Yesterday, I did a short five-mile trail run in the morning with Digger. Later in the day I had a PT session and then prepared a stew, cornbread and brownies for Monday night football. I hosted Secretariat, Chris Turney, Lon and Perry. Chris brought over a fantastic Dip, chips and Alaskan pale beer which we all enjoyed.
Today, Secretariat and I are planning to hit the Western States trail for about a 10 mile run.
The rest of this post is devoted to Coach Rutherford who left this recently.
Our 1957 team was called by the sportswriters as one of the best high school football teams in the state of Michigan’s history. That season, I was All- City as right guard on offense and middle guard on defense: and was awarded a football scholarship to the University of Detroit. Ed Budde played offensive and defensive tackle next to me, was named All-American and later became a star at Michigan State University and All-Pro for the Kansas City Chiefs. Playing next to Ed was Tom Smith who played offensive and defensive end. Tom was named All-State and played for Dan Devine at the University Missouri and played in a number of Orange bowls. Larry Hudas, the fastest white boy in Detroit, was a running back who went on to play at Michigan State University. Incidentally Larry was All- State that year.
During that season, our closest score was something like 35 to 0 and Coach Rutherford would freely substitute his players by halftime. I was riding high thinking about this year’s Goodfellow game and then something dire happened. Unfortunately, one of the reserve players Ed Hood was supposed to get a physical prior to the season. For some reason, Ed didn’t do that and instead forged a doctor’s signature. Our athletic director caught the forgery and to make a long story short we had to forfeit the games that he played. Ed, later on, received a football scholarship to the University Michigan and became an attorney. There was controversy. My father quickly and efficiently formed the Denby Dads Club and attempted to get an injunction so that our case could be tried in court before the championship game. He was unable to get an injunction, in time, and our season sadly ended.
Coach Rutherford was small in stature and enormous as a personality. He seemed and was focused and clear about running and managing our football team. I respected him and if he told me to run through a wall, l I would’ve gladly done it. He was a true leader, inspirational and as an adolescent I looked up to him even though he was only 16 years older than me.
My four years at Denby High School was significant and made a lasting impression on me. One major aspect of that impression was coach. After the 1959 season, coach went on to be a coach under Duffy Daugherty at Michigan State University. I miss you coach.
As some of you might have guessed, my interest in athletics started before high school. For me, keep moving is easy.
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