Brush with Greatness.

I saw Tony Dungy (coach of the Indianapolis Colts) last night on T.V. I remarked, “I played against him in High School.” Well that’s some of the story anyway.

Tony Dungy was an All-State Quarterback from Jackson (Michigan) Parkside High School. Parkside had more people in their senior class than we had in our entire High School. I went to a nearby High School called Michigan Center during the early ‘70’s.

Parkside would scrimmage local schools so their "other" players had a chance to play. Michigan Center had a population of about 4,000 people and the little towns close to us were about the same size, Napoleon, Vandercook Lake, and Grass Lake to name a few and they like us were all white. Jackson Parkside was mostly black. I point it out only because we got a lecture from one of the coach’s about misconceptions of black people by white people before our first scrimmage. His lecture was silly at best, I think he was afraid that we would do or say something to embarrass him and/or the school. This was only a few years after the 1968 Detroit riots and their still was “tension” in the air.

So we got scrimmage The Great Tony Dungy from Parkside a couple of times. He was a year ahead of me and graduated in 1973. He went on to play for a Big Ten School (Wisconsin) as a Quarterback. He was drafted by the Steelers but was converted to a defensive back and he played a few years in the pros. The locals were very proud of Tony. I was proud too but was disappointed that he did not go to Michigan or Michigan State.

I don’t recall him being at the first scrimmage and I don’t think he played very much at the second scrimmage. He spent most of his time talking to one of our coaches on the sidelines. He always carried himself with class. He still does. People don’t change as they get older they only INTENSIFY.

My football career went as follows. We did not have organized sports in Junior High except Basketball and I never have been much at that game. We played “football” at recess and our game was a bit different. We basically played keep away with a football, you ran with the football and if you got tackled by someone, you gave them the ball and they would run with it until someone tackled them. When the bell rang whoever had the ball would run toward an imaginary goal line and try to cross it. I was very fast and quick as a kid, I’d get the ball and run most of the recess without being tackled. I was good.

I got good by practicing almost every day with the kids in my neighborhood. We loved to Play! We’d play football just like they played it on T.V. , we played all day long and usually only stopped because of darkness. We played on an empty lot about 30 yards long. We usually could find enough kids to play 3 on 3.

When I got to high school, I starred as a running back on the freshman team, and then I starred as sophomore on the Junior Varsity team. When I got to be a junior, the coach of the team Varsity team was in love with Earl Campbell of the "then" Houston Oilers. He took the two biggest kids on our team and tried to make them running backs just like big O’ Earl. After our team suffered, he turned the running over to me and I did well and the team turned around. I was a good running back as Senior and I excelled at running back punts and kickoffs as well. I got my picture in the local newspaper a couple of times, not has much as Tony Dungy did but just like him all the same. I was good enough to be selected to the all-conference team my senior year.

I had one goal in life; I was going to be the next great running back for the Detroit Lions. My dreams started to fade during my senior year when I realized I was done growing. I was 5’6” and weighed 140 if I had my pads on. No one wanted to give a runt white boy a scholarship to play college football no matter how fast he was. So my dreams of glory soon faded.

So why do I tell you all of this? Well, Tony is about the only semi-famous person I’ve ever had contact with. Well except for that time I literally ran into Marie Osmond, but that’s a story for another day.