by Zaslow Crane
Wrdcount 1600
The Great Mud Bowl Game of 1974
Where I grew up, you couldn’t swing a stick without hitting some kid. We were simply everywhere. It seemed that every family had decided upon at least three kids and the folks across the street had nine. They were the Philips’.
Pat and Mike Philips were the neighborhood bullies and I think Mike was developmentally disabled, but both being bigger than anyone else they were an effective tag team, Pat, “the brains” (and brawn) and Mike just brawn. It was my job, Mission Impossible style to get past their house on my way to school, and this task seemed even more onerous in the Winter.
In Western New York, before global warming, people often referred to the winter in Buffalo – as the frozen tundra- Though frozen tundra could be an advantage in the waning months of football season, if an opponent had to go to the Frozen North to play. So, there was that.
We- all of the males anyway- were consumed by football. There were so many kids that a neighborhood of as few as three blocks could field a good 15-20 man team…and we would play each other every weekend and pretty much every summer day. We’d have as many as three complete games in a given day, so excited by the game were we!
The game was tackle. Only wussies played touch or flag. The game was brute force against brute force….Much like when we were all around 7 or 8 and having discovered that my backyard had completely frozen into a sort of really third rate skating rink, we decided in our 8 year-old wisdom that we would run at each other and butt each other in the head while sliding only nominally controlled at each other on this skating rink- foreheads …in the fore.
Only brute force would sustain our pre-teen blood lust!
We had two sorts of games: One was “equipment”, which meant whatever pads you owned- or could borrow you could wear along with a helmet. But no cleats! Never cleats. People got their hands stepped on all the time in games like these. Cleats caused serious “dings” and occasionally ended up with someone in a cast and not playing. And for some reason, everyone who wanted to play, was expected to be there at every game. It was a different time.
The other game designation was “no equipment”. This meant tackle (Full contact) but with no helmets or shoulder pads…It is truly a thing of wonder that that generation hasn’t turned out like an entire company that walked into an ambush in Viet Nam or World War Two –A few broken and necrotic bodies shambling after sustaining myriad injuries playing ”No equipment tackle (football)”.
In the event of no equipment football, there are two sorts of personalities who will prosper. The rest will slowly fail.
There are the really big guys.
Then there are the really crazy guys. The crazy guys made you wonder what was going through their minds when they were fighting a tackle- was it truly life and death? It certainly seemed that way!
I was pretty well know as a defensive demon and was considered one of the “the crazies”, a term which we cultivated in hopes of intimidating our rivals…from eight- or even a dozen blocks over.
And, okay, just to be clear: I was designed “Defense” at the outset because we discovered pretty early on that I couldn’t effectively throw or run an offense, nor could I reliably catch anything thrown at me. I wasn’t even good at gathering the ball into my gut and running with it. The “holes” just didn’t seem to open for me. It was as though there was some sort of magic and I wasn’t privy to the good parts.
So, I found my niche in “Defense”. And, while I was pressed into service as an offensive guard or tackle at times, I discovered that I was really good at certain parts of this; the rush for the quarterback- The attempt to do so much damage to the very structure of the play that it must fail. And the best (and simplest– and I was nothing if not simple!) was to go through the offensive lineman and tackle the quarterback!
Now we come back to sheer size.
Larry Hughes was 6’5 at least, 250 and all muscle- and around 16 or 17! For some reason he had discovered that he could not throw, nor catch, nor run with the ball- though with his size I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t have been successful. But those are questions best answered long ago or left alone.
So it happened that he was opposite me. He was the Offensive lineman that I must beat in order to get to the QB.
Well, I might have been a “crazy”, but I was only 2/3 this guy’s size. I spent all day bouncing off Larry Hughes, never getting into the quarterback’s face or even line of sight.
We got killed that day.
One good thing did happen though that day: Larry took pity on me and told me that he respected my never giving up and making him work for every play.
He didn’t have to do that it was nice of him to say that.
We later became roommates and there were two full flights of wooden stairs leading up to our place.
I already knew that he had a “thing” about only going “number two” at home.
I heard the thundering up the stairs like he was being chased by lust-crazed elk and his labored breathing but, to this day I am still embarrassed that it took me so long to realize that I was between him and the bathroom.
I was swept aside like a tsunami moves a beach hut.
And every winter, like a clockwork festival we awaited the football games that came on the weekends – because by then, school was in session. We crammed as many games in as possible, rescheduling games around one guy‘s dentist appointment or ear exam, somehow fitting three full games into one Saturday (because “Sunday” meant: church”) and “Football” on TV- one or even two games were televised (lucky you!).
Around then, I remember that the annual Mudbowl was played in a depression of Mang Park (the land donated by some earlier rich guy in our community). Understand that there was no exact date of the mudbowl. It was “convened” when the weather and other conditions were propitious!
And, very specific conditions needed to prevail: November rains (or snow) then some unseasonably warm weather. It would then follow that those rains or snowmelt would stand in a small and shallow “lake” with grass was submerged, and thus, the Mudbowl was presented.
Each year we showed up in pickup trucks because even with so few years and so little experience, we knew that we didn’t want to walk home dripping mud and tripping over errant clods; nor did we want to get into our own cars and get them incredibly muddy. So. We all arrived in pick up trucks’ beds.
This was not a game to be won, but to celebrate life!
It was not a contest, so much as an ersatz festival. We all knew that it would be a week, maybe two and all this mud would be hard, frozen and football for us was pretty much over. So this was the season’s final series of games. A send off, if you will.
The game progressed as any might with first and second and third downs and then the really fun “punt” in 6” of standing water.
Because we didn’t wish to tie up our 11th man, holding the ball where it needed to be so it could be kicked, there were a lot of “quick kicks”, which you don’t see much these days.
In 1974, the game went forward as one might expect until “halftime”.
Somehow, I had not been involved in any tackles, nor much blocking …nor much of anything. As near as I could figure, I was the only one out of roughly 30-34 guys playing that day who had not fallen into the brown morass that we had stirred up, playing in the declension of two small hills that created that pocket of …“wet”.
Weirdly, I was the only one…“clean”.
We all stopped playing and as the fog of war lifted slowly for some, more slowly for others they all began looking at me.
“How are you still clean?”
“Have you been sitting out the plays?”
“No of course not. Look at the bottoms of my pants legs; my shoes. They’re filthy!
“Yeah but you’re not!
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Larry Hughes picked me up and began walking me toward the brown swamp that we’d created.
I struggled.
He leaned down and whispered: “It’s better this way. I know that you’re no slacker, but we don’t want them thinking that you’ve been slackin’ do we?”
I had no chance to answer. I was deposited into the deepest of the mud and muck.
Everyone cheered.
I had no real problems with getting all mucked up. I thought that it might be cool if I could get through the entire game mostly clean, but what the hell, we were here to get filthy.
Our Moms shook their heads, clucked their tongues as we trudged back into the house already knowing that the shoes were to be left outside and all the clothes were to be dropped into a paperbag which would go directly out to the garbage-to be whisked away on Wednesday-garbage day.
“Those filthy clothes are not going in my washing machine! Say goodbye to that shirt and pants!”
We all mounted the beds of Toyota and Datsun pickups at the end of the game and were dropped off at our homes. Girlfriends were driving.
And, I never forgot Larry’s kindness; the kindness of dropping me into the muck. Because if I hadn’t gotten filthy as everyone else had, then, I’d have been “different”: and different then…as now…can be dangerous. Plus I already had Mike and Pat living five houses away!
