"No Contest; The Gridiron's Greatest" - -Time Out #151

This is a short story. This is a true story. This is my story. Some of you faithful readers of Our Town and far beyond, know I began officiating football in 1967. What??? Yes, folks, 51 seasons ago. This season, beginning in late August, will be my 52nd and final full-schedule of games I will work on the field. Wow! So, in the mid-1980's, I had been working close to 20 seasons in 4 different states----Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, and California. Why all over? Simple explanation, my professional education and training had called me to lots of places before returning to my beloved Our Town in 1981. Once returning here to my roots, I got involved in officiating not only high school Friday Night Lights, but also officiated the NCAA college game for 15 years, 1981-1996. Therefore, I kept the traveling highways active on both Friday and Saturday throughout the fall football season. During that time period, I had the extra duty of learning 2 complete sets of rules. high school and college. Yes, it WAS very time-consuming and difficult to digest and remember all that information! Part of my college football involvement was with the old Big Eight Conference Junior Varsity program for several years. It was in that setting, my wonderful story began, dear folks. During one of my March or April outings to then Lewis Field, old home to our OSU Cowboys footballers, I officiated an OSU spring game. Of course, it was a contest between our own players, competing against each other (i.e., an intra squad game). Back then, it was conducted just like any regular game, with plenty of full rock'em, sock'em contact! During this several hours I was on the field, blowing my officiating whistle and throwing my gold penalty flag, I observed a super-human athlete playing the game. He was directly in front of my officiating eyes.

Driving home after this afternoon of officiating work, my brain was in overdrive, thinking about what I had witnessed on the artificial turf of Lewis Field that spring afternoon. I came into my home, and the first thing I blurted out to my bride, Debbie, before she could say anything to me was, "I have just been around and watched the greatest football player in the history of the game this afternoon!". My bride probably thought I was a little touched in the head with my over-the-top remark, but I immediately went on to blabber for 15 minutes or so on just how I arrived at my earth-shattering remark to her. I also told her only one other Division 1 school had offered him a scholarship out of his Wichita, Kansas, high school because at 5'9" he was considered too short to succeed in the college game, Somewhat puzzled, she asked, "just who is this guy?"

"Barry Sanders", I replied.

Well, for the next many years I, along with the rest of the football-loving world, were all well-beyond, totally entertained and amazed with his absolutely unbelievable running ability,. I truly have never seen anyone with his human skills of speed, balance, agility, and just downright God-given talents to make positive yardage and score touchdowns. His professional days with the usually lowly Detroit Lions always brought me in front of my television screen to be hypnotized with his magical football talents. In my humble opinion, Mr. Barry has no football equal, currently or ever in the past.

Fast forward to a few years back, when our officiating crew was assigned to officiate a 1st round playoff game in Oklahoma City as Heritage Hall hosted the Chandler Lions. Our 5-man officiating bunch had never been to his northwest Oklahoma City private school, and were very impressed with their facilities when when arrived on-site, well before game time. As fate would have it, one of the home team's game captains was Barry Sanders' son, also named Barry. As the white hat referee, part of my many pre-game duties is to escort the home team's captains to the center of the playing field for the coin toss with the visiting team. As we stood along Heritage Hall's sideline and as we walked to the center of the field, I related my first and on-going feelings about young Barry's father I had experienced on that spring afternoon, long, long ago, on that Lewis Field turf. After I finished my short remarks to him about his dad, he turned to me and thanked me for what I had told him. He said he would keep my remarks in a special place in his memory bank.

Isn't it great, people of Our Town and far beyond, how occasionally things come full circle in our lives?

Thank you for allowing me to share this special story with you. It certainly is special to me.