Punt, Pass, Kick?

I’m not sure when I first got interested in football.  It probably had a lot to do with my dad taking me to the high school games at Tooele High; he really enjoyed watching them.  I was more interested in playing in the end zone with my friends.  I fondly remember the neighborhood touch and tackle games over at the Babe Ruth park, across Vine Street to the south about a block.  I found that I was pretty good at throwing, punting, and kicking.

We found out that the Ford Motor Company sponsored a competition for ages 8 through 13 called “Punt, Pass, and Kick.”  (My dear old Grandpa Gus Russell, my best friend and funny man, called it “Pus, Pant, and Kick.”)  You had one try in each discipline, to send the football as far and as accurately as you could down a white line.  The distance sideways off the line was subtracted from the distance down the line.  I was only 7 years old at the time, but they let me compete anyway.  I didn’t win, but it got me thinking about the coming years.

Somehow my dad arranged with his good friend and very studly, masculine Dean Stringham, the coach of the high school varsity team, to get me some private lessons.  I worked hard and got better and better.  So at 8 years old, I competed again—and won first place for my age group!  I remember the prize was a cool Chicago Bears jacket (they were the sponsors that year), with the felt body and leather sleeves and the team colors and insignia.  I wore it often and proudly.

The next year, at 9 years old, I won again!  I can still remember some of the numbers:  a score of 69 feet for the place kick, 54 feet for the pass, and I think something like 59 feet for the punt.  Again, the award was an NFL jacket, only this year it was a San Franciso 49ers jacket of the same style as the previous year.  And a new surprise–this year, there was a next level of competition, a district level in Salt Lake City at the Salt Lake Bees baseball park.  My parents and I drove in, and I did my best, but had no clue until at the banquet, when they announced I had won first place for 9-year-olds and an all-expense paid trip with my parents to San Francisco to compete at the next level!

Soon we were on a jet plane (my first!) to the city by the bay.  I remember it was United, and they let me go up in the cockpit for a few minutes.  We were accompanied by the Allreds, owners of the local Bonneville Motors, the Ford dealership.  Their son Scott came along.  This was 1965, at the peak of Beatlemania, and he had this blond hairdo just like the Beatles, plus the tight stretch Levi’s and the thick two pairs of socks inside his Converse sneakers.  He was pretty cocky and I didn’t have much to do with him.

We stayed at the Hyatt Hotel in the suburb of Burlingame.  The first night we got to have a fancy dinner at the hotel with the 49ers team!  I will never forget that special experience.  The player at our table was Clark Miller, a graduate of Utah State University and a defensive end.  I remember he was nice.  We also had our picture taken with wide receiver Dave Parks.   I got a ton of souvenirs, including an autographed 49ers football and a full 49ers uniform (both of which I still have).  But then I found out that the competition the next day was in the full uniform!  That was a new experience to try to punt, pass, and kick with that very restrictive suit on.

The competition was at halftime in the famous old Kezar stadium in Golden Gate Park.  The 49ers were playing their big rivals the Los Angeles Rams.  We did show up early to get some practice in on the field.  I mainly remember seeing 13 year old boys that were huge and I swear had been shaving for years.  I think one of them place kicked it from the 50 yard line and made it through the goalpost!  Well, I was so freaked out and nervous that I did terribly.  In fact, I think my punt went backwards over my head!  Remember, I was only 9 years old.  Needless to say, I placed third out of three 9 year olds.  We got into fancy convertible cars and were chauffeured around the outside of the stadium as we sat up on the backs of the cars and waved to everyone.  But it was quite the experience nonetheless.

Each year I kept trying to compete, but was overtaken by some other very talented boys.  The best I ever did again was 2^nd place, a silver trophy, in 1968.  Jim Dreitzler, another boy, a good kid, not one of my best friends, took first several years.

In 7^th grade we had the opportunity to play Little League football.  But the 7^th and 8^th graders were grouped together, and there was quite a size difference.  I was pretty tall, maybe 5 feet 9 inches or so, but skinny, maybe around 135 pounds—not to mention a year or more younger than everyone else (my birthday was at the very end of the school year).

The coach was gruff and not friendly.  He asked me what position I wanted to play, and I said kicker because of my talents there.  He said, “We already have a kicker.  What else?”  I wildly searched my brain for an answer.  I didn’t really know the positions that well.  I knew that an end went out for passes, and I really enjoyed our sandlot games when I defended the end and got good at intercepting passes—so I thought that defensive end, like Clark Miller played, was the person that defended the passes!  So that’s what I said.  What a shock to find out that I played on the front line and rushed the quarterback and running backs to keep the play turned to the inside!  Plus, he also told me to play right guard on offense! What a disappointment, to be a lineman up front instead of one of the “skill” positions.  And, I was not very aggressive, so I found myself shying away from hitting that halfback or fullback head on.  And I can’t count how many times I got pancaked on my butt by players so much larger than me. 

It was a miserable experience, and after that year, I was pretty much done with the game.  And so ended the football career of the Punt, Pass, and Kick champion.