I worked very hard in the summer of '69. Because it was my third summer at Hefler-Snyder Construction and I had learned to do much of the more difficult work, I was no longer used mostly as a gopher or truck driver. I was jackhammering thick slabs of concrete, raking hot asphalt, and laying pipe with Portuguese union laborers. It made me stronger and more durable. I also learned focus. Four hours jackhammering concrete is instruction in focus. It's akin to weightlifting because the jackhammer weighs 93 lb. You were learning to work the 40-hr work week, the time schedule of American industriousness. Because of this work, I was stronger than I was when I arrived at Centre as a freshman.
For the 1969 season, we had 12 seniors returning. They were a core, a hard core, having survived the previous three seasons. The team also had several talented underclassmen who had earned positions in 1968. 18 of 22 starters were returning and ready to go. Schenz would be the most difficult to replace. We had able replacements for all the others. There would be a little confusion early on in the defensive backfield, but, with the exception of one game, the team played solid ball the entire season.
An undefeated season was a real possibility as it had been in our 1967 season when we had a large class of seniors. That possibility ended in the mud at Washington and Lee. Formidable DePauw was not on our schedule this year. All the other teams we had beaten at least once in the past three years. We had beaten the Kenyon Lords. our first opponent, twice. They had upset us at home the previous year and had that talented passing combination of Bill Christen to Chris Myers, but we felt we could beat them.
That game against the Lords in Gambier, Ohio was a shootout with several lead changes. It was our well-rounded offense and aggressive defense against their spectacular passing game. Chris Myers, their 6'-3," 190 lb receiver played the second greatest game for a pass receiver I have ever witnessed, only rivaled by Jerry Rice who I watched regularly in the Joe Montana era when I lived in the Bay Area. In a game against Minnesota, Rice caught 14 passes for 289 receiving yards and three touchdowns. In our game against Kenyon, Chris Myers caught 13 passes for 279 yards and five touchdowns. Kenyon had 343 yards passing in the contest which was an Ohio Conference record. Myer's single game receiving yardage record for Kenyon that day in 1969 lasted until 2022 when one of their receivers surpassed it after 53 years; and yet, the new record holder only caught four touchdown passes.
The game started off well. Scotty Hunt blocked a punt and Stan Peskoe picked up the loose ball and ran 40 yards for six. Then, in a sign of things to come, Kenyon moved the ball 70 yards in only three plays for their first score. Undaunted, we went back at them. According to the Kenyon Collegian, ". . . Paul Ethridge mixed the plays well, moving the ball easiiy down the field throwing many screen and flare passes, along with short gainers on the ground by Larry Gorin and Steve Campbell." We were moving the ball, but Kenyon kept matching us score for score. The lead changed hands twice.
In the second half, which the Collegian called ". . . he most exciting 30 minutes of
football
the Lords have played in a long time," Kenyon added a little ground
game to their arsenal and finally seized hold of the lead 33-28 with all
touchdowns being scored by Myers. With 2:02 remaining in the game we
drove the ball 84 yards in 19 plays relying on our two-minute offense to
conserve valuable seconds. We were on the nine-yard line when an
offensive pass interference call put us back on the 24 with 20 seconds
left. Easley completed a pass to me for 14 yards, but time ran out
with the ball on the ten.
It was a tough loss but we played a heroic football game and nearly sneaked out of there with a victory. We showed poise and confidence. We were a good team and would prove it in our next four games against College Athletic Conference foes. During the game, our offense was on the sidelines asking, "why can't we stop these guys?" It was like the tragic Hampden-Sydney game the year before when we lost a 24-point lead in the last nine minutes of the game, except this time the onslaught lasted the entire game. Our defensive backfield, although comprised of sophomores and juniors, always performed to a high standard. This time they were simply out-classed. They were confronted with a greatness none of us had ever seen before-- nor had anybody else, including the Kenyon fans. We ran into a once-in-a-lifetime performance by a single player and his quarterback. Our best just fell a little short.
The newspapers noticed favorably that I had seven catches for 70 yards, although the Courier-Journal said I had eight for 92 yards. Either way it was paltry compared to Myer's performance.
We used to run a play we called the "odd end screen," in which I would start downfield and then jump back on our side of the line to receive a quick pass. Our weak-side tackle Tony Hohmann would then run out and often run over the defensive back which would result in a a five to ten yard gain before the linebackers or other defensive backs would come to help. So a lot of my receptions resulted in ten-yard gains, plus or minus. Myers's 13 catches for the day averaged over 21-yards per catch. It was humbling.
Ethridge had one of his best days. He completed 17 of 28 for 202 yards with one interception. We rushed for 166 yards compared to their 66. We played well, but their 343 passing yards crushed us.
We came out of the Kenyon game with a few minor injuries. Marty had a bruised thigh. We faced the start of a four consecutive-game series against all our CAC opponents the following week beginning with Southwestern, who had beat us two out of the last three years. The one game we beat them was decided by one point. Many of our seniors felt we should have won all three games because we dominated them in ways that didn't show up in the point totals. We were confident this time that would not happen again.
The game against Southwestern in late September marked the stunning home debut of another halfback from Cincinnatti who, like Schenz, would thrill Centre fans for several years. Playing as a backup to starter Lawrence Gorin, freshman Greg Ely caught a 46-yard touchdown pass from Ethridge against Kenyon, but against Southwestern in our first home game he turned up the juice and ran for 180 yards in 24 carries. Four minutes into the game he took a pitchout from Ethridge on a strong-side sweep, darted his way between defenders and cruised down the sideline for a 75 yard touchdown. I saw the play from around mid-field where I fenced off a defensive back. Shades of Schenz, I thought. The real deal. He was taller than Schenz although not quite as fast. He hadn't filled out the way Schenz had as a senior. But he was a good complement to sophomore Gorin who, at 155 lbs, could not for all his abilities match Ely's size and natural talent. Together they would be nearly as dynamic as Schenz, but in 1969 injuries would prevent them from matching Schenz's consistency in game after game. Ely suffered a shoulder injury against Sewanee in our fifth game and was out for the season. Scotty Hunt was chosen to replace him and often played both defense and offense, alternating with Gorin.
Our defense was rapacious which is defined as, "someone or something that aggressively and selfishly devours, plunders, or seizes things when hunting for prey." That was them.
The headline in the Memphis Commercial Appeal sarcastically told the story: "Centre Accepts Lynx' Generosity." They fumbled the ball away three times and threw 2 interceptions. Two of the fumbles, one recovered by Jay Van Arsdale and the other by GG Benning, led to two touchdowns. When they were threatening to score through the air, our defense intercepted. They scored one touchdown when a Southwestern receiver broke wide-open beyond our defensive backs and scored on a 65 yard touchdown pass. Our carnivores on defense held them to 55 yards rushing while we ran for 246. I don't know who was blocking Rock Olinger in that game, but it's a good bet he didn't start the following week because Rock humiliated him.
Our defense also had the disadvantage of performing without its leader, Stan Peskoe, who went out with a concussion early in the game. It was later diagnosed by a doctor as a mild concussion, but the next day Stan didn't remember going to the doctor. I remember hearing from him later that he was having trouble doing his academic work and his mother was unhappy about it. She may have complained to Harmon. At one point it became clear it was a serious brain injury. He didn't return to the lineup until Homecoming against Sewanee three weeks later. He was hard to replace but our defensive line was so good and deep that they were able to cover for him.
It seems that concussions were commonplace on our team in the late 60s. Here is a comment by GG Benning on the subject written in an email in 2014:
Dr. Harmon apparently believed that if they snapped an ammonia capsule in front of your nose and you showed signs of alertness, you were fine to play.
In a pre-season newspaper column, Harmon praised the team as deep and experienced but said that on defense we had question marks at linebacker and halfback. GG quickly and forcefully filled the role of middle linebacker, but in the first two games our pass defense struggled as was shown dramatically at Kenyon. You could see the improvement against Southwestern and that continued as the season progressed. Because our defensive line was so dominant, our opponents were forced to pass far more than usual. It put pressure on players like Al Gross, Mark Dexter, Jeff Block, Ed Rall, Cabell Francis, Scotty Hunt and Gary Kleine, the latter two who were often playing both ways. As the season progressed, our defensive backs grew into a cohesive, stingy bunch that complemented the strong men up front: Stan, Rock, Dave Hanson, Jack Eicher, Preston Miles, Jay Van Arsdale, John Henshaw and John Baird. In our 1969 season, we held our opponents to single digits in five of our nine games. We had done that only three times in each of the previous three seasons.
On October 3 we flew to Lexington, Virginia to play Washington and Lee. It was their Homecoming and 3500 people were in attendance. This was our toughest conference game that year. We dominated on the ground and ran 59 plays to their 30. The play of the game went to Scotty Hunt on defense. Gary Kleine had uncharacteristically fumbled a punt reception that the Generals recovered on our 26. The threat ended when Scotty Hunt intercepted a pass on the five yard line. We then drove 95 yards with Steve Kaiser, subbing for Steve Campbell who was out with a sore shoulder, taking it in from the two. Marty and I each caught a pass in the drive. On fourth and one at W&L's 26 yard line, Ethridge sneaked over for the first down to extend the drive. In a bit of hyperbole, the Courier-Journal suggested we should change our name from the Colonels to the Gamblers for such a daring move. Given W&L's impressive defensive line, it was a gamble.
Ely carried the rushing load again with 33 carries for 95 yards and one touchdown. Looking back on that statistic gives me pause. We had other capable running backs including Lawrence Gorin. I don't see why a freshman adapting to the college game would be carrying the ball 33 times and subjected to that much abuse from such a hard-hitting team as W&L at their homecoming. Their defense was second only to ours in the conference.
The Courier-Journal and all the newspapers in Virginia credited a mythical "Charles Tolliver"-- a name found nowhere on our roster-- with Ely's performance, which illustrates once again the old adage, "Never believe what you read in the newspapers." If Ely had been from Louisville and not Cincinnati that mistake would not have occurred in the Courier-Journal.
When the games are played out-of-state on a visitors field, they are subject to differing interpretations. The most glaring example of newspapers getting it wrong I found in researching these games was the headline in the News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on November 10, 1968 that read, "H-S Wins 31-7." That was the game in the previous season that Hampden-Sydney came back to tie us 31-31 with 24 points in the fourth quarter. The text of the short column described the game accurately, but the headline was blatantly wrong.
The loss for W&L at a homecoming game was the first in ten years for them. If I had heard that at the time, it would have pleased me, although I was now glad that I was at Centre and not W&L. We were co-ed and they were not. Our women were beautiful. W&L guys had to drive 40 miles to pick up a date at Mary Baldwin. They didn't go co-ed until 1985.
Our defense was the difference that day and especially the pass defense which had adapted and overcome. They held the Generals to four completions in 20 attempts for 35 measly yards. We only had one interception-- the one by Scotty Hunt that was the most important play of the game. Our pass defense had come of age.
We were lucky that year that out of four conference games, three were scheduled at home-- and all scheduled early in the season when we would be at our healthiest. Our next game was against Washington University at home.
An accurate description of the WU game was provided in the lead paragraph in a dispatch by Harold Tuthill in the St Louis Post-Dispatch:
Washington University took a physical pounding and its pride was dashed in a bruising 30-12 football loss to Centre College here today.
Proof of the "bruising" was provided in this description:
". . . which saw co-captain Greg Glass hobble off the field with a knee injury. Starting quarterback freshman Jeff Taube was roughed up and his substitute, Jeff Prentke, had a tooth knocked loose."
So glad I never had to play against our defense.
Ely had 21 carries for 67 yards and two short-yardage touchdowns.
As per our custom, Washington scored first on an impressive 69 yard drive that included one run by Stan Gardner for 41 yards. But the momentum changed shortly after when Rock Olinger blocked a punt that gave us possession on their two-yard line. Ely pushed it over on the next play. Our defense gave us possession again on their 29 yard line and after Kleine and I each caught a pass, Ely banged it in from the one. Van Arsdale kicked a 15-yard field goal and we led at the half, 17-6.
In the second half, Ray Burse in his first start as a defensive back, picked off a pass at WU's 47-yardline. I don't know what took the coaches so long to give Burse the job of defensive halfback. I always saw him as the most difficult defensive back we had to compete against. He was fast and could hit you like a hammer.
After Burse's interception, we scored nine plays later as Steve Kaiser went over from the one. Washington then scored once more and so did we when senior halfback Cabell Francis went over from the one on his third try. That score was set up by an 18-yard pass from Ethridge to Takacs.
WU played a courageous game given the brutish nature of our defense. They actually outrushed us 262 to 168. But there is a reason for that: they gave us good field position every time we got the ball. Along with Rock's blocked punt, their quarterbacks threw four interceptions. We almost received as many of their passes as their receivers, who had five receptions, did. (They were five for 22 passing.) We were knocking their two quarterbacks around unmercifully, as the reporter from St. Louis noted. They played well under the circumstances, but our defense, now that we seemed to have pass defense under control, was playing like Delta Force assassins on a mission. And they were doing it without Stan Peskoe, the leading tackler the year before. He would return the following game, our Homecoming against the University of the South at Sewanee.
The Sewanee game proved to be the toughest we played in the conference, although the score didn't necessarily reflect that. Their coach Shirley Majors was a hard-headed old-timer with a single-wing system, which the Courier-Journal labeled "a real football antique." He had perfected it over the years and stuck with it when everyone else was shifting to the T-formation or winged-T. We had beat them twice rather easily over the past three years, but they had trampled us at Homecoming in 1967, 28-6.
They could hit you. I got a taste of it on the opening play. I was part of the kick-off receiving team. On the opening kick-off I expected to go down field and block a charging player who would attempt to avoid me in an effort to get to the kick-returner. This time the defensive players did not try and evade me. Two of them came at me full force and attempted to level me. I suspect they were trying to knock me out of the game early on. They hit me hard and my thorax got pretty-well jolted. It took me a couple of minutes to overcome the pain, and I felt some discomfort for several more minutes. I was supposed to be pursuing them and they pursued me instead. There was some compensation in the fact that the diminutive Jeff Block returned the kick 38 yards to the Sewanee 44 and gave us good field position. With less than two minutes gone on the clock, Greg Ely went in from 34 yards for our first score. From the Courier-Journal:
On his touchdown run, Ely took the ball from quarterback Paul Ethridge, hesitated briefly as he hunted for an opening, and then shot around left end all the way.
"The play is designed inside or outside," explained Ely, a 160-lb halfback from Cincinnati. The hole was closed inside, so I dipped out."
Sewanee then drove down to our four-yard line but the Tiger tailback, their quarterback, was sacked. Mark Dexter intercepted a pass at the 1-foot line on the next play.
Prewitt Lane in the Cento wrote that on our next drive that Paul Ethridge threw, "[t]wo passes to Gary Kleine, one of which Sewanee coach Shirley Majors objected to very strenuously . . ." Lane makes an error here. Majors loudly complained about a pass to me that I actually dropped but was ruled a completion. The hard-thrown ball hit my chest pads, ricocheted down to the ground and then bounced quickly up into my hands as I folded over on it and fell to the ground. I jumped up quickly, handed the ball to the ref like it was a legitimate catch because it happened so fast I knew the official might have missed the drop. He did. The play happened in front of our bench and no one seemed to have seen it there either. Majors, however, saw it on his side of the field and protested vigorously but the call stood. That and the pass to Kleine were the longest gains in a drive that eventually resulted in a 23-yard field goal by Jay Van Arsdale. We were up 10-0.
Sewanee came back and pushed our defense to the goal line where all-Conference running back Nathaniel "Bubba" Owens blasted through from the three. Sewanee pressured us throughout the first half and penetrated close to our goal line four times. But our defense held firm and allowed just the one score and the two-point conversion after. Even though they came into the game winless, they were a tough bunch with a smart coach and were not going to allow us to walk over them. They out-gained us in total yards for the game us, 356 to 318. They had ample opportunities to cross the goal line but failed all but once. Our defense had many ways to stop an opponent and they had to use them all in this game. Sewanee punished us with 267 yards rushing but their passing attack yielded only eight completions out of 26 attempts with three interceptions, which tells me our pass defense was the difference in the game.
Ethridge had a clean game completing 12 of 16 passes with one interception for 106 yards. We had two touchdowns called back: on by Kleine of 21 yards because the ref said he hadn't signaled that the play could start. The other was by Ely, who finished the day with 134 yards in 22 carries, when he ran 54 yards only to have it nullified by a clipping penalty. The clipping penalty wasn't on me. I had learned my lesson when I clipped a defender on a tackle-eligible pass play for a substantial gain for senior Van Young during the '66 season. I vowed never to do it again. As a defensive tackle, it was his moment of glory and I deprived him of it.
Unfortunately, against Sewanee Ely suffered a serious shoulder injury that knocked him out for the remainder of the season.
Jay kicked another field goal in the third quarter and Steve Campbell went over from the two in the fourth that sealed the game.
Victory over Sewanee was ours, 20-8. The alumni and others among the 3200 in attendance witnessed an historic game. We were the sole champions of the College Athletic Conference for the first time. After the game, Coach Harmon got a free ride to the showers with his clothes on. He did not resist.
In the Nashville Tennessean there was this hilarious misnaming of one of our highest scoring players:
It was Homecoming which meant there must be a coronation of a Homecoming Queen. There were six candidates:
Betty received the honor of being chosen Homecoming Queen at halftime. Here's a photo from the Advocate Messenger of the moment the decision was announced:
We went from exhilarated to glum the next week when we traveled to Maryville College in Tennessee to play the Scots in a most uninspiring bit of drudgery for a football game. Greg Ely was out, but so was Lawrence Gorin, who had both suffered a bruised shoulder in the game against Sewanee. We had the weakest offensive effort in my 36 games at Centre with 64 yards rushing and 45 passing. It started raining a couple of hours before the game and continued the entire game. Prewitt Lane described our problem as a "watered down offense." The mud killed us and it didn't help them either.
Maryville was a scholarship school and had a couple of big defensive tackles who were obviously on the payroll. After the game, our offensive lineman said they were the best we had played in the current season. I was confronted with a big, quick defensive back who used the slippery turf to bottle me up. He'd mug me in the first five yards as he was allowed to do and it was difficult to get away from him. We ran a few roll outs on him in which I would do a quick out pattern and catch the ball for a five or six yard gain. These worked, but then we would run the ball off-tackle or around the end and gain nothing. Ethridge thought we had him set up for an out-and-go but I told him we should run it to the other side because the defensive back was weaker over there. That would mean Ethridge would have to roll out to his left and throw across his body. He didn't want to do it but I insisted. We ran the play and it worked to fake out the defensive back, but Ethridge threw the ball just beyond my hands. If I'd have caught it, we would have had a touchdown that might have changed the outcome.
The Scots couldn't generate much offense against our tough defense either. We intercepted three passes and recovered two fumbles. GG and Ray Burse, who was now a fixture in the defensive backfield, each had an interception. The Scots were only able to kick two field goals, which were all the points scored in the game, a 6-0 loss. We lost a couple of fumbles also. Gary Kleine was our leading rusher in the game. At one point we ran him on a halfback option pass, but the ball slipped out of his hands when he tried to throw it. It wasn't a game. It was an ordeal.
We needed a fun, easy game and we got it the following week at home against Wilmington. We were having a problem with injuries to our young halfbbacks. Greg Ely, Al Gross, Lawrence Gorin, Ray Burse, Steve Kaiser-- all freshman or sophomores-- were either injured at Maryville or before. Some were probable and some would be available only on a limted basis against Wilmington. Ely was out and would not return in 1969. The diminished capacity of all or most of these players would impact our next game against Hampden-Sydney. Gorin had recovered enough and did play extensively, but the fact that Scotty Hunt, a defensive back, did most of the rushing against Wilmington showed how injury-ridden we were. Scotty picked up 114 yards in 14 carries against the Green Wave, including one 50-yard jaunt to the five yardline. Gorin scored on a 37-yard touchdown run and then, after Steve Campbell had scored from the five, again from the one yardline.
In the second half, Harmon utilized our bench. After the game he said, "We have had a lot of tough, close games this season in winning the College Athletic Conference and I wanted to rest some of the boys and also see what some of the others could do." Wilmington got limited satisfaction in the fourth quarter by scoring a touchdown, which gave them the small victory of winning the second half against our substitute players.
Our gang of hit monsters on defense did not yield a first down to Wilmington in the first half, which was unprecedented in my experience. In that half they got only 23 yards total offense and did not penetrate past mid-field until the third quarter. The Green Wave was not a terrible team. They had won two games and lost four. But our defense was too much for them.
Credit must go to Jay Van Arsdale who by season's end had kicked 22 consecutive points after touchdown. In my early days at Centre, it seemed we would miss at least half of them. Jay had been kicking them since his sophomore year and had really honed his craft. He was also indispensable on the defensive line and in our final game at Hanover recovered two fumbles.
The Wilmington game was part of a centennial celebration of the first recorded football game played between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869. On our uniforms all season, we had worn little patches with the number "100" on them. Eleven years after that first game in 1869 on April 10, 1880, Centre played the first football game in the South against Kentucky University, which became Transylvania College a few years later. In the Cento that week in 1969 there was a delightful column quoting a Lexington newspaper's description of the game in Lexington: ". . . it was pronounced that football had decidedly the advantage of base-ball as a means of amusement to spectators. The collision between players at various times were almost the equal of the coming together of two Spanish bulls, and provoked much laughter."
Wilmington was our last home game. We had two tough games on the road to finish the season: Hampden-Sydney with a 4-3 record and Hanover, who were 5-2.
We traveled to Farmville, Virginia to play to Hampden-Sydney. The goal was to play them like we had before our shocking collapse with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter the previous year on our home field. Recall we were up 31-7 when that happened. This time it wouldn't be easy. They were averaging 230 yards a game rushing. Our defense would put a clamp on that phase of their game. Unfortunately our offense sank to new lows.
We blundered early and often and the game was never close. Before six minutes had passed, H-S stunned us with two touchdowns in 30 seconds after intercepting two passes from our 20-yardline and returning both. The third time we had the ball we fumbled, they recovered at our 32 and passed for a third touchdown. Within 8 minutes of the start of the game we were down 21-0.
I suspect Hampden-Sydney had been devouring our game films and knew our pass offense better than we did. They also knew that we didn't change our pass offense much from game to game. That's the only explanation I can come up with. We were too predictable.
Success had lit a fire under H-S. We gave the ball back to them again and they marched 48 yards for a fourth touchdown. We had never scored more than four touchdowns in a game that year and now we were down 28-0 in the second period. But we rallied, briefly after Harmon substituted Harry Sykes, a freshman quarterback, for Ethridge. He threw a perfect pass to me on a drive pattern and we gained 32 yards. Shortly after he threw a screen pass to Steve Campbell for 31 yards. Ethridge came back in and snuck it over from the one. It was 28-7.
When I came to the sidelines after catching the 32-yard pass, McGuire was furious. I ran a drive pattern and broke into the clear. The pass was perfect and it looked like I was headed for the end zone forty yards away, but the defender in a last ditch dive clipped my heel with a wave of his hand and caused me to trip over my own feet. McGuire said, "When you get open like that you have to score!!" We were down 28-0 and he was desperate.
But it didn't matter. The first half was the whole story. Our offense was completely flummoxed by H-S. We were unable to score in the second half. But the defense did: Mike Easley running backwards to catch a long punt over his shoulder, turned around and ran it back 77 yards; a gorgeous play.
H-S engineered one more drive for a touchdown and the scoring ended with both teams scoring only six points in the second half. Final score, 34-13. Their defense held us to 27 yards rushing while we held theirs to 109, less than half their average. Their acclaimed running back, Jim 'whorley, gained only 25 yards in 12 carries. He had been averaging 135 a game.
Their treatment of our offense was cruel and unusual. We threw FOUR interceptions and fumbled SIX times according to the newspapers, which, mercifully, don't name the perpetrators. Itt was the worst performance by our offense in the four years and 36 games I played. Even when we were shut out twice in those four years, our offense performed better. Except for a couple of passes, we did nothing of consequence. How do you turn the ball over ten times in one game?
As humiliated as we were, or at least the half of us not on the defense, you just had to let it go. On the trip to the airport, Mike's father Barry Easley bought a couple of jugs of Virginia apple cider for the team to enjoy on the bus. It was just alcoholic enough to lessen our misery for a while.
***********
We had one more game. For our seniors it would be the final chapter of 36. Hanover was 6-2 and their all-American quarterback Phil Winning was about to play his last game at home. They were averaging over 40 points a game and were second in their conference with a 4-2 record, surpassed only by Anderson College, which was 6-0. They had the advantage of playing at home We played Hanover every year for decades and they hadn't beaten us since 1957. We had ruined many a weekend for them which gave them more incentive, especially their seniors.
It was not noted at the time, but this was the fiftieth anniversary of the first time Centre played Hanover in 1919. That was when Centre was fast becoming a national football power and two years before it won the National Championship in the famous game against Harvard. We beat them in that game 95-0 and, no, that is not a typo. There was not, understandably, another game between the two teams until the 1940 season when we beat them by the more civilized score of 35-0.
The conditions on November 15, 1969 were nasty. The temperature at game time was around freezing with a 15 mph wind creating a wind chill factor of 18 degrees. About half the field was covered with crusty patches of snow. Where there was no snow the turf was frozen. We put on an extra layer or two and went after them.
Days before the game Harmon made reference to the Hampden-Sydney game in the Cento: "We played very, very poorly and our spirits were quite low after the game." Which was true, but by game time that had changed. It was the last dance for the seniors, we knew we had manhandled them the year before and we were in the mood to do it again. We were confident. Hanover had scored a lot of points but also given up a lot. We felt we could score on them.
In reviewing this game, i had access to a video. Marty Takacs's father Gabe shot a super 8mm color video of the game and although it's bouncy and tends to wander off topic, it's an accurate representation of most of our last game. Gabe Takacs was a proud father and in several takes the camera follows Marty as he wanders down field looking for someone to block, but for the most part it captures the action at ground level of a college football game. Most of the important plays in the game are captured in the video.
Football leaves a lot of marks. For many of the guys who were hitting or getting hit on every play, the pain either doesn't go away or returns as you get older. Advanced age can be more difficult for helmet heads than those who played baseball or golf, or didn't play anything at all. Watching a ground-level video, even at half-speed, reminded me how taxing a game it was. It is even more so in games played in 2026. I didn't have children, but if I had, I would be telling my children to play soccer instead of football.
And yet, you really can't surpass the experience of playing a college football game. You have fifty (or more) men board an airplane and fly hundreds or thousands of miles to line up on a field vis a vis fifty other men with similar intentions and you commence to beat the stuffing out of each other for a couple of hours. It's a test of strength, speed, discipline and guile that you find in few other sports. The excitement is palpable and the satisfaction if you win is great.
As was often the case in Centre football, we allowed our opponent to take the lead early in the game. Hanover's Randy McPhee returned a Mike Easley punt for a 91-yard touchdown. My job on punt return coverage was to make sure the returner didn't get outside and down the sideline, but McPhee shot up the middle, benefiting from what looked like at least two of our tacklers skidding on the ice, which didn't disappear until players cleats had broke up the crust. McPhee broke a tackle by Scotty Hunt and another defender and went all the way. I tried to close on him from the outside but he was by me. The two tacklers who skidded on the frozen snow also blocked off a third tackler, Tony Hohman. It was a great run by McPhee. The extra two-point try failed. The rest of the quarter was scoreless.
In the second quarter, we executed a dominating drive on the ground that resulted in a 27 yard scoring pass to Gary Kleine, who would have the best day of his career. In the video I see that our coaches on nearly half our plays put Kleine in the slot on the odd side, which was my side of the field. For most of the season he had been put out wide on the strong side where Marty manned the tight end position or in the slot when Marty was spread out wide. After four interceptions at Hampden-Sydney, I think Coach McGuire introduced some new wrinkles that clearly confused Hanover's pass coverage, which we knew was the weakest part of their game. The video shows that Kleine was slotted on my side of the field as much as he was spread wide on Marty's strong side. On Kleine's touchdown, he was in the slot on my side. I ran deep drive post pattern. He crossed my path and ran a deep out toward the sideline. I think the half back followed me and their linebacker was unable to keep up with Gary who ran it in untouched. In the video, Marty does a little skip dance, I'm clapping my hands and Raoul Baxter jumps up with his arms in the air signaling the touchdown. Van Arsdale kicked the PAT and we were up 7-6.
Later in the quarter, Just after we had executed a beautiful draw play with Steve Campbell gaining what looks like 30 plus yards, we ran the same play Kleine scored on but this time Ethridge threw to me. I broke wide open across the middle with a defender behind me. Ethridge hit me in the hands, although the ball was below my waist and I had to extend my arms to reach the ball. I failed to catch it and the video clearly shows my hands immediately went up above my head as if to say, "How could you do that?!!" It was the only pass I dropped in 36 games at Centre. It was not an easy pass but on a warm day I would have caught it. Seeing it on video was haunting. It would have been a fifty yard touchdown if I had caught it. When I got to the sidelines Harmon ordered me to go over to the kerosene heaters we had running and warm up my hands.
Scotty Hunt playing both offense and defense had a great day also. He rushed for 90 yards and made a key interception of a Winning pass on our 12-yard line just before halftime, allowing us to go into the locker room up by 7-6. We had proved we could dominate them defensively and then, in the second quarter, offensively. Hanover was gaining yards, but we would either stop them or they would turn the ball over. They ended up with 418 total yards that day. Most of it was between the two 20-yardlines. They had three fumbles lost and two interceptions thrown by Winning. The constancy of our defense amazes me to this day. Hanover was a very good offensive team.
In the first series of downs in the second half, with Hanover starting deep in their own territory, Mike Easley intercepted a Winning pass and returned it to the Hanover 14. On our first play from scrimmage at the far left hashmark, we executed a perfect play that Gabe Takacs captured in wide frame as it was at the far end of the field. Ethridge faked a hand-off to Hunt plunging into the strong left side of the line behind fullback Campbell. Left guard Mike Eversole pulled out to block for Ethridge as he rolled out to the right after the fake. Kleine, who was in the slot again on my side of the field was wide open in the endzone waving for the ball. Ethridge delivered it perfectly. I am out of the frame far to the right but was keeping their halfback busy and out of the picture. The video captures all the players involved except me and my defender. Marty was the tight left end seen streaking across the middle toward the goal posts. All our interior lineman are engaged with defensive linemen or line backers. The play, which took all of four seconds is clearly an option play in which Ethridge could have chosen to run if he wanted but seeing Kleine wide open, immediately delivered him the ball as Gary was ten yards past the nearest defender.
Unfortunately, in the most egregious display of home-cooked officiating I witnessed in four years of college football, a ref threw a flag and claimed one of our interior linemen was illegally down field. The video shows otherwise. The only people in the picture who were down field were legal receivers Marty and Gary and presumably me, although I was outside the frame.
These were local football officials who had very likely called several of Hanover's games in Indiana and the Hoosier Conference throughout that season. I suspect this one official was partial to them. They were a talented, winning team with a 6-2 record. We were from out of state and beginning to dominate them and I think the official thought he would do them a favor and blunt our momentum, which was clearly increasing after our domination in the second quarter, Mike's early interception in the third quarter and Kleine's reception immediately after in the end zone. The video is clear. There was no infraction. He either dreamed up the call or mistook Marty for an interior lineman.
We didn't score on that possession, but we did on our next after Jay Van Arsdale recovered a fumble on Hanover's 21. After a short drive Ethridge bulled over from the one. It was 14-6.
Hanover then drove down to our 12 yard line and Jay recovered his second fumble of the day. They were fumbling because we were hitting them with intent. Then we drove 84 yards for our third touchdown which included gaining 75 yards in two plays: a 50-yard run by Scotty Hunt and a 25-yard pass to me. A few more short plays, and Lawrence Gorin ran in untouched for the touchdown from four yards out. It was 21-6. We were in control, or so we thought.
Prewitt Lane in the Cento described the fourth quarter as "wild." Stan Peskoe recovered a fumble but then we gave it back with a fumble (Hanover lIked to hit, too.) Then our pass defense made it's one mistake of the day. Winning hit Roger Butterbaugh with an 82 yard scoring pass. Eric Blevins, who rushed for 153 yards on the day, went over for the two pointer.
Ethridge came back and hit Kleine, who was frequently open all day, with a 51 yard strike on the same crossing pattern we had been running earlier, except this time Kleine started from the strong side and I crossed him diagonally from the weak side. Jay converted again. It was 28-14. With a few minutes left, the lead seemed safe. Winning had other ideas and drove his team 58 yards for another score and another two point play. That made it 28-22. There were fifty five seconds on the clock when they predictably tried an onside kick.
One of our dumb-ass receiving team specialists could not get a hold on the bouncing kick and Hanover recovered on our 30-yard line. That dumb-ass would be me. I deleted the details of this before it could reach my long-term memory bank so I have no recollection of how it happened. But it did and I watched the last minute of the game terrified that I would cause us to lose our last game.
Hanover drove to our 11 in two quick plays but they had used all their timeouts in the previous drive. With a few seconds left, Winning threw a pass that GG batted up into the air and was caught by Butterbaugh who was smothered by Bearse and smashed by GG who said he blacked out after the hit. The gun went off and the game ended with the ball at the one-foot line.
If I were one who makes excuses for poor performances, which I am, I would say that the dumb-ass receiving specialist had trained all his life to catch footballs that were being thrown to him in such a way to make it easy for him to catch them-- you know, with a nice tight spiral. I would also say that there is such a thing as a perfect onside kick. I may have been a shortstop trained to catch ground balls, but baseballs are round. Footballs bounce randomly and rarely in a straight line.
I think now of how much was on the line. If we had lost we would have been 5-4 on the season, in other words, barely a winning season. When we won, we ended up 6-3, which means we won twice as many games as we lost.
Speaking for the team, we were relieved that we wouldn't have to live out our lives with another collapse like the one against Hampden-Sydney the year before. We had played a near flawless game. Ethridge overcame his disastrous performance the week before and threw eight completions in 17 attempts for 147 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He scored a touchdown himself. If I had caught the touchdown pass he threw me and the ref had not stolen Kleine's third touchdown pass from us, it would have been Ethridge's best day ever with four touchdown passes.
Other than the two glaring mistakes I made, I had a good day. I always thought I played disastrously because I only remembered dropping the pass and botching the onside kick. (I hesitate to use the word "fumbling" because I'm not sure I ever got my hands on it.) But in the game video it shows I had three medium-long receptions for a combined 60 yards or so and can see myself blocking downfield effectively on half a dozen plays, blocks that got several more yards for our ball-carriers. Gorin went in untouched around the weak-side end for his four-yard touchdown because Kleine and I had perfectly executed blocks on their defenders, as did Steve Campbell, Tony Hohman and Fred Marcum.
For the seniors in the class of 1970, our careers in full-armor, tackle football were over although I later played in a couple of competitive touch football leagues. I'd be surprised to learn that anyone in our group ever put the pads on again. At one point it was said that the Dallas Cowboys were interested in Stan, but he was going to med school according to plan.
Class of 1970 We had a very good four years. The class of 1970 was one of eleven classes in the post-World War II era who had a winning percentage of over .700. On their website, Centre has a history of all the football teams that have ever played for Centre going back to 1880 Centre played the first college football game in the South all the way up until 2013 when the list ends. (Someone should update that web page.) I calculated winning percentages of all classes after World War II by taking the number of wins each graduating class accumulated through four seasons, and divided it by the number of games they played. I'm calling it "The .700 Club."
For example, the class of 1992 won 27 games in the years '88, '89, '90, and '91. They played 38 games in those four years. Their winning percentage was .711. Three classes in the 50s, 1956-58, that followed the undefeated season of 1955 benefited from that season (8-0) and had a .718 percentage. Both Coaches Harmon and McGuire played a part in those years. Giving my class of 1970 a half a victory for the tie against Hampden-Sydney in 1968, we won .708 of our games. We won 25.5 games out of 36. The class of 2004 had a .700 winning percentage. The class of 2005 didn't make the grade at .675.
The classes of 1987, 1990, 1991, and 1992 all had four year percentages high enough to qualify for the .700 Club. The class of 1987 had the highest percentage of any class in the 67 years between 1946 and 2013. They achieved a .726 percentage if you give them half a victory for the one tie they had.
If we had not lost the freakish game in 1968 against Hampden Sydney when we were ahead 31-7 with nine minutes remaining, the class of 1970 would have been 26-10, which computes to a .722 percentage, one of the highest. The statistics show how difficult it is to maintain a winning tradition over four years.
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Since researching the Cento archives and writing the above about the ".700 Club" I've discovered that the Centre Athletics website has the records of teams from 2013 to 2026. Those records tell us that the teams for the graduating classes of 2016 through 2020 have the highest four-year winning percentages of any classes in the post-World War II era. Let's call them the .800 club. They had a spectacular run under Coach Andy Frye. I was vaguely aware of this out California where I lived for 33 years, but didn't know the full extent of the success of those teams.
The class of 2017 won 33 out of 40 games for a winning percentage over four years of .825. The class of 2018 won 35 of 40 games for a winning percentage of .875. The class of 2019 won 35 of 40 games for a winning percentage of .875. The class of 2020 won 32 of 40 games for a winning percentag of .800. Additionally, the class of 2016 had a very respectable winning percentage of .775, winning 31 of 40 games. (Post-season games are not included in those averages.) No wonder they call the new sports complex "Champions Hall."
Maybe one of those champions will write a memoir like this one on behalf of all the champions on those teams. Well done, gentlemen.
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I would also like to celebrate the undefeated team of 1955. I did a little research on their record and found this chart of statistics in an old Cento from late in 1955:
* There is a typo: Scott actually gained 1138 yards.
The class of 1970 has a special interest in this because our two head coaches, Steele Harmon and Herbie McGuire were important members of that team. Harmon was a senior offensive lineman and McGuire was a junior defensive back and the backup quarterback.
I was vaguely aware of the 1955 team and its stellar record. Briscoe Inman, the coach who by all acounts flawlessly led that team to an undefeated season was the Athletic Director at Centre while I was there. I may have spoken to him a dozen times the entire four years I was there. I was barely aware of his glorious history as a Centre football coach. What he did for the college in the mid-fifties should never be forgotten. Starting with the last four games of the 1954 season, through the eight games of the 1955 season and the first five games of the 1956 season, Inman's teams won 17 straight games. I'm not going to research 146 years of Centre football won-lost stats, but i suspect that may be an all-time Centre record.
The offensive statistics for the 1955 team defy credulity. In my four years playing for Harmon and McGuire I often wondered why we didn't pass more. When you look at the 1955 team you can see why. They literally ran over everyone they played. In eight games they out-gained their opponents by more than 2000 yards.
Gene "Great" Scott, aka Gene "Hot Shot" Scott, averaged more than ten yards per carry. His partner H. G. Reed almost did the same with 9.5 yards per carry. Scott and Reed were both halfbacks in the T formation. Scott was also a track star who had run the 100 yard dash in 9.8 seconds. He was named a Little All-American for his spectacular season in 1955. Together Reed and Scott scored 24 of the 35 touchdowns the team scored during their 8-0 season.
The quarterback for the team was Ray Evans, who called nearly every play for most of the season and was described by Coach Briscoe Inman as the most intelligent player he ever had. Evans was 6'-1" and 205 lbs. The fullback in the backfield, Garland Howard, was 6'-2' and weighed 185 lbs.
The 1955 offensive line averaged over 200 lbs per man and the backfield average 192 lbs per man. By contrast, our backfield in 1969 averaged 170 lbs per man and our offensive line averaged 191 lbs per man which brings to mind Van Young's characterization to mind: "it's the little quick guys against the big fat guys." The difference is that none of the 1955 players appear to be fat at all.
In doing the research I was under the illusion that the 1955 team played platoon football, i.e. that there was an offense and defense and that they did not often overlap. But then I read this quote from Coach Inman after the Maryville game that Centre won 17-0, in which he characterized Malcolm Roessler performance as "the finest end play we have ever had." He also said that Roessler "lived in Maryville's backfield." In other words, Roessler was playing both ways. I suspect that most of the team was doing the same although there is no way for me to verify or quantify that.
It's tempting to portray Gene Scott and H. G. Reed as the heroes of the 1955 season, but the statistics tell us that equally important to that team were the offensive linemen. Here's the offensive lineup:
Ends: Malcom Roessler and Jim Lee (or Charlie "Chuckles" Philips)
Tackles: Bob "Moose" Donlon and Steele Harmon
Guards: Tony DeMarco and Gene Pollard
Center: Frank Yeager
Quarterback: Ray Evans
Halfbacks: Gene "Great" Scott and H. G. Reed
Fullback: Garland Howard.
The seven guys up front were possibly the finest offensive line to ever play for Centre. But in saying that, I don't mean to sell the backfield short. The 1955 team was a well-oiled machine. They won every one of their games by at least two touchdowns.
