The Parkersburg Trip: It was the fall of 1959 and our high school had somehow negotiated a big deal to cross the state to play a football game against the Big Red of Parkersburg. We would travel for what seemed like days in county school buses that had could only reach top speeds of about 50 mph, so the trip was very long and tiring, even for a bunch of teenagers. When we got to Parkersburg the coach told the bus driver to drive to the high school before finding our hotel ... are you kidding me, we were going to stay in a real hotel ... big time, baby. Anyway, we drive by the high school campus (that is a proper description of this one). It was like 7 or 8 buildings sitting maybe a couple hundred yards from the street, creating a "front yard" that must've been 10-12 acres. I think it was the only public high school in that entire large county ... okay, we are properly impressed and scared. I think the coach figured that if we saw that spread the next night, just before game time, it would destroy any confidence that we may have developed over the prior few weeks ... this was the first game of the '59 season for us.

So, impressed as we were, it was even more impressive when we poured into the Blennerhassett Hotel about 30 minutes later. I'm not sure why I knew it, but the deal for us to play Parkersburg included payment of $10,000, and this large sum was obviously needed to pay for this joint ... it was about as classy as anything most of us had ever seen. We're talking elevators, fancy lobby, bellmen, huge rooms, dining rooms ... the whole nine yards. I think we had a team meal and then settled into our rooms, but we were all still shaking our heads at having reached this pinnacle of the traveling sports world. We slept lightly.

The next day we ate, hung around for awhile and then headed over to the field for the game ... Friday night, under the lights ... big deal, we'd done this many times, and we were pretty good too. The visitors dressing room was upscale for us, but who cares, it's the game we're here for. So it's almost time to head out when the coach gives us this pep talk about how we should't be anxious or panic-stricken when we see the size of the crowd out there, or the pregame showtime they are apparently known for ... this immediately makes us anxious and panic-stricken. But we get pumped-up and bust the doors open to run onto the field, except that just before reaching the field we realize that we're crossing a hard surface track ... you know, like Olympic tracks, not like our cinder track back home. That slowed our gate a bit, but not as much as when we look up to see a crowd of about 8,000 ... that's probably about 2,000 more than ever man, woman and child in our hometown ... uh ohh. Then, as we are doing pregame calisthenics, we hear the crowd let out a huge roar as what appeared to be 55 guys (all with first team uniforms, with stars on the shoulders, by the way) led by an Indian painted warrior, with a headdress and a long spear, on a big white horse. The warrior rides out to the middle of the field, turns his horse around a couple of times and then thrusts his spear into the 50 yard line ... the crowd lets out an even bigger roar. This is looking to be an underpaid evening at only 10 grand. red short dresses

Well, the game finally got underway, and we represented ourselves better than anyone could've expected through the first 3 quarters of play. We held the lead at what I remember to be about 21 to 7. But then it happened ... something called the "swinging gate offense". I won't bore you with the details, but essentially it's an offense where the entire line lines up to either the left or right of the center (instead of about half the players on each side of him typically) and then executing bedlam in every sense of the word. We had never even heard of this offense, and they had mastered it. To make a long story short, I think we lost something like 33 to 27. Outsmarted by the big city guys, but we were proud of ourselves anyway. Our record that season was all wins, with one tie and the Parkersburg game. But we were road warriors. -Bob