Football at Madisonville High School was hellish in 1969. First of all, the turnout for the team was low, around 33 to begin the season, and one guy who earlier quit was allowed to return four games into the season. Two starters went down with season-ending knee injuries, and numerous problems plagued the team along the way. Some days there weren’t enough players at practice to scrimmage. The head coach was brand new (as in just out of college), and the assistant was really the head basketball guy (and not a bad football coach). Nearly every starter was brand new from the previous year.
A huge problem was the schedule. The former coach, who had played at UT, wanted little Madisonville to play big teams in the area and had signed to play them. The 1969 season was the first where schools were classified according to student population, and there were three classes, A, AA, and AAA. Madisonville was in class A, the division for the smallest schools, but we were slated to compete against several AA opponents. This was compounded when the principal cut a deal to add a tenth game after the schedule had already been printed and distributed to the community (in one page calendar form with schedule at the top of the page and 12 months in tiny print under that).
Hell took off on the team in the very first game, a 69-8 loss at Maryville. CEP, the new starting quarterback, took a real beating that night, as did everyone, though he seemed to take the brunt of the pain. I got into that game near its end, playing defensive back, which I never before played. No big deal until I had to go back to receive a punt (also something I’d never done before). No surprise to anyone, including me, I muffed the punt and a Maryville player scooped it up and ran into the end zone to complete scoring for the evening. During the replay on the radio the next morning, I was misidentified as someone else. Thanks, and I mean that.
The team limped along throughout the season. Poor CEP got pounded in nearly every game. Already mostly demoralized, The Golden Tornadoes were unlucky enough to walk into the game at Bradley County on its homecoming, and were defeated 48-8. Near the end of the game, CEP ran around left end. The ensuing tackle tore off his helmet and broke his nose. Damn! It happened right in front of where I was keeping a safe spot on the bench. The coach offered to send me into the game, but I had accidently left my shoes in Madisonville and did not have proper equipment to enter a game. I really wasn’t too sad about that.
A hard loss came in a 3-0 game at Copper Basin decided on a late field goal (I’d never seen a field goal in high school before), but the granddaddy of all losses came via a 78-0 drubbing on the Madisonville field by arch rival Sweetwater, whose starters took us apart, handed us to their second team, which did the same thing, and then went to third team players before the end of the first quarter. Madisonville players were lucky to escape injury.
Unfortunately, the team still had to travel to Jefferson County and play that tack-on game the principal had arranged. I caught some virus that laid me low that week and could not dress for the game, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise due to a weird change in the weather. In 1969, unlike now, the high school season started a bit later and ran past Halloween (Madisonville won on its home field 12-7 against McMinn Central on Halloween night), so in the third week of November a battered Madisonville left town for JC. When the bus stopped at a traffic light before getting out of town, the time and temp display at the bank (now a restaurant) flashed 18 degrees.
Jefferson County is northeast of Knoxville, and a long way off. Before reaching even Maryville, the bus broke down and parked in the lot of the Gilded Mirrors business (it’s still there), and we were forced to wait for a replacement bus. That was bad, but the real shock was yet to come because when the team arrived in Jefferson City, about an inch of snow covered the field and the temperature was 9 degrees. It was truly Madisonville’s version of The Ice Bowl. No one was really prepared for 18 degrees much less 9. Since I didn’t dress out, I gave up my gloves, but even with all gloves collected and given to starters, some players had none, and most only one.
My parents and CEP’s parents drove together to the game but did not get out of the car. There were only two people in the stands (Crowbar’s parents) on either side of the field, no bands, and only Madisonville cheerleaders (with whom I huddled in the JC Rescue Squad’s vehicle) in attendance. It was a horrible, horrible night in which The Golden Tornadoes went down 34-13 to close out the season. The only bright spot was a team dinner on the road after the game. Do I long for those days again? Are you kidding me?
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