an hour during the summer. With my savings I was able to pay half my annual room, board and tuition each year after that. The college gave me enough financial aid to pay the other half and also gave me jobs on campus to help me through. In my freshman year, my grandfather Dr. Potter wrote the check that covered the entire second semester.
Construction work toughened me and made me a better, stronger athlete.
I saw Betty several times that summer. Centre graduate and Deke John Hubbard married his college girlfriend, Nancy Anderson, who was also from Franklin, Tennessee. Betty and I attended the wedding. On another weekend she flew up to meet a friend from Centre improbably named Betty Eaton (no relation) in Washington, D. C. and I flew down to visit them. As described earlier, Betty also flew up to New Jersey to stay with my family for a few days where she met my high school friends. When she stayed with us, my four younger sisters all fell in love with her.
I played nine games for Dreier's semi-pro baseball team in the summer of '67, courtesy of Frank Rossi, who recommended me to their manager, Don Kohler. Although I only played two summers under his management, he became another influential mentor in my life. I learned from him the perfect demeanor for success in sports: a calm, focused perseverance in which emotion is contained and self-confidence is gained. Kohler was highly intelligent. For many decades while managing a semi-pro team, he ran a Sunoco gas station in Plainfield but was involved in baseball in a variety of ways. He died in 2022 at the age of 93. Here is part of his obituary:
Don was drafted by the New York Yankees as a left -handed pitcher in 1947, right out of high school. He went on to play Minor League Baseball for 8 years.
After leaving minor league baseball, he managed the Dreier's Semi Pro Baseball Team, in Plainfield, NJ. During this time, Don also owned and managed Kohler's Sunoco in Plainfield NJ, until eventually returning to baseball as a Major League Scout. Don scouted for the Cleveland Indians and the Milwaukee Brewers, where he earned a World Series ring, before joining the Major League Scouting Bureau where he served for over 25 years. Don was assigned to scout primarily in New York, New Jersey and Maryland, where he conducted many pro ball tryouts for prospects.
Don was selected for the North Plainfield High School Sports Hall of Fame and the Union County Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2013, he was inducted into the Major League Scouting Bureau Hall of Fame. He earned the honor of Major League Scouting Bureau Scout of the Year twice.
In addition to his passion for the game of baseball, Don
had a life -long love of classical music. The son of two talented
musicians, he was a classical music afficionado and scholar. He spent
many happy hours listening to Symphonies, Concertos and Operas on his
stereo and finally his laptop. His last moments were accompanied by
Beethoven's 7 and 9 Symphonies.
Over the years, Don also enjoyed
going to many professional car races; as well as driving and tinkering
with sports cars and motorcycles. Many will also remember his love for
dogs, especially the numerous Rhodesian Ridgebacks he raised and
trained.
He was 6'-2" with a handle-bar moustache and a shaved head in the late 60s. Playing for him was a pleasure. He knew how to handle people and their quirks, although by design the players he gathered around him didn't have many quirks. He wanted serious people on his teams. He may have been at the end of his playing career but so loved the game he found ways to stay intimately involved in it for most of his life. In the late 60s, he still pitched for us in emergencies and was the best control pitcher with slowest fastball I ever played with. His breaking ball was unhittable. His arm was nearly shot a and yet he knew countless ways to get batters out with guile. My brother John, who was our ten year-old bat boy at the time, still recounts the story of watching him pitch seven scoreless innings with his 75 mph fastball.
Don Kohler. 1929-2022
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I did my long distance running in late August in preparation for the traditional mile run on the first day of pre-season football practice at Centre. Most of the team was returning, including nearly everyone on our offense. Butt had graduated but he was the only one from the offensive line. Our backfield was returning intact. We lost only two crucial players on defense, Van Young and John Murphy. An undefeated season seemed a distinct possibility.
Pre-season workouts before the student body arrived were still hellish but served their purpose. I remember little of the tedium and discomfort, but I do recall that this was the year in which one of the freshman named Ron Clark had difficulty finishing the mile run and as he struggled to finish, Harmon was barking at him to make him finish until he finally collapsed. It then occurred to Harmon looking at the pale and semi-conscious young man that the situation was serious and an ambulance was called. [to be continued when further facts are compiled]
Before we finished with pre-season workouts, I was approached Dr. Cavnes, the popular Dean of Men at the college who today is revered by generations of former students. He requested I meet with him at his office. In the meeting he asked me if I would like to live off campus and room with fellow sophomore football player Gordon Glyndon Benning, who was nicknamed "GG" after his initials. GG was one of our freshman letter winners from the season before and had become a good friend of mine. I agreed. He was one of perhaps a dozen black students on campus. We were offered a walk-in basement apartment in the home of Dr. Gordon Winsor, a professor of religion at the college. It was two blocks from Old Centre and across the street from a second-floor apartment occupied by Dekes Ben Boone and Dick "Bull" Edwards, our all-conference defensive tackle.
GG had a college-sponsored job directing traffic for children walking to school at the corner of Maple and W. Lexington Avenues. I worked as a breakfast cook and dishwasher at the college infirmary. With study, football practice and jobs, we were kept busy.
I admired Ben Boone for his athletic ability and intensity on the field. On offense, no one was more focused on getting the job done or had greater ability to contribute to a victory. He and LaMonica had been dubbed by some scribe as "The Touchdown Twins." Unfortunately, Boone had a streak of the southern racist in him and it incited anger in all the members of our freshman pledge class when we pledged earlier in the year. He thought in terms of "separate but equal." In Deke meetings where the subject of choosing pledges was discussed, he had reportedly objected to offering membership to GG because he was a "Negro," a word widely used at the time. The term for rejecting a potential pledge is ironic: it's called "blackballing." Boone was the only member to vote to not extend an invitation to pledge to GG and that was all it took to exclude him. He claimed to like and respect GG and treated him as a friend but was adamant on the subject. Looking back on it now, I wished I had taken a stand, but I was a lowly freshman Deke pledge when it happened and really did not learn the details of the situation until my sophomore year. GG never talked about it. There was much going on behind the scenes of which I was not aware. If I had to do it over, I would have organized our pledge class to refuse to pledge if GG was excluded.
There were only a few instances of racial epithets directed our way as GG and I walked to the campus on a daily basis. They were probably from Danville High School miscreants or racist townies. Danville was still segregated. There was a barbershop with black barbers that wouldn't cut black people's hair. The movie theater reserved the main floor for whites and the balcony for blacks. Those entrenched attitudes would not be entirely remedied in our time in Danville. The fight over the barbershop went on for a couple of years after we graduated.
Before the beloved Dr. Cavnes died in April 2015, he corresponded with dozens of his former students. I was lucky to be one of them. At the time I was taking care of my wife who had been severely disabled by a stroke in 2011. Two months before he died, he wrote me this elegant letter, which was typical of several he wrote:
Keep in touch ... Randy Kell has power of attorney and is working on a scholarship in Doris's memory... He and John Newman were here for three days ... We had a great time.
Keep in touch ... Love ... Cavnes
Those pictures were great ... and near the truth .... We have been lucky ...snow no problem but sub zero seemingly forever ... used to it by now /
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Expectations for the 1967 Centre College Football team were great. We had ten of 11 of our offensive starters returning and all but two or three defensive players. There was talk of an undefeated season. Our first game against the Kenyon Lords in Gambier, Ohio proved that talk was justified. Kenyon was a prestigious college. One of its most prized alumnus was Paul Newman, the actor a member of the class of 1949. Their football team that year was only midway through a re-building process and it showed.
We beat Kenyon 33 to 7 and the score didn't really capture the extent of the punishment we inflicted. It was 33 to 0 when Harmon put in the subs at the end of the third quarter. We had 311 yards rushing and a total of 436 yards. LaMonica rushed for 71 yards and scored two touchdowns and Boone ran for 85 yards and one touchdown. Bill Silvey,nicknamed Ziggy, intercepted a pass and returned it 39 yard for a touchdown. I caught a 44 yard touchdown pass from LaMonica in the third quarter. I remember it because as I was approaching the end zone I couldn't make out the yardlines and didn't see a marker for the end zone so I just kept running probably twenty yards further than I needed to. Harmon congratulated me on the effort.
Our next game was against our nemesis the Southwestern Lynx from Memphis (now named Rhodes College.) They exposed glaring weaknesses in our pass defense. Most of our defensive backs including Kleine, Mike Easley, Paul Ethridge, Landy Lawrence, Scott Hunt were sophomores or freshman. The exception was the junior Schenz, who, because of an injury to our running back Tom Ehrhard was now going both ways. Southwestern coaches obviously came to Danville with a plan to exploit the inexperience of our defensive backs. They threw for 306 yards in the game. Easley and Kleine would shine all season after this game, but had trouble along with all the other backs on this particular day. Jerry Schenz had been our most ferocious defensive back but he was becoming indispensable as a replacement for Ehrhard on offense. I do recall, however, that on one defensive play Schenz put a hit on one of their best backs and knocked him out of the game. The halfback was taking a high pitchout from the quarterback with his arms raised to make the catch. Schenz anticipated the play, blitzed in and put his face mask right on guy's ribs. The game was delayed as they loaded the poor guy into an ambulance. Schenz celebrated his hit, and he had a right to. You have to protect yourself at all times.
For the first time in memory we got out gained by an opponent in total yards because Southwestern passed for 306 yards with 13 yards rushing for a total of 319, If you pass on every play you will aggregate yards. We had 135 yards rushing and 163 passing for 298. We were down 13-7 at the start of the fourth quarter. With seven minutes remaining, we got the ball on their 37. LaMonica hit Takacs with a 25 yard pass and a few seconds later Schenz took it over from the two. After we kicked off, they turned it over. After a hit by Stan Peskoe, Sophomore tackle John Henshaw recovered a fumble on their 20 yard line. From there Jerry Ingram scored on four plays going over from the three with 3:30 left.
Yet the Lynx would not be contained. After a 59 yard pass play, they scored from the one with 2:10 left. They decided to go for the two-point play and the win. The pass fell short, however, and we hung on to win 20-19. We found a way against a tough well-prepared team. Next was Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia. Boone and I, as W&L rejects were looking forward to it.
The game was played in soup. It had rained the night before and a light rain fell for most of the game. The temperatures were in the low 40s. Harmon after the game mentioned that they outweighed us on average of ten lbs. per man. The little quick guys were slipping in the mud; the big fat guys were pushing them around. LaMonica had trouble gripping the ball and completed only 6 of 21 passes for 65 yards. He threw three interceptions-- one of the worst games of his career. The Generals scored in the second quarter after we had fumbled the ball on our 11 yard line. They missed the extra point and led 6-0. We threatened several times in the second half, but couldn't push it in. GG gave us a chance when he recovered a fumble on their 23 yard line early in the fourth quarter and Lamonica picked up 13 yards on a run, but eventually we turned it over on downs. They completed 1 of 4 passes for a measly 6 yards passing with two interceptions. We played a good second half under the circumstances and held them to a total of 135 yards on offense while we had 225 yards total offense. But it didn't matter. We had beaten W&L in our last four meetings but on this day victory eluded us. We were 2-1 with one win and one loss in the conference.
The following week took us to Indiana to play the Panthers of Hanover College. It was their Homecoming and was destined to become a festive weekend because a hundred Centre athletes in four sports-- football, cross country, women's field hockey, and tennis-- would be busing up to compete. Extra buses to carry 200 student fans to cheer us on were also reserved. Others were going to drive up in their cars.
Harmon claimed Hanover was an even bigger team than W&L and were much better than the previous year when we had barely squeaked out a win 13-12. They had a 3-1 record and were playing well. Their one loss was to Northwestern Louisiana, which was ranked number two among small college teams. We first played Hanover in 1907 and since then had played them 25 times, winning 19 of them. They hadn't beat us since 1957.
Our running game dominated. Our offensive line comprised of Takacs, Jack Smith, Kirk Beaudin, Ted Kraft, Preston Miles, Will Johnson and Lowell Thompson manhandled Hanover's defense. (Harmon's claim they were a big team was exaggerated. I recently found a roster of their team for the 1969 season wth heights and weights and they were no bigger than we were.) In the third quarter it seemed like we could hold the ball for as long as we wanted and score at will. But two plays in the first half when the game was still close set the tone for the second half. Toward the end of the first quarter, Hanover drove down to our five yard line threatening to score, but Ziggy Silvey intercepted a pass to end the threat. We were down 6-0 when a Hanover punt pushed us back to our 7 yard line. On the second play from scrimmage, Schenz took a stealth hand-off on a halfback draw play and ran untouched 90 yards for the score.
It was one of those plays that stays with you. I was running a deep sideline pattern to draw the cornerback out, and when I turned around Schenz was running alone up the middle of the field. It was like the Red Sea had parted. I started following him down the field yelling, "GO!, Go!" but no one was going to catch him. (Schenz ran the 100 dash in 10.8.) Our team caught fire after that play and Ziggy's interception. We were ahead 7-6. But Hanover engineered another drive with their talented sophomore quarterback Phil Winning tossing a 20 yd touchdown pass giving them a 12-7 lead after another missed extra point.
Shortly after, disaster struck Hanover. With our offense now in gear, we executed a sixty yard drive on 12 plays with Schenz and Boone slashing through their defense on play after play. Schenz rammed it in from the 3 yard line and we took the lead. But as Schenz bucked the line to score, Winning, who was playing defensive back on their goal line stand got caught in the scrum, broke his ankle and had to be carted off the field. Marty Takacs made that hit. Winning's broken ankle broke their back.
In the third quarter we took over the game. We executed three long drives that resulted in two touchdowns. The first drive covered 60 yards and ate up half of the third quarter. Schenz and Boone were running through and over them. Schenz ended up with with 172 yards rushing and three touchdowns. Boone had 80 yards rushing with one touchdown.
We won 27-19. We gained 300 yards on the ground and largely because of that success we had only 22 yards in passing. LaMonica completed three of nine passes with two interceptions. Hanover actually out-gained us in total yards, 324 to 322. We had 14 first downs to their 13. If Winning had not been injured, they might have stayed with us and made it close. I suspect they never used Winning again on defense. He was too valuable on offense. We would face him again two more times.
No one on the team talked about it, but it was around that time that we began to realize that Schenz was the best player we had and probably the best player we would see all season. When the season began, he was the starting defensive safety and, secondarily, a backup to running back Tom Ehrhard, a force in his own right. In fact Schenz had won all-Conference honors as a defensive back in the 1966 season. But Erhard had broken his shoulder in the Kenyon which allowed Schenz to grow into an offensive monster. Unlike Ehrhard, he was not injury-prone. He played the '67 season without missing a snap. The following year he injured his ribs and missed the first two games, but in the last seven games he would earn all-American honors. He was getting a lot of whoops and hollers when the team would gather to watch the game film. He was a human highlight film and he was getting better every week.
Jerry Schenz, 1967
Next on the schedule was Sewanee (the University of the South). We had bullied them the year before on their home field, 27-0 for our first victory against them in a decade. They came to Danville intent on revenge. It was our Homecoming and we were somewhat confident we would win for the alumni and perhaps seal at least part of the CAC championship. Instead, we got out-maneuvered by legendary coach Shirley Majors and outplayed by a single-wing tailback named Charles Gignilliat.
We were down 22-0 at the half. We came out and drove 76 yards in six plays to make the score 22-6. A pass for two points failed.. On our next possession we drove 54 yards to the Sewanee 16 but on fourth down Boone carried and failed to get the first down by an inch. After that, Sewanee stiffened and later scored when a sophomore fullback named Bubba Owens, the first black player in Sewanee's football history, went over from the one. The final score was 28-6.
I have one distinct memory from the game other than the bad taste of losing to Sewanee. In the second half, we were fourth and long in Sewanee territory and going for it. We were behind and it was getting late. I ran what we called a bend-in pattern where I ran up the field 12 to 15 yards depending on the position of the line backers and cut across the middle. LaMonica threw me a pass that would have hit my shoes. He was rushed and the ball was early and caught me by surprise. I dropped to my knees and caught the pass. It was reflexive. Catch at any cost. Unfortunately I was short of the first down by a yard and Sewanee took over possession on downs. It would have been difficult, but I should have caught the ball off my shoe laces and tried to turn up field for the first down. Regardless, Harmon gave me worse-than-ever hell when I came off the field.
It only happened a couple of times in my four years and 36 games at Centre, but Sewanee outgained us on the ground 255 to 209. They had 75 yards passing to our 43. Gignilliat completed 8 of 10 passes with only one interception. LaMonica, by contrast completed 4 of 14 and threw 4 interceptions. In combining the passing statistics of the W&L, Hanover and Sewanee games, it was clear that our passing game was was weak tea with sour milk. In 44 attempts we had a woeful 13 completions (29%) and even more ominously, 9 interceptions. It was clear we were being well-scouted and opposing defenses knew our tendencies. We needed to innovate and shore up our passing game. In our next game against Wilmington College, we began to do that.
We gave up a touchdown early at home against the Green Wave of Wilmington and then took over. LaMonica completed 12 of 18 passes in the game for 102 yards. I got at least one of those on a two-pointer after touchdown. Schenz caught a 39 yard touchdown pass. But Joe still threw three interceptions, which added up to 12 in the last four games. Our passing game was predictable. Our opponents were anticipating the play before it developed. LaMonica was a good and accurate passer, but he was obviously forcing the ball into coverage. We needed new plays that would create open receivers. We had four solid receivers who I believe were better than those of our opponents. Coach Herbie McGuire went to work that week because in the next game against Washington U at home our passing game overwhelmed a very tough defense from a team that was 4-2-1. .
We scored first and often against Washington U. We drove 56 yards and LaMonica went over from the one. Then it was Schenz on a 42 yard pass play from Joe. Then Schenz again on an 81 yard pass play. We went for the two pointer and I hauled it in. Then I caught a perfect throw from Joe on a variation of the aforementioned 181 inside reverse play. Herbie McGuire drew that one up for this game. Joe faked the inside handoff to Boone, rolled out to the right and threw a perfect pass to me breaking up the middel of the field. I'm sure there were some shocked linebackers and defensive backs when Boone arrived at the line without the ball and I was cruising downfield with no one around me. Later, Marty took a little time off from blocking and caught our last touchdown, a three-yarder.
Coverage by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch led with this paragraph:
Jerry Schenz, junior halfback from Cincinnati, fielded forward passes today the way his father, Hank Schenz, used to catch line drives as an infielder for the Chicago Cubs a generation ago.
Schenz was his usual self, but it was LaMonica, playing his last game at home, who dominated the game. Before he was done, he completed nine passes out of 15 attempts for 284 yards and four touchdowns while rushing for one himself. We were up 34-0 before Washington was able to eke out a couple of touchdowns against our bench players. I don't think Joe ever played a better game for Centre.
After our humiliating defeat in St. Louis the year before, the win against WU this time was sweet. Final score: 36-20.
We traveled to Farmville, Virginia to play Hampden-Sydney the following week. In the first half we dug a another hole for ourselves and went into the locker room down 14-0. We made some adjustments and they worked. The Richmond Times-Dispatch put it this way:
A powerful Centre College football team, down 14-0 at halftime, re- discovered its ground game after intermission Saturday to defeat Hampden- Sydney's Tigers 21-14.
Statistics for the game vary according to the source. The Times-Dispatch had Schenz carrying the ball 31 times for 112 yards. Our campus newspaper, the Cento, had Schenz carrying 29 times for 106 yards. There is also this glaring error in the Times-Dispatch:
Quarterback Joe LaMonica handled all the aerial work including one 10-yard scoring pass to end Doug Eaton and a two point conversion toss to halfback Ben Boone.
They gave me credit for a pass Marty caught for six. The Cento had it right. . (In the next game against Rose Poly there was a similar problem in reverse.) I have at least a faint memory of every touchdown pass I caught in college and that particular one is not among them.
The Times-Dispatch also noted this:
Before halftime, Centre passed the midfield stripe only twice. The second half they spent most of their time in Tiger territory.
While true, the reporter neglects to mention that we drove to the Tigers' one yard line just before the half ended but ran out of time, a huge disappointment we had to overcome, but it did show we were beginning to find a way. In the second half we really ground them down, pun intended. Boone also contributed to the victory with 74 yards in seven rushing attempts (ten plus yards a carry.) while Jerry Ingram had seven carries for 50 yards. The last two statistics tell me Hampden-Sydney was was fixated on stopping Schenz to the benefit of Boone and Ingram. Schenz had a lot of yards but only averaged 3.6 a carry. Schenz with 30 carries (plus or minus) showed again how rugged a performer he was. I used to take half a dozen or more heavy hits a game in which either a little or a lot of wind got knocked out of me. It takes a special talent to carry the ball even 20 times a game without bodily damage. Our running backs took a lot of punishment. Jerry Ingram decided he had too much of it after three years and did not come out in his senior year to our dismay.
It was on to Terre Haute, Indiana for our final game against Rose Polytechnical Institute, the Fighting Engineers. It was season's end and a lot of people were injured, hurting or just plain exhausted. Harmon sensed it and made practices lighter. It was probably the following yeara, but after one season Kleine, Easley and I all ended up together in the college infirmary mainly because we were run down. At the end of this season, our defense in particular was banged up for Rose Poly and the final score would show that.
The night before the game at our hotel room we were watching a local Terre Haute station on tv. When the sports segment came on they previewed our game with Rose Poly and we were able to watch game films of ourselves. It was the first time I'd ever seen myself on television.
The game was a contest between wounded warriors. Several of our defensive stalwarts played hurt or did not play at all. Rose Poly was in similar condition, although after falling behind 21-0 in the second quarter, they came back strong to almost make a game of it. It was a valiant effort by a team that ended the season with a 1-6-2 record. LaMonica completed five of 12 passes but three of them went for touchdowns. He also scored on a 28 yard run. Boone scored on a 49 yard run and a 27 yard pass. Schenz also ran one in from 22 yards out and Ingram rumbled in for a 9-yard touchdown.
The Terre Haute Tribune claims Marty scored a 9 yard touchdown and and later a 77 yard touchdown. That was a mistake. The 77-yarder was my touchdown. It was the longest of my career and I've always remembered it although I thought it was 80 yards (Louisville and Lexington papers had it at 78 yards, but they also gave it to Marty.) I remember the play because i ran a hook-in pattern around 12 yards deep. The defensive back tried for an interception but I blocked him off with my hip much the way a basketball player would block off for a rebound. He went for the ball and missed. I caught it and turned and ran the distance. I had to double check the stats, but going into the game the Cento said I led the team in catches with 19 for 249 yards. A few weeks later it gave a total for the season of 20 catches for 321 yards, leading the team in both categories. The 77 yard catch should have given me 326 yards but at least they were close.
The Rose Poly game resulted in tragedy for one of our young players, a freshman quarterback named Robert "Landy" Lawrence. He was an alternate defensive back and played on special teams. On one of our kickoffs at Rose Poly, he had his leg broken off above the knee. Our players prided themselves in getting off the field if injured no matter how seriously, but Landy could only manage to courageously stand for a minute. Then he laid down and waited for a stretcher to put him in an ambulance It was a terrible break and unfortunately never healed properly. He ended up with a bent leg and limped for the next two and a half years I knew him. Landy had been the MVP on his Owensboro High School football team the previous year and was also an excellent pitcher on their baseball team. He was a natural athlete and would have competed for the quarterback position against Ethridge and Easley the following year, but eventually it became clear that his athletic career was over. He always walked with a cane after that. The following year I roomed with him during the first semester in a new residential hall called Nevin. He was adapting to his new life as a wounded warrior and it was sad. But he remained upbeat and and was a pleasure to live with.
You never think about it, but you are always risking your body on a football field.
The season was over and it was time for honors. We placed six players out of 26 on the 1967 CAC All-Conference team. We were surpassed only by Sewanee who placed seven. LaMonica and Boone made it for the third time in a row, Jack Smith and Lowell Thompson made it again on offense and Bull Edwards and Ziggy Silvey made it on defense. Stan Peskoe and Jerry Schenz were excluded.
Schenz for all his accomplishments only had one stellar performance against Washington U and merely good performances in our two losses against Southwestern and Sewanee. The College Athletic Conference coaches who did the voting decided to honor two quarterbacks and a passing tailback plus halfback Ben Boone. Three backfield starters from Centre would have been too much given that we were only 2-2 in the conference. Schenz had scored ten touchdowns for 60 points, more than anyone else in the conference and yet he was denied the honor he clearly deserved.
Stan got left out because one end from Sewanee had votes on both offense and defense so they combined them and gave him the defensive end spot that should have been Stan's. Given our 2-2 record in the CAC we couldn't expect too much recognition. I haven't looked into our '68 season yet but I am certain that when I review it I'll find both Stan and Jerry will have made the All-CAC in 1968-- as will several others Centre players.
Ziggy had an outstanding season with 104 tackles and 77 assists in 9 games.
I was the leading receiver for Centre with 20 catches for 321 yards and 3 touchdowns'; Ben Boone had 16 catches for 273 yards; Schenz had 15 catches for 284 yards; and Marty had 11 catches for 138 yards and three touchdowns, plus a lot of good blocks. We had four solid receivers on our team while some of the other teams had only two, which meant they had more balls thrown at them.
In rushing, Schenz carried the ball 151 times for 699 yards and a 4.6 average per carry. Boone carried 105 times for 615 yards and a healthy 5.8 yards per carry.
Here's a tribute to the Class of '68:
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Intramural basketball was next. I played for the Dekes. I do not recall much but we were unsuccessful in the playoffs. I do recall not being satisfied with my performance. At one point an erstwhile coach of the team whose name I forget suggested I was shooting and missing too much. He may have been right. It appears from the league scoring chart of the top 25 scorers that our starting lineup was Gary Kleine (18.3 per game), Joe Congleton (12.3), Marty Takacs (12.0), Ben Boone (11.0) and me (10.0).
In the intramural league playoff tournament, we lost to the Phi Delts and had to work our way back in the losers bracket. My recollection is that we accomplished that and then lost again. The Cento did not publish the results. The biggest surprise in looking back over the newsprint in the Cento was that Joe LaMonica was playing for the Renegades and not the Dekes and was the leading scorer in the league with a 25 point average. Also, Stan Peskoe, the best player in the league the year before, was not listed at all and apparently didn't play a game. We had a good starting team for the Dekes, but the Phi Delts were obviously better in the winter months of 1968.
After Intramural basketball, it was time to grab the glove and start practicing baseball. There was probably a couple of weeks of intense spring football because we were losing several starters, stars and all-around good players to graduation, so Coaches Harmon and McGuire had some shuffling to do. Our junior class in waiting was ready to step in and make the team competitive.
I do have one memory of spring football that year. Harmon and McGuire had thoughts of trying me out at quarterback. I remember during one scrimmage in the spring (or it could have been in pre-season workouts in late August) they put me in as QB with the starting offense. I ran a roll out and broke broke free for a touchdown against the subs. Truth to tell, it felt awkward to me. It occurred to me there was a lot to learn and it would be a hectic case of on the job training if they were to make a switch. Easley and Ethridge had been studying it and practicing it for two years. When the team re-united in August for the 1968 season, there was more talk about making the move but no action. I was relieved. I liked playing wide receiver. Over two seasons I had honed my skills. Two summers working as a union laborer had made me stronger and tougher. I was a pretty fair open field runner. I wanted to remain a wide receiver.
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Like the year before, Harmon had scheduled our first game of the 1968 baseball season against the University of Kentucky. We had five talented freshman on the squad. Pitcher-infielder Ed Rall, catcher Jack Eicher, outfielder Scottie Hunt, third baseman and pitcher Walt Mills, all of who had played football on the '67 team. Another freshman named Robbie Partin ended up playing third base for us. Rall turned out to be the most valuable player on team in 1968. He pitched and played second base, ended up hitting .375 with a pitching record of 3-3 on a team that ended up with a a record of 7-11. I knew right away that Ed was a baseball man. His skills, his way of thinking and talking about the game showed advanced knowledge of and experience in the sport. He became a leader on the team immediately. His father was a top-notch semi-pro pitcher and his uncle Ed, then the business manager for Centre College, was a minor league catcher. Baseball was in his blood. Years later, young Ed would become the head coach of the Centre College baseball team.
Our home baseball field was behind the stands of what was then called Farris Stadium-- the home football and track and field stadium which still exists and is now called Joe Daniel Field at Andy Frye Stadium. I don't believe the baseball field had a name because it didn't need one. It was a baseball field. The outfield was rimmed by chain link fencing, beyond which were the tennis courts and the old science building (then called Young Hall) in right field and at least one abandoned fraternity house in left field. The chain link fences in right field were built very tall to protect Young Hall from well-hit baseballs and also the tennis players. But that didn't matter to Sotty Hunt, our left-handed power hitter. He hit them over those fences regularly. I hit one off the upper wall of Young Hall one time. There was what I remember as a 385 foot sign on the fence in left-center. I think it was the only one that described distance.
The football practice field was down below a slope that ran parallel to the third-base foul line. The area that was the baseball field is now entirely covered by what is called Champions Hall, a 135,000 s.f. facility "devoted to wellness and athletic excellence . . ." Apparently somewhere a law was passed that said any such facility that opened in the 2020s had to have the term "wellness" in its description. It also had to be "holistic." Regardless, I like the name "Champions Hall" because I assume I am one of the past champions it is referring to.
Champions Hall opened in February 2024. At my 55th Homecoming in 2025, I walked around inside it before the football game with Southwestern (which was not the Southwestern at Memphis who we played in the 60s, but Southwestern at Georgetown, Texas, the state in which I currently reside.) As a lifetime lover of sport, I couldn't help but fall in love with it. It was magnificent.
Centre also has a new baseball facility that was dedicated in 2022. It sits on the land where the stockyards with their odor of pig and cattle dung perfumed the air we breathed at football practice in the 60s. Here is Centre's description of that new facility:
Gary Wright Field at Fishman Park serves as the new home for the Centre
Baseball team, and is arguably one of the best Division III facilities
in the nation. The $5+ million facility was opened for play on March 13,
2022 where the Colonels defeated Hendrix College 5-4 on a walk-off
single by Jordan Gunter ’22.
The park was moved to the southern edge of Centre’s campus where players
and spectators alike can enjoy a space that is specifically designed
for a first-rate ballpark atmosphere. The playing field is all turf,
including the mound and bullpens, which enhances the training and
playing environment for Centre players. Gary Wright Field also features
new dugouts, a new ADA compliant press-box, TrackMan technology, LED
lights, and a new scoreboard and video board. The field sits below
ground level and is surrounded by new seating and other great sightlines
to watch the game.
If the players of the 60s could have traveled unaware into the future and been placed in the middle of these new facilities, they would have thought they were on another planet.
At the start of our baseball season, Harmon threw Ed Rall into heavy combat immediately by starting him against Kentucky, a Southeastern Conference team that paid its players with full scholarships. We played for free. They blasted poor Ed for seven runs in three innings on our way to a 17-4 loss. it was learning experience for him. After that, every game was easier. Early in baseball seasons I often had trouble becoming baseball mindful. Typically, I'd go one for my first 15 at bats. Each sport requires a unique mindfulness and temperament adjustment. If you are coming from playing three months of basketball or even an informal intramural league, it takes a little time for the baseball state-of-mind to establish itself.
Other new playes included Jack Eicher, a skilled catcher and good hitter in his own right. At 6'-2" and 215 lbs, he was an imposing backstop. Scottie Hunt hit for power left-handed with a beautiful swing and covered a lot of ground in the outfield. Right-hander Walt Mills consistently pitched well and gave up no earned runs in 14 innings. Unfortunately our defense and hitting failed him and his won-lost record was 0-2.
Returning veterans included Bill Fowler, Paul Ethridge, and seniors Roy Cotcamp, Alex Volz, Bob Hamilton and Mike Reese. Alex Volz pitched well most of the season, as did sophomore Bill Fowler. One veteran who did not return was Ziggy Silvey, our leading hitter on the '67 team, who took retirement even though he was on campus working to graduate. Given the supreme effort he put into playing middle linebacker on the football team in the fall, I don't blame him for not playing.
I hated taking batting practice against Fowler. He threw batting practice like he was pitching in the World Series. He was a flame-thrower and his lack of control made him dangerous. I don't mind flame-throwers but you want to face them in the game, not practice. When i threw batting practice, I threw it to help the hitters. Fowler threw to make them look bad. Harmon was our best batting practice pitcher. He threw big sweeping curveballs that helped our hitters master that pitch, which was difficult for young players. It helped me. It was during this my sophomore season that I started hoping pitchers would throw me curve balls.
Mid-way through the season, the Cento published a comprehensive chart of our statistics and won-lost record. Viewing it nearly 60 years later, I was impressed by how detailed it was:
I look at the chart that recorded our progress more than two-thirds of the way through the season when our record was 5-7 this way: Eicher and Rall were hitting over .300 the way I had as a freshman. I was at .211, probably because of the aforementioned 1 for 15 but I did end the season at .250. I was leader or co-leader in runs, triples, stolen bases, walks, sacrifice flies, and runs batted in. Scottie Hunt was close behind me. In runs produced (rbi's plus runs), I produced 20 and he produced 18.
i was shocked to see that i also led the team in errors with eight and nearly booked a flight back to Danville to find the original score sheets and correct the record! I doubt those scorebooks even exist, but some day at a future Homecoming I may try and find them. I always prided myself on my defense, which was one of the reasons coaches put me at shortstop in the first place. I'm thinking it's a mistake, that someone mistook a hand-written three for an eight when collating the numbers.
If it was eight, it was probably due to two things: the fields we played on were not manicured like the thick verdure and fine, perfectly-raked, dampened dirt at, say, Crosley Field in Cincinnati in 1968. The fields we played on were often poorly maintained or manicured only by players before the games. If the players didn't do it, it might not get done. At times those fields were dangerous. A bad infield could hurt you. Witness the plight of Tony Kubek of the Yankees in the 7th game of the 1960 World Series when a bad hop on a sharp ground ball hit him in the throat which sent him to the hospital coughing up blood. In my career I had a few bruises from bad hops.
There was another problem that might have adversely impacted my defense. I was struggling with the baseball glove I had back then. In my freshman year, I was playing with a borrowed glove that I didn't like. On one road trip, I had some money in my pocket and stopped at a small-town sporting goods store somewhere in Kentucky. When I told the salesman I was a shortstop on a college team, he sold me a 100% kangaroo-skinned Nokona glove which was produced by a little company in Texas that had been producing footballs, leather football helmets and other leather goods since 1926. At first, the glove felt great. It was light and shaped just right. It felt broken in. But after a few months it started to sag. It didn't keep it's shape. The thin leather on the palm stretched, started to bunch up and crease. When you held it straight out the top would flop over. It felt loose and not close-fitting enough. It had stretched too much.
I never knew what a proper glove was until I got one. A good glove captures the ball for you and transfers it quickly to your throwing hand. You can catch anything one-handed if necessary. If you look back at video of old-timers in the 1920s, they always caught with two hands because if they didn't cover the ball with their off-hand, it might pop out. When I was a kid, we mocked kids who had gloves like that. We'd say, "He's got a bunch of leather tied together."
The damn glove cost me $30 back then and after a year I hated it, but couldn't afford a proper 11.5 -inch Rawlings Heart-of-the-Hide infielder's glove, which was state of the art in baseball gloves in 1968. I had to live with the Nokona. *(* In 1934 Nocona Company started producing baseball gloves for national distribution. Because the US Patent and Trademark Office would not allow them to use the name of their incorporated town "Nocona," they changed the name of the company to Nokona Leather Goods.) Nokona with a "k" still makes good gloves because they probably learned from the one I bought to not make the entire glove out of kangaroo leather. I should have bought the same Rawlings XPG2 that my friend Billy Beyer had loaned me in high school after he had broken his leg sliding into a base. That glove cost $35 in 1968 and would have lasted me five years at least. The current top-of-the-line Rawlings infielders glove is made of kip leather and costs $500 and worth every penny for those who know how to use it.
Out of curiousity, I checked to see if Nokona is still making kangaroo leather gloves. They are, but with a difference. Their X2-EP1150 11.5 inch I Web Infield glove that costs $600 is described in their catalogue this way:
Combining flexible, buttery CalfSKN™ on the palm with lightweight Kangaroo leather on the shell creates a remarkably strong yet nimble glove. Kangaroo skin features tight, interlocking fibers. It delivers incredible tensile strength at half the weight of traditional cowhide.
In other words, the back enclosure is kangaroo leather while the pocket and webbing that take all the pounding are of traditional premium leather from adolescent cows, also known as kip. If I were playing baseball as a young man, I would buy the new version of the Nokona or the Rawlings after comparing them.
Throughout my life whenever I found myself in a sporting goods store, I would always spend half an hour visiting the baseball glove display to see what the manufacturers were up to. The gloves made today are superb. When I was growing up there was Rawlings, Wilson and Spalding. Now they are made by scores of companies all over the world. Japanese makers Mizuno and Zetts make excellent gloves.
I had another disadvantage in the spring of 1968. Early in the season I went through Hell Week in Dekeville. I didn't qualify for going through Hell Week in my freshman year because my grade point in the first semester was below 2.0 out of 4.0. Stan Peskoe, Gary Kleine, Raoul Baxter and Mike Easley had quailfied and gone through it. Marty Takacs and I had to wait until we got our grades up as sophomores. It was a week with much degradation, deprivation, constant exercise, and only a few hours of sleep. I'm glad I went through it, even if I did decide not to become a member when I returned in the fall of 68. I still felt close to the Dekes. They were my best friends. But I didn't want to be part of what was a little too gross at times.
I believe Hell Week started as we were playing our first few baseball games. The rough treatment may have been the reason for my slow start. Not sleeping for a week and doing pushups and other unmentionable things at all hours of the night and day was not conducive to re-activating baseball skills. It was meant to break you down, which it did, psychologically and physically.
But still: eight errors? Not believable.
The chart above tells most of the story of the Centre College Colonel's 1968 baseball season. After it was published we played a few more games and then went to the College Athletic Conference spring tournament once again held in the middle of May. That year it was held in Lexington, Virginia, home of Washington and Lee University. We drew a first round bye. In the semi-final game against against Southwestern we played well and won 6-3 on a workmanlike pitching performance by Alex Volz. In the final against Washington U. we were staying close with the score 8-6 in WU's favor until they crushed us with 7 runs in the 7th inning. Final score: 15-8.
Because we took second place, we were deserving of honors. Ed Rall, Paul Ethridge and I were selected to the All-Conference team.
Paul Ethridge
Since then I have journeyed through life able to claim I was an all-conference college shortstop. I omit mentioning it was earned after playing only two games. As they say in the vernacular, "It aint no lie."
It was a good season. We ended up 7-11 when we had been 6-12 the year before. I made a great friend in Ed Rall, a man as obsessed with baseball as I was. Scotty Hunt and I became close. We had a solid young lineup in which all the really good players would return the following year. i had a pretty good year although I don't know precisely how good because I have been unable to find any printed statistics published after the season. But at the start of the following season in '69 it was written in one column that I ended up batting .250 the year before. I would do better. My junior year in football and baseball would be my best in both.
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