Touchdown Bobby

Touchdown Bobby

The trip to Wichita Falls Rider was the turning point in our senior football season.  Sure we had won three games previously, but we really hadn’t played anyone that was very good.  Rider was good, they were ranked pretty high in the state.  The trip there was somber, no horsing around, almost no talking, coaches and everyone really wanted this game.

The highlight of the game was Bobby’s quarterback sneak.  We were on their 40 yard line, 4th down, a yard to go for a first.  The game was pretty balanced up to that point. 

Coach Kirk gave Darryl J the next play from the side lines.  Darryl ran in and told Bobby the play… ‘quarterback sneak’.  “Quarterback Sneak”, what’s that?  What do we do? High school teams rarely if ever practice quarterback sneaks, so we didn’t really know exactly what we were going to do. 

Bobby looked across the huddle at me and said... Doug fire out straight ahead, I’ll follow you. The team broke huddle and ran up to the line of scrimmage as we usually do and to my amazement there was no defensive nose guard in front of me, no one that could stop “the quarterback sneak”. 

Bobby immediately called for the ball.  I hiked it, we both took off straight ahead gaining the yard and more before we encountered opposition.  I felt relieved we had made the 1st down, but I also felt Bobby’s hand grabbing my shoulder pads behind my neck.  Being the seasoned athlete that he was, he wasn’t satisfied with the first down; he was going for a touchdown.  He was going to use me as a guided missile into any oncoming tacklers. 

We raced down field and there was this one last defender.  As we approached the tackler Bobby forcefully pushed me into him.  Bobby then juked the other way, clear for the touchdown.  Yeaaa!

Home Plate Collision

Summer of ’67, Thompson Park, YMCA baseball teams from Travis and Hoarce Mann were playing. 

Bobby N was pitching for Hoarce Mann, I was catching for Travis.  Bobby leads off and hits a single and stays at 1^st base.  The next batter hits a screamer single and Bobby advances to second base. So men on first and second.  The third batter gets up and hits a high fly ball deep into left field. Bobby waits at second base until the ball is caught, then tags up and dashes for third base.  Bobby’s fast so he rounds 3^rd base gambling to make it to home plate for the score.  

Left fielder Johnny P has a good arm. He catches the fly ball then throws a dart to me at home plate.  Bobby rounds 3^rd then looks up and sees that I have caught the ball and was waiting to tag him out should he continue for home. Knowing that I’ve got the ball, Bobby stops turns around and heads back to 3^rd base, however the runner behind him was also trying to reach 3^rd base, so Bobby stops, turns around and looks at me.  

I could see the determination on his face.  He decides to run back to home, crash into me and somehow score.  I’m a stout catcher, and he’s a lean pitcher, so I’ve got the odds in my favor of tagging him out without incident.  The ball is securely in my glove and I’m ready for him. I’ve tagged out many runners at home over the years, this should be no exception. 

He runs and blasts into me. We collide and he knocks me over on my back. I'm a little surprised that he could do that to me, but that’s OK, as long as we make contact and I’ve still got the ball, he’s out.  

I thought to myself, “I’ve got him out”, but… Bobby cunningly cheats.  He knows just running into me probably won’t work, so he purposely makes a fist and punches the ball out of my glove.  It works! I’m on my back, my arm extends, the ball falls out of my glove and he’s safe at home.  

Nobody had ever tried to knock the ball out of my glove in that situation before, but Bobby was athletic, skilled and capable enough to know to put a little extra into the effort... effort he would display impressively and often at PD.

Mason's Tribute to Bobby

(editors note... Richard and the editor collaborated in writing this. Richard wanted just the facts.  The editor wanted to embellish.  You determine who won : )

Bobby was a natural leader and star athlete. There was a time when he and I were inseparable, we did everything together. 

I remember Bobby's leading a band in Jr Hi, he played guitar and sang..  Darrell J and Benny C were in it.  They had 3 or 4 songs down pretty good.  Bobby's favorite songs included some by  “Credence Clearwater”.

Some fun times I can remember with Bobby involves an old black ‘48 Chevrolet his dad got him to drive. The car had a big visor across the windshield, so it kind of looked like a gangster car. We would ride around Amarillo in it and pretend we were gangsters. 

One night, we were dressed out like the Blues Brothers and playing like we were running from the law. We pulled into a friends house cause they had some refreshments in their back yard. We were having fun and told everyone we were running from the law. So later that night, somebody shouted “COPS!”. Staying true to our costumes, we started running.  It was dark, we couldn’t see in front of us.  We were running together when we both ran into a clothesline. We landed on our backs with a wire imprint on our Adam’s apples.

There are two football plays involving Bobby that I remember most and they were  both against Amarillo High.  Both plays involve Leon S and Ralph S.

Bobby’s most memorable play that day was when the score was tight; their defense was stopping our offense from scoring. Coach knew we had to try a razzle-dazzle play to shake things up a bit; so he called for a “Tail-Back-Throw-Back” play, which was basically a pass thrown by the tailback.

Bobby took the snap, shuffle pitched the ball out to Ralph our tailback in the backfield.  Ralph ran right heading straight for the sidelines. Ralph ran slow with blockers in front of him, giving Bobby time to run through the line, and out into the right flat.  Bobby got out there cleanly, nobody was expecting our quarterback to be catching the ball like a receiver.  Ralph saw Bobby was in the clear and threw him the ball. Bobby caught it, spun and started running for the goal.  He dodged a couple of tacklers and then ran in for the score. Great play! We had practiced it often for times like these. Our offense exploded after that.

One of those explosive plays… Amarillo High had been concentrating all day on Ralph S because he was our lead running back. At the snap of the ball, Bobby faked a handoff to Ralph over our left side. Leon our fullback was the lead blocker for Ralph on that play.  With Ralph going left, everybody on the field was chasing Ralph to our left, it was a student body left play. They did tackle Ralph close to the line of scrimmage but he didn’t have the ball, Bobby still had it. Leon got free and started running right.  After the fake handoff, Bobby started circling and started running right too. After a while both Bobby and Leon were the only two players on the right side of the field.  Bobby threw the ball to Leon who was wide open, and Leon went in for the score untouched. Bobby lead us in another fantastic trick play.

Bobby led us on to victory that day and on to the first PD District Championship!  

I loved Bobby like a brother back then. He meant a lot to me.