TupaTalk: Reflecting on 50 years since an unlikely championship
I heard this week from an All-State lineman.
It’s been 50 years since Dean last pulled on the Green & Gold of our school colors and shook the ground — not literally but figuratively — with the pounding of his legs on the soft green grass of our grid battlefield.
Fifty years.
The players of that ’72 team of destiny gathered last month in Utah to commemorate their achievement — one still ringed by echoes of glory in the passing decades of Utah football.
No one gave Kearns High a flutter of a chance to win the first 4A title in state history. The school was only six years old then. Rimmed around the Salt Lake valley by traditional grid powerhouses, Kearns was the poor cousin on the west side of Greater Salt Lake Metropolitan Area.
The two-lane highway — 4700 South — provided the main artery through which the lifeblood of Kearns drove every day to work and back.
That two-lane highway has since grown six-lanes wide — which is still insufficient at rush hour.
Back in ’72, Kearns still enjoyed a sense of isolation from the spreading population and business expansion.
Kearns kids didn’t know they weren’t supposed to succeed on a tall level.
The football team didn’t care the sports community disdained it as an also-ran heading into the season. Dean was about the only “name” player, on a state basis, on the roster.
But, legendary coach Rank Klekas — who had less than five years to live — rolled the dice and installed a true triple option offense. It was a brilliant move, maximizing the talents of hard-nosed senior quarterback, a quartet of rugged running backs, one that would break loose for 1,000 yards, and a heady receiver corps.
Klekas and his staff were way ahead of their time — they didn’t prepare according to the other team’s strengths and weaknesses. They focused on our team’s strengths and weaknesses I don’t remember any sense of awe among the Cougars regardless of whether they faced the No. 1-ranked team or the rest of the pack.
Every game was an opportunity for victory. Records were disregarded.
The team camaraderie remained mellow and rich.
I stood on the periphery as a team manager.
My closest contact with the players occurred during post-practice shower time. My job was to hand out towels.
A coach, sometimes Klekas, sometimes an assistant, clamped down on me to give out only one towel per player. But, when the coaches weren’t there, the sweaty, grass-stained warriors — especially the seniors — leaned on me for two or three towels. It was a quandary I never solved.
The odyssey — which had begun for me in late May when I made a sincere and determined effort to try to earn a uniform — ended with a state trophy, in what many experts during the years have considered the biggest playoff upset in Utah history.
That was 50 years ago.
Last month, the surviving gladiators gathered once more in heartfelt fellowship. I didn’t make it, but I’m certain the once strong legs for some of them now limp. The hair once deep brown, red or blond has faded in the weathering of life. They have created families and brought up children and now wear the appellation of “Grandpa” has proudly as they wore the letter-jackets of state kings.
Fifty years ago.
On championship day, Kearns defeated Provo — quarterbacked by future BYU and Houston Oilers quarterback Gifford Nielsen — and some other college talent to be.
It was, in some ways, a hallowed time — almost too ideal to have ever really been real.
But, it happened. It took place. There was a time and a place when a group of young men and coaches blended together to make an impossible quest come true.
Why fate let me share in it, I don’t know.
I’m just grateful.
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Applause for Bartlesville Sports Commission
I want to develop this thought later, but I am simply amazed when I think the the sports opportunities Bartlesville has experienced the past quarter-century.
A lot of it happened due to the Bartlesville Sports Commission.
But, not all.
These blockbuster events proved the major league talent Bartlesville boasts in organizers, administrators, indefatigable workers, community dedication and those who dream big dreams and found a way to make them come true.
With that kind of resume, who knows what other activities in the future will fire the imagination of some of the brightest and most capable people in Bartlesville and galvanize action.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Tupa: Reflecting on 50 years since unlikely state title in Utah
