If it had happened today, it would have been a major sports story – no, a major news story. There would have been iPhone videos on the nightly news and commentary on ESPN. Paul Finebaum’s callers would have melted down the phone lines discussing it. Coaches would have been fired, and lawsuits filed. Someone may have even been publicly flogged. But none of that happened when it occurred in 1968. It went unnoticed unless you were one of the players on the high school football field when it happened. They remember this event the same way people remember where they were when Kennedy was shot.
Bobby Johns
It was spring of my freshman year at Huffman High in Birmingham, Alabama. The school was brand new, so new, it didn’t have juniors and seniors. Just a freshman and a sophomore class. That meant when we had spring training for football, it was a small, inexperienced group that was participating. And for whatever reason, we thought it was supposed to be fun. It was a game, right? Weren’t games played for fun? Wrong. This was the heyday of Bear Bryant football, and to our coaches, that meant to take this stuff seriously.
No one took football more seriously than the newest member of our staff, Bobby Johns. He was a three-time All-SEC, two-time All-American, defensive back at Alabama in 1965 thru 1967. He was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs but eventually chose to coach high school football. No, this is not fiction. Remember, it’s 1968. Pro football wasn’t as attractive then as it is now. So Johns returned to Birmingham and began his career by reaching out to one of his former high school coaches, Dewell Crumpton. Coach Crumpton was an assistant at Banks High before becoming the head coach at Huffman. With that connection, Johns quickly joined his staff.
Before he arrived, we had a team meeting where we were given the rules about interacting with our new celebrity coach. The first rule was to call him Coach. If we called him Bobby, we were promised one swat of the paddle for each letter of his name. To emphasize his point, Crumpton swung at the air as he spelled B-O-B-B-Y. No one dared risk their butts for that kind of punishment. Soon after, Coach Johns arrived at school, and we began to get used to each other.
Within a few weeks, spring training started. And from the first day, the coaches were unhappy with our efforts. Maybe it was because the freshmen weren’t used to thinking about football in March. Maybe the sophomores were focused on harassing the first-year students. The reason didn’t matter. We were considered one team, a team that needed an attitude adjustment.
The coaches tried everything. They screamed, deprived us of water, and made us run extra wind sprints. We just could not focus on football. It seemed nothing they tried could get our attention – until that afternoon.
I remember it clearly. I was leaving 6th-period history class headed to the gym to get dressed for practice when I saw two of my teammates. They looked like they had just seen Pennywise, the clown in the locker room.
I said,” Hey guys. Everything all right?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Just go inside the gym, and look on the bleachers. You’ll see.”
And they continued walking, shaking their heads.
This sequence of events filled me with a curious dread. Obviously, it was something that terrorized my buddies. But, what could that be?
I got my answer when I walked thru the double doors and passed by the concession stand. There, sitting on the bleachers, was Pennywise – in the person of Bobby Johns. He was lacing up his cleats, fully dressed out in pads and helmet.
My heart jumped in my throat. I knew what this meant. We were about to pay for our slothfulness. An All-American defensive back was about to practice with us.
As you might expect, the locker room had all the ambiance of a sweaty funeral home. If anyone talked at all, it was just above a whisper. My fellow linemen were silently thanking the Almighty that we did not touch the football. Today was going to be a bad day to be a running back or receiver.
To be honest, I don’t remember a lot about the practice itself. I suppose that’s because the mind tries to block out traumatic events from its memory. But I do remember how much he looked like a football player. Everything Coach Johns wore – shoulder pads, pants, helmet, fit him perfectly. On the other hand, my ill-fitting uniform made me look like a six-year-old on Halloween night. All I was missing was a bag of candy.
There is a term old-timers used to describe hard hits passed on a football field: “the pads popped.” I had no idea what that meant until the scrimmage began. Then Coach Johns hit one of our running backs. Those pads didn’t pop – they exploded. He was like piranha in a school of minnows, running from sideline to sideline, hitting anything that moved. This was especially disturbing to me. I was an Alabama fan, and just a few months ago, Bobby Johns was a beloved hero of mine. Now he was right in front of me, mowing down my teammates. It was like learning that Tom Hanks was a serial killer. As the carnage unfolded in front of me, once again, I thanked God I wasn’t out there.
I heard some parents weren’t too happy about what happened that day. I don’t know. But, I do know this: the rest of our spring practices were pretty dang good. There’s nothing like the threat of an all-star college defensive back murderizing your teammates on the field to give practice an extra spark.
And you can be sure that for the rest of spring training, we always checked those gym bleachers before we went in the locker room to dress out.
Joe Hobby, Tribune Columnist
My Life as a Hobby: Field of Screams
By Joe Hobby
If it had happened today, it would have been a major sports story – no, a major news story. There would have been iPhone videos on the nightly news and commentary on ESPN. Paul Finebaum’s callers would have melted down the phone lines discussing it. Coaches would have been fired, and lawsuits filed. Someone may have even been publicly flogged. But none of that happened when it occurred in 1968. It went unnoticed unless you were one of the players on the high school football field when it happened. They remember this event the same way people remember where they were when Kennedy was shot.
Bobby Johns
It was spring of my freshman year at Huffman High in Birmingham, Alabama. The school was brand new, so new, it didn’t have juniors and seniors. Just a freshman and a sophomore class. That meant when we had spring training for football, it was a small, inexperienced group that was participating. And for whatever reason, we thought it was supposed to be fun. It was a game, right? Weren’t games played for fun? Wrong. This was the heyday of Bear Bryant football, and to our coaches, that meant to take this stuff seriously.
No one took football more seriously than the newest member of our staff, Bobby Johns. He was a three-time All-SEC, two-time All-American, defensive back at Alabama in 1965 thru 1967. He was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs but eventually chose to coach high school football. No, this is not fiction. Remember, it’s 1968. Pro football wasn’t as attractive then as it is now. So Johns returned to Birmingham and began his career by reaching out to one of his former high school coaches, Dewell Crumpton. Coach Crumpton was an assistant at Banks High before becoming the head coach at Huffman. With that connection, Johns quickly joined his staff.
Before he arrived, we had a team meeting where we were given the rules about interacting with our new celebrity coach. The first rule was to call him Coach. If we called him Bobby, we were promised one swat of the paddle for each letter of his name. To emphasize his point, Crumpton swung at the air as he spelled B-O-B-B-Y. No one dared risk their butts for that kind of punishment. Soon after, Coach Johns arrived at school, and we began to get used to each other.
Within a few weeks, spring training started. And from the first day, the coaches were unhappy with our efforts. Maybe it was because the freshmen weren’t used to thinking about football in March. Maybe the sophomores were focused on harassing the first-year students. The reason didn’t matter. We were considered one team, a team that needed an attitude adjustment.
The coaches tried everything. They screamed, deprived us of water, and made us run extra wind sprints. We just could not focus on football. It seemed nothing they tried could get our attention – until that afternoon.
I remember it clearly. I was leaving 6th-period history class headed to the gym to get dressed for practice when I saw two of my teammates. They looked like they had just seen Pennywise, the clown in the locker room.
I said,” Hey guys. Everything all right?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Just go inside the gym, and look on the bleachers. You’ll see.”
And they continued walking, shaking their heads.
This sequence of events filled me with a curious dread. Obviously, it was something that terrorized my buddies. But, what could that be?
I got my answer when I walked thru the double doors and passed by the concession stand. There, sitting on the bleachers, was Pennywise – in the person of Bobby Johns. He was lacing up his cleats, fully dressed out in pads and helmet.
My heart jumped in my throat. I knew what this meant. We were about to pay for our slothfulness. An All-American defensive back was about to practice with us.
As you might expect, the locker room had all the ambiance of a sweaty funeral home. If anyone talked at all, it was just above a whisper. My fellow linemen were silently thanking the Almighty that we did not touch the football. Today was going to be a bad day to be a running back or receiver.
To be honest, I don’t remember a lot about the practice itself. I suppose that’s because the mind tries to block out traumatic events from its memory. But I do remember how much he looked like a football player. Everything Coach Johns wore – shoulder pads, pants, helmet, fit him perfectly. On the other hand, my ill-fitting uniform made me look like a six-year-old on Halloween night. All I was missing was a bag of candy.
There is a term old-timers used to describe hard hits passed on a football field: “the pads popped.” I had no idea what that meant until the scrimmage began. Then Coach Johns hit one of our running backs. Those pads didn’t pop – they exploded. He was like piranha in a school of minnows, running from sideline to sideline, hitting anything that moved. This was especially disturbing to me. I was an Alabama fan, and just a few months ago, Bobby Johns was a beloved hero of mine. Now he was right in front of me, mowing down my teammates. It was like learning that Tom Hanks was a serial killer. As the carnage unfolded in front of me, once again, I thanked God I wasn’t out there.
I heard some parents weren’t too happy about what happened that day. I don’t know. But, I do know this: the rest of our spring practices were pretty dang good. There’s nothing like the threat of an all-star college defensive back murderizing your teammates on the field to give practice an extra spark.
And you can be sure that for the rest of spring training, we always checked those gym bleachers before we went in the locker room to dress out.
Follow Joe on Facebook at Joe Hobby Comedian/Writer. Visit his blog at mylifeasahobby.blogspot.com