Written by Bill Wood
I was very excited about going into Seventh grade, mostly about playing real football for the first time. That first season ( and the next in eighth grade also) I did nothing to distinguish myself except that many years later the significance of George Bush being my backup at quarterback took on new importance. Quentin Remy and I became fast friends for life. Both of us were best men in each others weddings many years later and we still stay in close contact. I had never seen a tattoo till our coach got in the shower with us…he had one on each butt cheek. We didn’t win all our games but we won our share. Gary Fultz was a halfback who used to revel in beating me to the line of scrimmage trying to hand off to him on the dive play. Gary was a real smart guy and VERY quick.
Eighth grade was more serious with Coach Callahan-both football and basketball. Pete Creasey broke a tooth and cried. Callahan asked him if it hurt (he said “no”) and he was asked why he was crying…he said it was because it was going to be an expense he didn’t think was fair for his parents. I recall Callahan being really impressed…so was I and I still remember that! We were better in both sports.
Ninth grade was more fun…except the coaches liked Jackie Hanks better at quarter back for the first game. I got it back after that. We threw the ball a lot and Quentin caught a lot of passes. I think we lost only one game-it was to Austin and their leader and QB Silverio Bernal. Silverio was a real good guy in addition to being a good athlete. He didn’t play in high school. We lost the Austin game by a point or two but we were on the one yard line of theirs when time expired…of course there was no game clock on the field and the referees didn’t tell us time was expiring. I lost my cool with James Brown on the bus on the way back after the game. He was singing or laughing or something and I guess I just wanted everyone to be as pouty and sick over the loss as I was. We had some height (John Adams and others) on the basketball team and did pretty well. That spring Bill Sallee, Quentin Remy, Ross Montgomery (who was only in the 8th grade) and I all got called up to go to high school spring training football. We all made the varsity for the upcoming season at MHS.