Game Day in Canadian, TX

Pre-Game with Canadian, TX Coach Chris Koetting. The players listened. End of 1st Quarter. Canadian 35, Amarillo River Road 0

Chris Koetting jumped into his pickup truck, threw the transmission into reverse and began to wheel his age-worn white Chevy from his reserved parking spot behind the high school gymnasium. Koetting is the head football coach of one of the most decorated small school programs in the football crazed state of Texas. His Canadian High School Wildcats, would in less than seven hours open their 2011 season ranked as the top Class 1 team in the state.  This will be his second year as head coach.  

Koetting’s parking spot is still marked with the name of the man he succeeded, Kyle Lynch. “We need to get that changed, or maybe I am still an interim coach” chuckled Koetting.  Kyle Lynch had a hugely successful run as head football coach of the Panhandle school. Lynch is considered a hero by many in the community, including Koetting, for resurrecting what had been a long suffering program. Lynch’s Wildcat teams won state titles in 2007 and 2008, narrowly missing a third consecutive championship by dropping the title game in 2009, by a mere five points.

After the 2009 season, Lynch made the move up into the district’s vacant Superintendent position. One of his first moves from his new office was to promote Koetting, his long-time offensive coordinator, to the head football coaching slot.

Going back to the tardiness in having the name in the parking lot changed, Koetting, who is known for his self-deprecating -aw shucks- sense of humor and dry as West Texas wit, suggested, “Maybe they are waiting to see how I do this year.” Not likely. Koetting has not only adequately filled Lynch’s parking spot, but also his huge coaching shoes. Last Fall, Koetting’s initial Wildcat team finished the season with a 13-1 mark, falling in the state semifinals, in a game he says eight months later, “we should of won.”  Koetting, by his first year performance, had shown the people of Canadian that they still have the right man for the job of leading their number 1 community treasure, their Wildcat football team.

At noon, on the day of the season opener, Koetting was on his way to a Lions Club luncheon/meeting, where he along with his three senior captains would address the local civic club. The low key head coach is right at home and comfortable in his element as he shared with the audience this pre-game reality check: “You know, with the first game (which was seven hours away) you just never know what is going to happen. Last year we also opened against River Road. We take the kickoff, get too cute with it, fumble the darn ball backwards and fall on it at about our own 6 inch line. I mean that sucker was about as close to the goal line as you can get. Then we jump offside on the first play from scrimmage and we get a half the distance to the goal penalty, about 3 inches. That may be the shortest penalty in the history of football. I remember thinking, ‘this is not the way I planned on starting my head coaching career’,” he related, while laughing along with his audience. It is doubtful anyone has ever accused the coach of taking himself too serious.

If Chris Koetting is nervous with the opening game looming, he does not show it. Dressed in blue jeans and a polo shirt with the Canadian Wildcat emblem embroidered on to his left pocket, the 44 year old nondescript pickup driving Koetting could have easily been mistaken for just another sun drenched rancher in town for lunch. Instead, he shoulders an enormous burden; he is the man responsible for the collective dreams of a small town.

It is game day in Canadian, Texas. You can smell it and you can feel it. From the appearance of the crowd jammed into the high school gymnasium on this Friday, for a 3:00 pep rally, the whole town of 2,000 is here. The community of Canadian, with an itchy trigger finger, is cocked and loaded, ready for some high school football. All that is needed now is an opponent to play the role of sacrificial lamb. In a few hours, the River Road Wildcats would arrive from Amarillo in two purple and white painted Blue Bird school buses, and nicely fill the bill.

Welcome to Canadian, TX

Canadian High School Wildcat Stadium, located in the upper panhandle of the Lone Star State.

Many small colleges would love to have a facility like this. The enrollment of CHS: 181 students.

Season opener is Friday and this town is amped! 103 degrees at 8:00 pm. I would not want to be the visitors on Friday. This place is very impressive! What a program!

The Worse College Football Team in America

I stopped by Trinity Bible College in Ellendale, ND on Wednesday to watch their football team practice. The Lions lost a game a few years ago 105-0 and are recognized as the worst college football team in the nation. A book, Keeping the Faith by Shawn Fury was written in 2005 about the program. There has been more than a sufficient amount of attention given to the Alabamas and the Notre Dames of the college football world. Fury’s book was a human interest story, exploring what it is like to be the worst. It also painted a picture of the program as one of disorganized chaos, and asked the question, "if you can not do better than this, why even have a team?"

My timing was perfect; the team was holding its first full scrimmage of the year. The level of play was much better than I expected. I counted 45 players dressed out and what appeared to be about five or so others in street clothes, whom I assumed were injured. The university is founded in, and based on, fire and brimstone evangelism - one player broke down and spoke in tongues at the end of practice. A young coach stood on the sideline directing the defense and would yell before each snap of the ball, “I love you guys." The quarterback appeared to have a strong arm as he directed a spread offense The defense was not shy about laying a solid hit of ball carriers and receivers. The pace of the scrimmage was crisp, and I witnessed a much better brand of football than what I had anticipated. I speculated that maybe the team had hit rock bottom in 2005 and had since found a way to use the national publicity they garnered from their 105 point spanking into attracting a better level of player.

I tried to use the internet to get an update on the team’s fortunes since the 2005 debacle of a season. I had no luck; the site offered a schedule for the season, but nothing else.

About ¼ of the players were African-American. That has to be a hard recruiting pitch; selling a school in Ellendale (population under 2000 - one stop light) to a black kid from the city. I guess the Lord does work in mysterious ways.

I stood off by myself to watch the scrimmage, but was soon spotted. A manager was dispensed to question my presence. He was polite, but wanted to know what I was doing, in attendance at was, he announced, a “closed” practice. (Spies in the cornfields of North Dakota gathering information on a team that lost a game 105-0?) I told him I was a scout for the Wheeling Wheelers, a new Indoor football team. He believed me and sent the offensive coordinator to visit with me!!

"It still comes down to blocking and tackling."-CoachGross

Later Gross would lament philosophically while discussing his life’s calling, the head coach of a small town football team with a tradition so rich that winning was not only expected by the locals, but demanded. “There is no other job on earth quite like this one,” stated Gross, who has won two state championships in his career. “Yeah, but the last one was eight years ago,” pointed out the coach. “That is too long for these people. But you know what; it is also too long for me. We have the talent this year. We have the speed we have not had in the past. I owe it to my boys, to their parents and to this community to set the bar high, to demand that we always stride to accomplish the difficult. We set our goals high here. Football is a big part of this community, but in a positive way. That is what makes this such a special place. It is hard to put into words, but look at my actions, and that tells you what I am having a hard time expressing.  I came to McCook 14 years ago for my first head coaching job, thinking this would be a stop along the way, a launching pad to a bigger and better job. Now after 14 years, I can tell you, for Jeff Gross and his family, there is no better job. There is no better place to coach, no better place to teach, no better place to raise a family than McCook, NE.”

First Day In McCook, NE

Sacred Ground: Bison Field, McCook, NE
Many Boys of Fall, since 1926, have shown the mettle on this very field. No matter how old they are, or how long ago their heroic feats, they are a part of a great legacy of champions, always to be remembered as such. Follow the Bison’s' 2011 season, along with that of the hometown heroes of Linton, ND and Canadian TX on my blog: rollingdownhwy83.blogspot.com

The Start

I have been contracted this fall to follow the fortunes of three long time dominant small high school football programs: Canadian, TX, McCook, NE and Linton, ND; as they strive towards the ultimate goal of any high school athlete: a state championship. I will need no GPS to find my way, as US Highway 83 passes through each town, a common main street, linking all three. Call it the ultimate road trip for a high school football junkie. I will traverse, back and forth, this road, the only non-interstate highway left in our federal transportation system that runs unimpeded from the Canadian to the Mexican border. Along its’ route I expect to find the “true” America- one of real people whose solid but common everyday lives never make the national news. I intend to record the human drama that is so unique, and so American, to small town high school athletics. This story will form the second leg in a three part trilogy of books I will write on high school football. I expect a 180 degree difference in environment along rural Highway 83 from what I found at inner-city Roosevelt High School in St. Louis, MO, the team whose season I chronicled in 2008, the first book of this three part story. (http://www.stlhsfb.com/). What I expect to be no different in Linton, ND, McCook, NB and Canadian, TX, from what I found in St. Louis, MO, is the passion of teenagers to succeed, and the unqualified support of their family and community in that noble quest. So, if you are looking for me this fall, I can be found somewhere on US Highway 83 between Antler, North Dakota and Laredo, Texas. Follow my blog and come along for the ride. (www.rollingdownhighway83.blogspot.com)