Deciding to take off a year from coaching after 25+ years as a HC has been an experience that has brought many transitions throughout the year. My first interview at Cienega High School brought with it goose bumps as I got a smell of the football season that was about to begin; but I would not be there after many years of coaching this great game we call football.
Each day the level of anticipation for football playoffs builds to a fever pitch. The excitement grew stronger as the Scottsdale Christian Academy vs Valley Christian game drew near. Here I was the night before trying to sleep before this great battle to see who would get the higher seed for the playoffs. As I was trying to sleep my mind wandered as I thought how lucky we are as coaches to be able to coach young athletes year in and year out and my thoughts were diverted to where it all began.
I started thinking of all the offenses we would be seeing in the playoffs: the spread, single wing, double wing, wing-t, flexbone, wishbone, option, and many others. With all of these variations I started to hear whispers from the past as I thought of all the great players and teams that came before us that had brought us to this point in football history.
As I thought of all of these great teams and players that had played this game throughout history, my thoughts went back to where it all began so many years ago. While you may have thoughts of Notre Dame, Yale or Princeton and players from those fine institutions, my mind went to the teams, players, and coaches where it all truly began, the Carlisle Indian School.
There comes a time where it all begins and although Carlisle Indian School may not have invented the game of football, there was a point in time where all was nearly lost and the game of football was about ready to fold. The Carlisle teams of years past, under the leadership of Pop Warner and players like Jimmie Johnson, Gus Welch, Joe Guyon, Jim Thorpe, Eddie Rogers, Albert Exendine, and Mt. Pleasant showed the entire world that this game could be so much more than the brutal style of football that they had played so many years before.
While many may think that the game was saved by the likes of Yale, Princeton and even Notre Dame, the reality is that the Carlisle Indian School was far ahead of their time and whether it was a rule put in place to stop their ingenuity or a style of football played to this day, it was the Native Americans that brought excitement and stability to the game of football.
While watching the SCA vs VC game before the playoffs, and getting results from around the state, my mind again drifts to the past. As I watched Storrer from SCA run the single wing offense with precision or hearing of the Gunslinger from Yuma Catholic, or the team from ALA, I saw visions of the great ghosts of Carlisle that have not only been forgotten but in the end never given credit for bringing to us the great game we now see today.
With every pass, run, formation, or strategy that you may see on the gridiron in the 21st century its roots can be found way back in time with a little known football team that made football their own and transcended the game into what we see it has evolved into today. When we go out on a Friday or Saturday and watch teams, coaches and players battle it out on the football field, look closely, you can see the ghosts of Thorpe, Mt. Pleasant, and Welch whispering directions.
As I was leaving the football stadium at Valley Christian high school and walking down the bleachers I glanced down on the field and I smiled as I saw the legends like Thorpe, Welch, Mt. Pleasant, Exendine and Johnson, leaving their footprints on the football field like Michelangelo’s brush on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
So as my excitement grew thinking of the many great teams and players we will witness in the state playoffs of AZ at all levels, the Ghosts of Carlisle continued to haunt me.
They ask me not to allow their memories to fade and to bring their lives back to the forefront. Thus allowing all football fans to not only remember them, but in the end, give them credit for being the teams, players and coaches where this great football game really started.
Finally, the Ghosts of Carlisle can rest in peace with their legacy as caretakers of the game secured.