Blog
Saturday, July 4, 2009
1968- Murfreesboro Central at Lawrence Co.
Murfreesboro Central was coming to town Friday night, ranked number one in the world. Actually, I know they were ranked high but not sure now what it was. Number one in the world sounds about right, though.
In my sophomore year, 1967, Lawrence County had traveled to Murfreesboro and surprised everyone, including ourselves, by defeating them 18-14. Now they were coming in for revenge and we were ready for them. Truth be known, we were scared to death.
I was the QB at LCHS from 1966-1969, having taken over my freshmen year when my now brother-in-law broke his arm. I then promptly broke my hand in the next to last game of the season.
On the day of the Murfreesboro game my best friend and our starting wingback/defensive back, Jackie Davis, picked me up early in his 1952 Buick to go to the game. Those of you who have watched macho football players over the years would have trouble understanding our conversation as we talked of the many ways they were going to absolutely beat us to death.
The coach at LCHS, Leonard Staggs, is still legendary to a lot of people in this area, friend and foe alike. I spent many hours visiting and talking with him after I graduated and he had retired. He passed away quite a few years ago and is one of the few people I really, really have missed after they are gone.
The dressing room was particularly quiet that night. Coach Staggs preferred quiet, anyway, but it was like a wake that night. He told us to get ready, we were going out early.
We lined up for calisthenics, went through some other drills, and had just about completed our entire warmup when here they came. We had seen the Tigers show up on two Greyhound buses (which was awesome in itself, not having to ride a school bus) earlier and now they came out of the gym's visitor dressing room door at the top of the stadium and walked single file to the ramp leading down to the field. We just stopped and stared. There must have been a thousand of them, all bigger than houses. As they came running down the ramp it sounded like thunder and I think some of our younger players may have peed in their pants.
Our team of 29 players watched as they lined up for exercises and spread out over the entire south end of the field, the closed end of the natural bowl where our stadium was then located. It was eerily quiet in the stadium, too, since there weren't but a few fans in the stand as it was still about an hour before kickoff.
Then came what legends are made of. Coach Staggs blew his whistle and said "First-team offense, huddle up on the five going into the end zone. Coach Hamlett, give me a defense over there." We had no idea what was happening.
He said "Gentleman, we are going to run five plays and you are going to put the ball in the end zone on every play. Do you hear me!"
"Yes, Sir!!" As I type this the hair is once again standing up on the back of my neck. We ran a straight dive to Mark Lindsey, our fullback, and he knocked the LB into the end zone and never slowed down. We then ran a sweep and pulled our all-state guard, Steve Cone, out in front and he hit everything he came close to as Bob Wilkerson went in untouched. And so it went for five plays. By the time we were through there wasn't a one of us that wasn't ready to whip the world, right then and there. Coach Staggs then said to turn around and look at your opponent.
It was several years later before I understood the full extent of what Coach Staggs did that night. When I arrived at Austin Peay in 1970 I ran into one of the Murfreesboro players who became a good friend of mine. His first comments to me when he found out who I was and where I was from:
"We came down to little Lawrenceburg, didn't even know where it was, and came out and saw that little bunch of players wadded up down there on your end of the field and thought 'Man, this is going to be easy". Then a few moments later we heard this tremendous racket, looked down the field, and ya'll were SCRIMMAGING!! The noise of ya'll hitting each other in that empty stadium, with every sound echoing down that hollow...and then you turned around and stared us down. It was all over. We were beat."
Final score: Lawrence County 13 - Murfreesboro Central 7
Legends are legends for a reason. If you ever hear anyone talk about Leonard Staggs, he is a legend.
Join with CoachT Plus members in our Open Discussion Forum as we solve the world's problems, both large and small.
Posted by CoachT at 12:00 PM · 5316 Views · COMMENTS
In my sophomore year, 1967, Lawrence County had traveled to Murfreesboro and surprised everyone, including ourselves, by defeating them 18-14. Now they were coming in for revenge and we were ready for them. Truth be known, we were scared to death.
I was the QB at LCHS from 1966-1969, having taken over my freshmen year when my now brother-in-law broke his arm. I then promptly broke my hand in the next to last game of the season.
On the day of the Murfreesboro game my best friend and our starting wingback/defensive back, Jackie Davis, picked me up early in his 1952 Buick to go to the game. Those of you who have watched macho football players over the years would have trouble understanding our conversation as we talked of the many ways they were going to absolutely beat us to death.
The coach at LCHS, Leonard Staggs, is still legendary to a lot of people in this area, friend and foe alike. I spent many hours visiting and talking with him after I graduated and he had retired. He passed away quite a few years ago and is one of the few people I really, really have missed after they are gone.
The dressing room was particularly quiet that night. Coach Staggs preferred quiet, anyway, but it was like a wake that night. He told us to get ready, we were going out early.
We lined up for calisthenics, went through some other drills, and had just about completed our entire warmup when here they came. We had seen the Tigers show up on two Greyhound buses (which was awesome in itself, not having to ride a school bus) earlier and now they came out of the gym's visitor dressing room door at the top of the stadium and walked single file to the ramp leading down to the field. We just stopped and stared. There must have been a thousand of them, all bigger than houses. As they came running down the ramp it sounded like thunder and I think some of our younger players may have peed in their pants.
Our team of 29 players watched as they lined up for exercises and spread out over the entire south end of the field, the closed end of the natural bowl where our stadium was then located. It was eerily quiet in the stadium, too, since there weren't but a few fans in the stand as it was still about an hour before kickoff.
Then came what legends are made of. Coach Staggs blew his whistle and said "First-team offense, huddle up on the five going into the end zone. Coach Hamlett, give me a defense over there." We had no idea what was happening.
He said "Gentleman, we are going to run five plays and you are going to put the ball in the end zone on every play. Do you hear me!"
"Yes, Sir!!" As I type this the hair is once again standing up on the back of my neck. We ran a straight dive to Mark Lindsey, our fullback, and he knocked the LB into the end zone and never slowed down. We then ran a sweep and pulled our all-state guard, Steve Cone, out in front and he hit everything he came close to as Bob Wilkerson went in untouched. And so it went for five plays. By the time we were through there wasn't a one of us that wasn't ready to whip the world, right then and there. Coach Staggs then said to turn around and look at your opponent.
It was several years later before I understood the full extent of what Coach Staggs did that night. When I arrived at Austin Peay in 1970 I ran into one of the Murfreesboro players who became a good friend of mine. His first comments to me when he found out who I was and where I was from:
"We came down to little Lawrenceburg, didn't even know where it was, and came out and saw that little bunch of players wadded up down there on your end of the field and thought 'Man, this is going to be easy". Then a few moments later we heard this tremendous racket, looked down the field, and ya'll were SCRIMMAGING!! The noise of ya'll hitting each other in that empty stadium, with every sound echoing down that hollow...and then you turned around and stared us down. It was all over. We were beat."
Final score: Lawrence County 13 - Murfreesboro Central 7
Legends are legends for a reason. If you ever hear anyone talk about Leonard Staggs, he is a legend.
Join with CoachT Plus members in our Open Discussion Forum as we solve the world's problems, both large and small.
