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Go Blue Devils!: A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893–1979
Go Blue Devils!: A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893–1979
Go Blue Devils!: A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893–1979
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Go Blue Devils!: A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893–1979

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Plattsmouth, Nebraska lies at the confluence of the Platte and Missouri rivers. The people of Plattsmouth are proud of their small towns rich history, of their strength and determination as a community. They also share something that larger towns cannot, something that for generations has helped unite them and shape their very lives. What they share is a community-wide excitement on fall Friday nights, the rush of a close game, the heartbreaking losses, the exhilaration of a big win what they share is the Plattsmouth Blue Devils.

Go Blue Devils!: A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893 1979, by former Plattsmouth resident Jim Elworth, presents a one-of-a-kind account of a high school football team and the town that has rallied around it for more than one hundred years. Elworths comfortable and at times humorous prose brings us season after season of game-day excitement, rendered in detail from years of researching and writing.

But Go Blue Devils! is more than a story of game scores. It is a history of accomplished, hard working, down-to-earth townspeople. It is a history of the town itself, told through the exploits of local boys giving their all on the fields of sport. It is a story of those local boys inspiring their community and going on to live rich, positive and valuable lives.

LanguageEnglish
PublisheriUniverse
Release dateNov 22, 2011
ISBN9781462046904
Go Blue Devils!: A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893–1979
Author

Jim Elworth

JIM ELWORTH is a former resident of Plattsmouth, Nebraska. He has worked as an attorney and an athletics administrator on the collegiate level. Elworth currently resides in Indianapolis, where he is employed at the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

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    Book preview

    Go Blue Devils! - Jim Elworth

    Go Blue Devils !

    A History of Plattsmouth

    High School Football,

    1893–1979

    JIM ELWORTH

    iUniverse, Inc.

    Bloomington

    Go Blue Devils!

    A History of Plattsmouth High School Football, 1893–1979

    Copyright © 2011 by Jim Elworth

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

    iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

    iUniverse

    1663 Liberty Drive

    Bloomington, IN 47403

    www.iuniverse.com

    1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

    Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

    Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

    ISBN: 978-1-4620-4689-8 (sc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4620-4691-1 (hc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4620-4690-4 (e)

    Printed in the United States of America

    iUniverse rev. date: 11/15/2011

    Contents

    Introduction

    Chapter One. There’s Only One!

    Chapter Two. Foot-ball Takes Hold.

    Chapter Three. The Inaugural Season.

    Chapter Four. The Lost Season.

    Chapter Five. 1895-96.

    Chapter Six. The End of the Century.

    Chapter Seven. Increased Participation—

    and a Victory.

    Chapter Eight. 1902-1903.

    Chapter Nine. 1904 and 1905:

    The First Full Seasons.

    Chapter Ten. 1906: The High School Team

    is Abolished.

    Chapter Eleven. 1907-1910: The Amateurs Take Center Stage.

    Chapter Twelve. 1913-14: Dominant Teams

    and the Dawn of War.

    Chapter Thirteen. The War Cancels Local Football.

    Chapter Fourteen: The Return of High School Football.

    Chapter Fifteen. 1923: The Beginning of the Modern Era.

    Chapter Sixteen. 1924-1927.

    Chapter Seventeen. 1928 and 1929: A Couple of Tough Years.

    Chapter Eighteen. Football and The Great Depression.

    Chapter Nineteen. 1932: FDR, the Karnival and Winning Football.

    Chapter Twenty. 1933-35: Coach Rothert’s Final Teams.

    Chapter Twenty-One. The Abrupt Departure of Coach Boggess, and the Arrival of Bion Hoffman.

    Chapter Twenty-Two. Strong Teams and the Birth of the Blue Devils.

    Chapter Twenty-Three. The War Years.

    Chapter Twenty-Four. 1945-48: Athletic Park Becomes Blue Devil Stadium

    Chapter Twenty-Five. The Amazing Merle Dasher.

    Chapter Twenty-Six. 1951-1953: The End of The Stewart Era.

    Chapter Twenty-Seven. 1954-1960: Multiple Conferences and a Coaching Carousel.

    Chapter Twenty-Eight. Coach Hale Brings Stability—And Victories.

    Chapter Twenty-Nine. Max Linder and the Greatest Nebraska High School Football Game Ever Played.

    Chapter Thirty. Coach Mitteis Rebuilds the Blue Devils.

    Chapter Thirty-One. Chuck Mizerski’s Magical Season

    Chapter Thirty-Two. 1977-78: Setting the Stage.

    Chapter Thirty-Three. 1979: Oh So Close.

    EPILOGUE

    Acknowledgements

    Endnotes

    Dedicated to the memory of

    Mike Johnson, 1957-1990.

    Plattsmouth High School Class of 1975,

    Originator of The Blue Devil Hurt,

    And my friend.

    Introduction

    Home is where they know who you really are, but tolerate you anyway.

    Besides the obvious purpose of documenting the history of Plattsmouth Blue Devil football, this is written for two main reasons. It is both a labor of love and an expression of gratitude.

    The labor of love is in memory of my younger (by three years) brother Paul. Paul was a starting offensive lineman on the 1976 PHS squad, arguably the best team in school history and easily among the top five. I never saw him play since I was away at college, but my dad sent the news clippings from each game, so just like everybody back home I got caught up in the excitement as the team went through an undefeated season and qualified for the playoffs. Paul went on to play at Hastings College until those pesky academics got in the way and necessitated a career change. He became a machinist at one of the south Omaha packing houses and was building a nice life when, on December 27, 1984, while driving to visit a former high school teammate in Florida, he was killed in a car wreck at age 25. When we went to clean out his home, his monogram and chevrons from PHS football were framed and hanging on the wall.

    To this day his death has left a huge void in our family. Maybe that’s part of the reason why I have always felt that the accomplishments of him and the rest of the ’76 team should be remembered. It was a big part of the motivation for this book.

    The second reason is a little harder to articulate, but my hope is that this book serves as an expression of gratitude to the community of Plattsmouth for all the good years our family has had there. The town provided an opportunity for my parents to raise and nurture their children, served as a setting for many of my and my siblings’ coming of age moments, and exposed us to a whole life’s worth of people and experiences. It is where we gather to celebrate life’s milestones, both joyous and sad.

    When she wasn’t raising her 11 kids (that’s not a typo), mom was teaching kindergarten at the local Catholic school. By all accounts she ran a tight ship, but she was also kind and patient and understanding. The little kids all took to her, and years later she continues to receive piles of graduation and wedding invitations and birth announcements from people she taught 20 or more years ago. She opens them all, sends a card or gift, and even attends the events when they don’t interfere with her bridge games.

    My dad was a country lawyer, puttering to town everyday in his pickup, trading insults with his cronies at Mom’s Café early in the morning and always—always—trying to do what he could to ensure real justice for people in the local courts. He was City Attorney for almost 30 years, came to love Plattsmouth and his life there, and he tried to impress upon his kids the need to give back to the community and do something to make it a little bit better. So a couple of years ago I took stock of my contributions…let’s see, well, I amassed a bunch of traffic tickets…oh, and there was the time I painted monkeys on the water tower (actually I was just one of the lookouts; Pat Ford was the true artiste). I streaked the toll bridge after yet another foray over to Rupe’s in Glenwood, rode around on the back of Terri Schuelke’s old convertible bellowing out the songs from whatever tape we could get to work in the 8-track that night (except for Heedum’s Tony DeFranco—ya gotta draw a line somewhere), put some of those sawhorse-looking blinking light traffic control devices on top of the old pool house and tried to, um, borrow a big cement eagle that sat in front of Ofe Oil (way too heavy). I chased after Marnee, Kim, Patty and others, and I pilfered Jimmy Wayne Benton’s beer on an endless night that included beating Syracuse, a birthday cake, Ford’s band at the Highway 50 Cafe, green tennis shoes, running out of gas and an Elvis concert. Not exactly the stuff highlighted by the Chamber of Commerce when they hand out those Community Improvement Awards. Hopefully, this book serves as a bit of atonement.

    Our family history in Plattsmouth began in 1970. I was 14, born and raised in Omaha, and as I grew up my dad was usually out of town, traveling around the Great Plains and mountain states negotiating pipeline leases for a couple of energy companies that would eventually become part of the infamous Enron Corporation. Then he was downsized before that was even a word, and in 1970 he became associated with Mr. Francis Casey, Esq. of 506 Main Street in Plattsmouth. His job change barely registered with me—a teenager concerned about nothing but my own little world—until about two years later when he announced that we were moving to Plattsmouth in time for the start of the 1973-74 school year, my senior year of high school. On August 15, 1973, we made the move.

    It isn’t unusual for someone growing up in Omaha to be oblivious to the rest of the state. So even though dad’s office was less than 30 miles from our home in west Omaha, I had never heard of Plattsmouth until he began working there. I had no desire to move to what I perceived to be some kind of backwater Mayberry and, even though I drove to Omaha everyday to finish high school, it was a tough time. I didn’t know anyone in Plattsmouth, and I didn’t feel like I belonged in Omaha anymore. Making things worse, because of the lingering effects of knee surgery and what I’ll just call a discipline issue (hey, my kids might be reading this), I didn’t play football that season. In our house, having no extracurricular activity meant getting a job, so I went to work bagging groceries at Ruback’s Supermarket on First Avenue in Plattsmouth (which today is a Dollar General store). Initially I hated it, vowed to make life difficult for my parents for forcing me to move, and generally succeeded in being an idiot. I worked most weekend nights and volunteered to stay late to wax the floors since it was too late to drive up to Omaha and hook up with my friends anyway. It was shaping up to be a long senior year.

    Before long I realized there were a bunch of really nice people my age working at the store. One of them, Shawn Cayson, stayed late one Saturday night to help me close up and asked if I’d like to go with him to hang out with some friends. I did, so that night, even though the conversations started out awkward and tentative, I got to know Pat Ford, Don Hardekopf, Tom McShane, Bob Fry, Mark Felker, Rich Eyster, Steve Bomberg and others. Bob Hayes, who was a client of my dad, made it a point to get acquainted. So did Rich Manley and Scott Linder, for no other reason than they are dang good guys. I met Jeff Scanlan and Dan Reinke since we went to the same church, and before long I found myself hurrying back to Plattsmouth after school to play basketball on the outdoor court at the old St. John’s School. By spring, Marnee Troop asked me to the PHS prom. She looked beautiful, we had a blast and I decided that, rather than drive to Omaha that summer to play baseball, I would stay in town and join the local American Legion team.

    It was the best summer I ever had. In Omaha, high school kids compete with great pride for their schools, but since everybody is from the same city there isn’t the feeling that a whole community is behind the team. In Plattsmouth, wearing that jersey with Devils emblazoned on the front, I felt like I was part of the town and playing for community pride. I liked it. A lot. And while driving through miles of cornfields to get to the opponent’s town was old stuff for my teammates, playing for the first time in places like Auburn, Syracuse or Falls City was new to me and tremendous fun. Some of my teammates—Keith Heedum, Scott Linder, Dave Steube, Terry Porter, Mark Austin, Roger Meisinger, Dan & Mike Holoubek—also played football for PHS, and I began to understand the pride they felt when they suited up under those Friday Night Lights in front of as much as a quarter of the town’s population. The next year my brother began playing, and I have followed the team’s fortunes ever since.

    And now after all these years I like to return to Plattsmouth and walk or drive around town. I am at the same time comforted by the familiar sameness and amazed by the many changes (A roundabout? In Plattsmouth?). I go to Mass at the Church of the Holy Spirit, where the funeral services for both my brother and my father were held and where I was somehow given the strength to eulogize my dad in front of a full church. I hook up with a couple of people I’ve known since high school and laugh ‘til I hurt (thanks Debi, Susie and Stu). I stop for gas at Ofe Oil or Linder Tire and Auto and am always greeted with a smile by people who have known me and my family for many years. I can walk into the Waterhole and, if Denise Covert is tending bar, a Bud Light is coming my way without my having to ask. And on quiet warm nights I go to the Legion baseball field, climb over the locked gate (no trespassing citations yet, thankfully) and sit in the third base dugout. I see myself out there patrolling centerfield, 18 years old, invincible, absolutely certain that it will be only a matter of time until I’m crowned King of the World. I was so cocky and arrogant that I took it as a personal affront when some mope from Nebraska City dared to hit a ball in my vicinity and think he could arrive at base safely.

    Sometimes when I sit there, I think of all the bad decisions and idiotic mistakes I’ve made on the journey from then to now; at those times I can only shake my head and wish I’d been smarter. Sometimes I think about missing out on advancements at my job and other things that didn’t work out according to the big master plan; not much you can do about that but keep plugging away. And always, every time I’m in that old home team dugout, looking out over that same field, two thoughts are stronger than the others. The first one is that, even though my coronation as king has been put off for quite some time now, I am richly blessed. I have more true friends than I deserve and a fantastic wife of 25 years who has given me four children. Somehow we’ve always been able to pay the bills and feed, clothe and educate the kids. There are things to be said for that.

    The second thought? The second thing comes back to me like it did all those years ago when I was wearing that home team uniform and competing for town pride. It’s warm and comfortable and something I find nowhere else. That second thought, stronger than all the others, is that I am home.

    Jim Elworth

    2010

    Chapter One. There’s Only One!

    From the outside looking in, it’s a nondescript little town. Just like a zillion other burgs that dot the prairie from the middle of Ohio to the base of the Rockies, it has the usual assortment of bars, churches and small businesses. (1) In 2006 the community was bitterly divided over the prospect of a Wal-Mart coming to town and, like so many other small communities, residents worry about the future. But it happens to be my town and that makes it special. Of course, what really defines any town are the people who reside there, and the 7,020 hardy souls (2) who inhabit Plattsmouth run the gamut.

    At one end of the spectrum are a number of folks who have had to face some pretty rough hardships in either their personal, family or professional lives. Maybe it’s a trait that runs in small-town America, but these are the type of folks who, when they get knocked for a loop, get up, dust themselves off, rely on a rock-hard faith and continue through life to the best of their ability. They are tough but gentle people who live dignified, almost heroic lives and are often more kind and giving than those whose lives are much easier. Then there are the regular Joes, those who get up every morning, head off to work and do their level best to live right, make ends meet and raise their kids properly. Such people are the backbone of any community and Plattsmouth is fortunate to have a town full of them. Toward the other end of the spectrum are various folks on the fringes of society, some people who aren’t very nice, and some good old-fashioned slackers and criminals. In other words, Plattsmouth is a lot like anywhere else. (3)

    But there are also things about Plattsmouth that make it unique, starting with the name itself. You’ll find Plattsburgh in upstate New York, Platte City in Missouri, Platte Center in Nebraska and Platteville in Colorado and Wisconsin. But there’s only one Plattsmouth, which makes sense when one considers that it’s the only community located at the mouth of a river named Platte. The history of the town is fascinating, and it is amazing how close this little town, situated in the hills near the confluence of the Platte and Missouri rivers, came to being the major center for commerce not only in Nebraska but for the entire region.

    If someone who knew nothing of the region were to look at a topographical map of an unpopulated Nebraska and attempt to determine where the best place to establish a settlement would be, the area occupied by Plattsmouth—situated as it is at the strategic meeting point of the region’s two largest rivers—would soon reveal itself to be the ideal spot. So it’s no real surprise that it became one of the very first settled areas in the state, especially since boats and wagons (which traveled well on flat river bottom land) were the primary modes of transportation when white settlement of the region began in the early 1850s.

    In 1853 a settler named Samuel Martin founded the town when, after receiving a ferry license to move freight from Iowa to Platteville, he built a cabin on the west side of the Missouri River. The location became a trading house from which Martin dealt with the Indians indigenous to the area, and soon he and others formed the Plattsmouth Town Company. The town was mapped out in 1855 and soon thereafter approved by the territorial legislature as the seat of Cass County government. Nebraska was still 12 years away from becoming a state.

    Transportation, the reason Martin established his ferry business, continued to be the lifeblood of the town. Plattsmouth became an important port for steamboat traffic; this was of course long before the Missouri was channelized, and when the river chose to run along the western-most boundary of the bottom area, right beneath the cliffs on which some of Plattsmouth’s earliest homes were built, the boats were able to dock along the east end of Main Street where railroad tracks are now located. Plattsmouth was also a starting point for emigrant and military supply wagons heading west along the Platte River valley into unsettled Indian country. By 1860 the town boasted over 500 residents. The population would swell to over 2,400 in just ten more years.

    According to The History of Cass County, Nebraska, a fantastic resource compiled by the Plattsmouth Journal newspaper and published in 1989, Plattsmouth made a serious bid to become the territorial capital but lost out to a north-of-the-Platte contingent by just one vote in both houses of the territorial legislature. Ugly accusations of back-room dealing were made—for example, Omaha gave free home sites to members of the territorial legislature—but nonetheless the capital was placed in the village of Omaha City. It remained there until statehood was granted on March 1, 1867, when it was moved to the former village of Lancaster, recently renamed Lincoln in honor of the assassinated president. Ironically, it was moved because most of the state’s population was at the time situated south of the Platte River.

    The same publication also chronicles Plattsmouth’s ascension as a railroad hub, which continued the tradition of transportation as a main industry of the town. Robert Livingston, a prominent early resident, served as a newspaper editor, Civil War general, surveyor and surgeon. But perhaps his most important accomplishment came in 1869, when he was able to persuade the Burlington and Missouri Railroad to locate its shops and headquarters in Plattsmouth. By 1880 the town’s population stood at 5,000, not much less than today, and a big boom in growth was predicted. However, the town apparently was in debt to the railroad, which was shrewd enough to forgive some of the debt in exchange for the town letting it out of the headquarters agreement. The Burlington and Missouri promptly moved its headquarters to what had become the bustling city of Omaha.

    The Missouri Pacific railroad came to town in 1890 and railroads remained a major presence until 1968, when the Burlington closed its shops along Lincoln Avenue and moved its operations to Havelock. The shop area thereafter became an eyesore, consisting of abandoned buildings with all the windows broken out, sitting on acres of weed-choked land. The area eventually became the site of present-day Rhylander Park, a beautiful baseball and softball facility named in honor of a former mayor. (4)

    Also according to History of Cass County, the first public school in Plattsmouth was erected in 1862 on the northeast corner of Sixth and Main. After ten years a more modern, four-story brick structure was built on Main Street between ninth and tenth streets. The first high school diplomas were conferred in 1882 (in earlier years there were only promotional exercises). There were three grads that year, two of them named Wiles, still a recognizable name of a farming family in the area. The school building was damaged by an earthquake in 1877, rendering the fourth floor unstable; around the turn of the century it was removed. In 1917 another brick high school was constructed on the same site. It served as the high school until 1976, when a new modern building was dedicated at 18th Street and Eighth Avenue. Today, the high school sits on Highway 66 at the southwest edge of town.

    Over the years, the students who passed through those high school doors played a little bit of football. And as is the case in so many other places, high school football came to be part of the fabric of the community. For the players, it is a source of life lessons, lifetime memories and lifelong friendships. For the townspeople it provides thrills, camaraderie and a social focus. In Plattsmouth, the citizens rallied around football-related community improvement projects on more than one occasion through the years. But perhaps most significant, football in town reflected the world around it; it was, and is, played in the context of the times, and through the decades it has been affected by local, regional, statewide, national and, on occasion, even international events. Plattsmouth High School football has left a record of the people who grew up in and passed through the town. It has recorded their triumphs in good times and bad. In many ways, it is a history of the community itself.

    Chapter Two. Foot-ball Takes Hold.

    The history of American football can be traced as far back as the 1820s, when college students at Harvard, Dartmouth and Princeton all engaged in games in which a number of players attempted to advance a ball across a goal line. There weren’t many rules (the games are often described as mob scenes), injuries were common, and most schools where the games were played eventually banned them.

    Something called The Boston Game, a hybrid consisting of elements of both soccer and rugby, took hold in the 1860s. In one form or another (either a kicking game, a carrying game or some combination of the two) the sport gradually returned to eastern college campuses. What is widely regarded as the first football contest between two colleges took place in November 1869 when Rutgers and Princeton hooked up at Rutgers. It was played as a kicking game pursuant to Rutgers rules, with neither throwing nor carrying the ball allowed. A rematch the following week at Princeton was played according to that school’s rules. Because many schools had their own rules for the games, a convention was organized in 1873 to codify a uniform set of protocols. Representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Rutgers attended the meeting and agreed upon a set of standards to be used in all intercollegiate games. Those rules were based more on rugby than soccer, with perhaps the most important rule being that kicked goals gave way to rugby-style touchdowns scored by ball carriers crossing a goal line. The first college league was formed in 1876 and included Harvard, Columbia and Princeton. Yale joined them in 1879.

    Further rules meetings were held throughout the 1870s as more schools (almost all of them along the eastern seaboard) adopted the game. A Yale student and athlete, Walter Camp, was instrumental in helping develop the rules that are in use in the modern game. Camp’s name is still recognized today, as his foundation annually names college football All-American teams.

    This new intercollegiate sport began a slow but sure growth in both popularity and geography. The Ivy League schools that were the first to play the game predictably produced the first dominant teams. Schools in the west, (1) as they picked up the game, did so with an eye to challenging eastern supremacy. The University of Nebraska fielded its first team in 1890. After NU registered a 36-0 thrashing of Iowa in 1894, the Plattsmouth Journal in a front page story proclaimed that the men of the state university had won the university championship of the west by put[ting] up a game which makes them rank with the strong elevens of the east. The university’s team and the sport in general (usually referred to as foot ball [two words] or the hyphenated foot-ball) quickly became popular in Nebraska, inevitably spreading to the high school level.

    The first high school games in the state were played in 1891 and 1892 with three eastern schools, Ashland, Omaha (now Central) and Lincoln, being the best of just a few teams. This was an extraordinary time in the history of the state as it transformed from untamed prairie to modern civilized society, and it was not at all surprising that the earliest high school teams would form on the far eastern edges of the state. Vast reaches of Nebraska, most notably the Sand Hills and portions of the Panhandle, were still sparsely populated (if at all) and basically unsettled; for example, Scottsbluff was not even founded until 1899. In 1890, just a year before the first high school football games in Nebraska took place, the final battle in the nation’s Indian wars occurred when horsemen of the 7th U.S. Cavalry (yep, Custer’s outfit) massacred a band of Mineconjou Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, just north of the state line near the Nebraska towns of Gordon and Rushville. The soldiers involved in that incident were quartered at Ft. Robinson in northwestern Nebraska.

    At the same time on the other end of the state, the community of Plattsmouth fancied itself as a modern civilized city with all the trappings. As editorialized by the Journal on December 5, 1895:

    Plattsmouth had numerous things to be thankful for, although not many of her citizens seemed to realize it. For instance, her main business thoroughfare is paved with granite blocks that will last for ages—not miserable wooden blocks that are rotting away all the time, leaving bumps and holes that are almost unbearable—like those at Nebraska City. (2) Her business portion is underlaid with a splendid sewer system that drains into the river, preventing malaria and promoting good health. Her waterworks system has no superior in the west for the healthfulness of its water supply and the water pressure obtainable. Her school system is as good as any in the state and a source of pride to every citizen.

    The Journal, which is the local paper to this day, was only one of a number of newspapers published in Plattsmouth in the 1890s. It and the Plattsmouth News-Herald appear to have been the most influential. Both papers were published either weekly or bi-weekly at different times through the decade and both were, following the custom of the day, blatantly, brazenly and spectacularly politically oriented. The Journal was the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party while the News-Herald supported the Republicans. It was an age of newspaper sensationalism and yellow journalism, and these two publications joined right in. Nebraskan William Jennings Bryan, who won the first of his three Democratic nominations for President in 1896 while running on a platform of free coinage of silver (which is way too complicated to detail in a football book), was regularly chastised and mocked by the News-Herald. Complimentary stories about his gracious wife were dismissed as twaddle. Not to be outdone, the Journal regularly put down the Republicans, (3) and both papers took continuous literary shots at each other and the candidates. During a good portion of this time the editor of the Journal was C.W. Sherman, whose son Cy Sherman went on to spend over 30 years as sports editor of the Lincoln Star. Cy Sherman is credited with being the first to refer to the university teams as Cornhuskers, (4) and Sherman Field in Lincoln is named in his honor.

    Besides the substantial portions of the newspapers that were devoted to political matters, there was also extensive coverage of Women’s News (featuring the latest in bonnets, corsets, tips for engaged young ladies and other essential tidbits) and sections on local, national and international news. Some of the issues of the day ring familiar. The News Herald railed against immigration, with Editor F. A. Blanchard writing in March 1893 of his belief in protecting our home working men against pauper paid labor of foreign nations. The paper advocated suspending all immigration until cholera germs in the old world have been entirely destroyed and, on January 19, 1893, reprinted an editorial from the Nebraska City Press warning that the west has been covered by poor hordes of homesteaders whose only ambition is to get a farm and then sell it to a foreign syndicate for a good sum. It concluded that there was a wrong idea that the west wanted more immigrants when the actual need was for more mechanics.

    There was no sports section per se; any sports stories deemed worthy to print were lumped in with the rest of the news. Sports news appeared intermittently, with no set pattern, and not all competition results were posted; for example, though the final standings of baseball’s National League were printed once the season ended in October, there were no regular updates on games throughout the season. Sports were not nearly as ingrained into the public consciousness as in the present day. (5)

    In Plattsmouth, the biggest sports headlines were reserved for the races that pitted a team of horses against five bicyclists (each riding one mile of a five mile course) annually at the county fair. Nationally, boxing (more commonly referred to as prizefighting) was held in higher esteem than the fledgling sport of football. The Journal on November 7, 1895, right below an article relating the hanging deaths of some cattle thieves, lamented the death from consumption of former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and the retirement of the great fighter Jim Corbett. On December 20, 1901 it grudgingly acknowledged that the Yale football team, despite her defeats, cleared $30,000 in the recently-completed season, making football more profitable than prizefighting, if not more elevating.

    The Journal may have had a point, as the game in its infancy was exceedingly violent and too often deadly. Throwing the large, pumpkin-shaped ball was against the rules, thus the main method for advancing the ball became a formation known as the Flying Wedge. It consisted of five players, arms locked, running down the field in a V formation. Tucked inside the V was the ball carrier, and woe to anyone who got in front of the formation in an attempt to make a tackle. Helmets did not yet exist and, except for some crude nose guards and padding, the players were basically colliding at full speed in street clothes. Predictably, injuries were numerous and often serious; the December 7, 1893 Ashland Gazette reported that a boy in Table Rock, Nebraska had died from football injuries, and the Omaha World-Herald reported on October 15 of that same year that football had been banned across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. A game there between two teams of high school students had resulted in a field strewn with wounded and at least seven players seriously injured, including two sons of the school superintendent. Carriages were used as ambulances to transport the wounded to hospitals, and the paper reported that parents would not allow any further games to be played:

    The parents of the players have taken up arms against the game. They are willing to have their sons toy with loaded revolvers, or jump in the river, or do many other dangerous things, but they say that they want to have reasonable assurance that if death results, some considerable portion of the remains may be collected for burial and they have put their veto upon the noble game of foot ball.

    The Flying Wedge and all piling up plays were abolished in Nebraska high school leagues in 1894 in an attempt to make the game safer and force teams to focus on end runs and kicking. (6) But such plays remained a staple of the college game for another ten years. However, after an astounding 18 college players were killed and 159 more seriously injured in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt summoned college presidents from across the nation to the White House and gave them an edict to either change the game or risk having it banned. The meeting resulted in the formation of the administrative entity now known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association and was a catalyst for the introduction of the forward pass.

    Chapter Three. The Inaugural Season.

    The well-researched book, Nebraska High School Sports, published in 1980 by the late Jerry Mathers, chronicles football from its inception in the state, starting with the first games in 1891 and 1892. Mathers reports that Lincoln High played two games in 1891, one supposedly a victory over the university. Ashland, the best team in the state in 1893, formed the Nebraska Interscholastic Foot Ball League with Lincoln and Omaha High, also in 1891. Mathers first refers to a team in Plattsmouth in the 1893 season and writes that PHS joined the N.I.F.L. (sometimes referred to as the N.I.S.F.B.L.) that same year, finished with a 1-3 record, lost to Omaha 28-0 and had a star player named Traver. He also makes specific reference to Plattsmouth teams during the 1894, 1895, 1896 and 1897 seasons, listing a 2-4 record for 1894, no win/loss records for ’95, ’96 or ’97 and a disputed game against Weeping Water in ’97, with both teams claiming the victory. While much of Mathers’ information appears to be accurate, accounts from contemporary media sources also show some of it to be wrong.

    The Nebraska State Journal, a Lincoln paper, reported on October 8, 1893 that Plattsmouth had formed a high school football team. On September 23 of that year the Plattsmouth Evening News, a Republican-leaning daily published between 1892 and 1908, printed a schedule of games to be played during the upcoming season by the five teams (Omaha, Lincoln, Ashland, Nebraska City and Plattsmouth) that made up the Scholastic Foot ball League. The first games were to be played on October 14, late by today’s standards. But at the time, high schools did not begin classes until well into September and town baseball teams were still playing games into the middle of that month. Football was truly a fall sport. As for Plattsmouth, it had three games scheduled that first season:

    At Omaha, October 14;

    Home against Lincoln, October 28; and

    Home against Ashland, December 1.

    The Evening News had a column called Brevities, which contained short news stories of local interest. On September 29 the column mentioned that the high school football team was practicing for the upcoming games:

    The High School foot ball team is strictly in it just now, and have [sic] a very interesting daily practice at the grounds during the noon hour. Yesterday in a grand rush Jimmie Newel suffered a dislocation of his wrist.

    Even beyond the lack of forward passing, the game of football the high school boys were about to start playing was far different than the modern version we watch today. On October 13, 1893, the weekly Ashland Gazette published the rules of the game to assist spectators who would be watching the new sport for the first time. The rules included:

    − Forty-five minute halves;

    − Ten minute halftime break;

    − The ball is mostly carried, sometimes kicked;

    − The ball must be advanced five yards in three tries or it is yielded to the opponent; (1)

    − Touchdowns count for four points, kicked goals for two; (2)

    − The ball is advanced by carrying it around end or through the line of interference.

    The article also admonished spectators not to stand on the field of play.

    Surprisingly, no articles about the first game were located in the Plattsmouth papers. But the Omaha media covered it extensively, beginning with this preview in the World-Herald on October 12:

    Tomorrow the High School boys will own the town. It is the date of the opening game of the Nebraska Interscholastic Foot Ball league, and the Plattsmouth school will be here in full force.

    The home team holds the High School championship of the state, and judging from its practice games, it is going to take some very hard playing to take it away from them. The team is not a very heavy one, the average weight being about 145 pounds, but what the boys lack in weight they make up in muscle, endurance and grit. Very little is known of the Plattsmouth boys and they have a surprise in store for the champions.

    Purple and white are the Omaha colors, (3) and every true blue Omahan who attends is asked to have these flying from his lapel.

    The article then listed the starting lineups for the teams. The players for Plattsmouth, with their names spelled as they appeared in the article, included:

    Forthing, full back;

    Sullivan, right half back;

    Traver, left half back;

    Streight, quarter back;

    Parmalee, left end;

    Ballance, left tackle;

    Wise, left guard;

    Robins, center;

    Beeson, right guard;

    Thomas, right tackle;

    Foster, right end

    As reported in Nebraska High School Sports, the game ended 28-0 in Omaha’s favor. The World-Herald’s headline read Omaha Whips Plattsmouth at Foot ball and was followed by this story:

    The foot ball team of the Omaha high school holds the championship of the state, and judging from its work yesterday afternoon it is going to take some very hard work to take the pennant away from them.

    The high school team from Plattsmouth came up yesterday and played the opening game of the N.I.S.F.B. league season at the Y.M.C.A. park. There was quite a large attendance present, many of the spectators being ladies, nearly all of whom wore the purple and white of the home team.

    From the showing the visitors made yesterday they have evidently not had much experience in the game.

    The Plattsmouths won the toss for choice of position and the Omahas got the ball. From the start it was evident that the visitors were not in it. At the beginning of the play Purvis and Burdick got the ball and scored a touch down in two minutes, and from then it was a walk-away for the home eleven.

    The score resulted in 28-0 in favor of Omaha, and the only features of the one-sided game were the good work of Traver and Farthing for Plattsmouth and that of Purvis and Burdick for the home team.

    On October 19 the Evening News endorsed George Farley for school superintendent over Charles Skiles, editorializing that Skiles, a law student, is not interested in Cass County schools but wants a temporary job at the county’s expense while he gets ready to enter his chosen calling. The next day, under a headline of Foot Ball Tomorrow, the paper announced that there would be a football exhibition on Saturday the 21st:

    The high school team and a picked team of foot ball enthusiasts will give a free exhibition game at the ball park tomorrow, beginning at 3:30 in the afternoon. Foot ball has grown to be a great fad, and if you want to understand the game go out and see it.

    The area referred to as the grounds or ball park was located in a flat, grassy area east of Main Street, close to the river. Baseball games were also played on the site, and it was used for high school football practice into the 1960s. Many long-time townspeople recall the football team members walking down Main Street after school in their practice gear. Today no traces of the field remain. Within a couple of years football games were also being played on a field on Chicago Avenue, believed to have been located where the Presbyterian Church now stands. The stadium along Washington Avenue, north of the old high school, opened in 1930.

    The October 27 edition of the Evening News must have been embarrassing to local attorney Matt Gering. On the front page it was reported that, while attending the World’s Fair in Chicago, he had entered into a pavilion advertising the world’s famous congress of female beauties at 9 a.m. and had not yet emerged as of 12:30. Hopefully for Matt, some of the readers missed that story as their attention was called to the Foot Ball Tomorrow headline in the adjoining column. The underlying story read:

    The second game of the foot ball tournament will be played between the high school nine of this city and the Lincoln high school nine at the ballpark tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. It will be a lively game from start to finish. The following is the position of the players:

    Calkins, r.e.

    W. Foster, r.t.

    J. Robins, r.g.

    K. Wise, c.

    C. Beeson, l.g.

    E. Farthing, l.t.

    C. Sullivan, l.e.

    M. Streight, q.b.

    F. Traver, r.h.b.

    F. Ballance, l.h.b.

    G. Thomas, f.b.

    Subs: G. O’Rourke, J. Newell, M. Kerr.

    The first official high school football game played in Plattsmouth did not go well for the home team. The October 30 Evening News, after referring to editor Sherman of the rival Journal as a buzzard who feasts on offal and putrid flesh [and] whose fetid breath pollutes the atmosphere, carried an account of the game reprinted from the Nebraska State Journal under the heading Plattsmouth Loses. It is reprinted verbatim without grammatical corrections:

    Lincoln played the second game of the championship season at Plattsmouth yesterday and came off victorious by a score of 20 to 6. The game was called at 3 o’clock with a small crowd in attendance. Plattsmouth had the ball, but soon lost to Lincoln, who advanced by slow gains without losing the ball until they made the first touchdown at the end of thirteen minutes’ play. No goal. Plattsmouth took the ball at the center of the field but soon lost to Lincoln, who advanced as before and aided by a long run around the right end by Morrissey made the second touchdown at the end of twenty minutes’ play. Morrissey kicked goal. Plattsmouth had the ball again and Traver made a beautiful end run of thirty yards. It looked for a few minutes as if Plattsmouth would score, but Lincoln forced them back and the first half closed with the ball in Plattsmouth’s territory and the score 10 to 0 in Lincoln’s favor.

    Plattsmouth had the ball again at the beginning of the second half, but soon lost it. Three downs, however, failed to produce any gain for Lincoln. Mously kicked, but owing to poor line work the ball was stopped by a Plattsmouth man. It rolled to one side and was picked up by Ballance, who, with a clear field before him, ran sixty yards for a touchdown. Goal was kicked and Plattsmouth had scored six points by a fluke. Lincoln now woke up and scored again after ten minutes more play. Goal was kicked. Lincoln soon recovered the ball from Plattsmouth and made her fourth touchdown a minute before time was called. No goal. Score 20 to 6 in favor of Lincoln.

    The features of the game were Travis’ run, the general good work of Lincoln’s backs and a sensational tackle by Claus. The crowd, although very small, showed a very large amount of enthusiasm. Plattsmouth will have to support her team in better shape if she wishes to have it remain in the league next year.

    No article detailing the last game of the season was located, even in the Gazette, which seemed to cover the games as well as the Omaha or Lincoln papers (probably because the Ashland team was so dominant). The Gazette made mention on December 1 that the local team had defeated Plattsmouth 66-4, but carried no accompanying story. However, as bad as the final score was, Plattsmouth was the only team to score on Ashland that season (Ashland beat Omaha 62-0 and Lincoln 42-0). And at least Plattsmouth played; the team from Nebraska City journeyed to Ashland in mid-November only to forfeit without competing when the players decided that they didn’t want to play in the rain and snow then ride home in wet clothes. Ashland claimed the game as a victory, reasoning that they would have won anyway because the Nebraska City boys all smoked cigarettes, which get away with players’ wind. (4)

    The Gazette on December 1 also published final standings for the inaugural season of the N.I.S.F.B.L. According to the article, the season ended this way:

    Ashland, 4-0;

    Omaha, 2-2;

    Lincoln, 2-2;

    Nebraska City, 2-2;

    Plattsmouth, 0-4.

    However, the evidence establishes that Plattsmouth only played three official games that season and finished 0-3, not 0-4 as the Gazette reported or 1-3 as stated in Nebraska High School Sports. The published standings may have included the exhibition game Plattsmouth played against the local enthusiasts on October 21, but from the media account of that game it is clear it was for practice. The other teams in the league also played practice games, often against colleges or teams from the local Y.M.C.As.

    Chapter Four. The Lost Season.

    Football expanded rapidly in Nebraska high schools. In 1894 a second league formed with teams from Pawnee City, Wymore, Beatrice and Falls City as members, and there was mention in the newspapers that Wahoo and David City, among others, were also forming teams. But by no means was football being universally embraced; it remained a brutal undertaking that not even the powerful Ashland squad survived. Perhaps the most feared team in the state during those early years, Ashland was beaten by Beatrice in late November, 1894. It was the first time Ashland lost to another high school team. Besides claiming that Beatrice had cheated by using a college player and allowing someone who had coached the team to referee, the Gazette article about the game mentioned that five players subsequently missed school because of their injuries. Two of the players were confined to bed. A number of players were reported to profess that they would not play football again. They apparently stuck to their decision; a year later, on November 8, 1895, the Gazette reported that no Ashland team had yet been formed for that season. Even though Ashland may have put together a team and played a couple of games that year, it was no longer a dominating force. By 1908, Ashland lost to Omaha 131-0.

    The young men who played football were often more mercenaries than students and substantially older than typical high school students, (1) which inevitably caused problems in the educational system. In Plattsmouth, football apparently caused such problems that no team was fielded in 1894, even though an October 5, 1894 article in

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