Bob Piper's Corner - January 11, 1987

January 11, 1987

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This was true of my brother Howard and myself. We were both attending the University of Iowa in Iowa City and had been playing football there. In those days, school started late in September and football season always ran until Thanksgiving. We were home for Thanksgiving vacation and we heard some schools were paying twenty dollars to game officials instead of the usual ten dollars. This was due to the intense feeling between certain towns. This was true of Leon and Humeston. We got an OK from someone to officiate this game. The rumor of impending trouble didn’t bother us one bit. The twenty dollars looked good to us.

The field was a sea of mud. The same ball was used the whole game. It could be wiped off with a towel, but nothing else. Leon had not been defeated. All went well until the last few seconds of the first half. Leon kicked a drop kick. It was true and would have cleared the bar easily, but the ball deflated and hit the cross bar and fell back onto the playing field. Leon thought it should have counted three points. There was no way it could, as the rules say it must go over the bar. This started Leon on a bad-humor binge.

The second half went well until the very end. The game ended six to six, but Leon had a conversion point attempt coming. The Leon kicker booted the soggy old damp ball up in the air and it came down on the crossbar, then wobbled sideways, lodging against the upright. True, it leaned a little to the far side. Leon insisted it be counted and they would remain undefeated. There was no way it could be allowed. We were out in the middle of the field surrounded by angry people. Just then a fight broke out between the people from Leon and Humeston.

At that moment, Ralph McGinnis of Leon drove out to the field in his T Model Ford roadster, picked us up and whisked us away. There were not many cars in those days and we had a good start into the country. I don’t know just where we were, but we drove up to the engine of the passenger train coming to Chariton. We were told to get up in the tender on the coal.

There we hid until the train reached Chariton. We entertained ourselves by kicking coal down to the fireman. Every time the train stopped, Leon people went through searching for us. Some Leon people were at the station when we arrived, but so were many Chariton people. Consequently, nothing was tried. We never did get our clothes.

Ralph McGinnis was a square shooter. He was a brother of John McGinnis who lived here for years. His wife was Elva McGinnis and daughter, Wanda Carrico. This should have ended the football episode, but it didn’t. Howard somehow met a girl from Leon and went there to date her. Someone recognized him as one of the game officials. You guessed it, he came back with two beautiful shiners, better known as black eyes. Howard always thought this was an inside deal to get him down there. This was the end.

More about football -

In 1923, Chariton’s second team was to play Corydon’s second team. The feeling between the towns was high, and the schools decided to play the game at Millerton with no advertising. It was early in the season and college football hadn’t started yet. On the Corydon second team were three players from Drake University. Needless to say, we didn’t win. It seemed one of the men lived in Corydon and invited the other two down as sort of a lark. In those days in high school, if you were twenty-one or older, you couldn’t play on the first team, but could on the second. We had five on our team that fell in that category.

Here is another humorous thing that happened in football. Iowa was playing Yale. We were doing quite well and won six to zero. Their coach was a combination of Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes rolled into one. He baited the officials the whole game. It was the worst I have ever seen. Toward the last, Yale committed a foul that called for a fifteen yard penalty. The referees marked five yards. Herman Hickman, the Yale coach, ran out on the field and told the official that he couldn’t even read. Hickman said, “The rule book calls for fifteen yards and you marked off only five yards.” The referee said, “Herman, the kind of ball you play, that is all it was worth.” That ended that confrontation. You may have read or heard of this because it was in Hickman’s autobiography.

George, Charles and myself left here at 2 p.m. in George’s car. We headed north to Knoxville and over to Lake Red Rock. We went into some back country looking for deer, but saw none. Saw few hawks, but lots of terns in the open water at Red Rock. We toured Runnells, Swan, Pleasantville, Melcher, Knoxville, Monroe and Williamson. Word discussion was interesting. The word patina started it off. That is the verdigris that collects on copper. Then verdant and verdure came up. We discussed how long a league is and no one was sure. I looked it up and found it is around three miles. How could Jules Verne imagine his story-book submarine going down that far in the ocean (20,000 leagues)? What a change in the countryside from last Sunday until this Sunday, a change from somber colors to beautiful snow. We got back at 5:15 p.m.