I received a newspaper clipping that appeared in the Chicago Daily News in Sept., 1945, from Clare and Ken Scamen of Morris. The headline reads "Morris long on players but short on cleats.
The story, in short, told of coach C.W. Wallace taking over the weak sister in the Corn Belt Conference. During this era, Morris was considered mainly a basketball town. Thirty boys turned out the previous season for football and were winless. However, during the '45 campaign, 64 players turned out. That was great except for one thing, the school did have enough shoes for everyone.
About 40 boys had football shoes, a dozen or more had gymnasium sneakers. Some even wore street shoes and some had GI boots. One player, according to the article, said, "If we don't get football shoes pretty soon, we'll go out there bare-footed and Morris high school will be known as "Wallace's Hill Billies."
Actually according to Morris Community High School records, the coach's name was spelled C.W. Wallis.
The Corn Belt Conference was made up of Pontiac, Fairbury, Normal, U.High and Morris. The Redskins opened the season with a 6-0 win over Mendota,then beat Dwight 39-0. The 'Skins dropped the next three games to Normal 13-0. Pontiac 40-7 and Lemont 13-6. The Maroon and White then beat Trinity of Bloomington 12-7 , but lost the final two games to Fairbury 6-0 and University High 28-7.
There were two photos with the article and the players in the two shots were; Ed Osmonson, Wayne Tesdal, Stanley Kopczick, and Harry McCormick, Eddie McNabb and Coach Wallace.
Finally the new shoes did not help much as the team finished with three and
five losses.
Some of the veteran players on the 1945 team were; Bob Bell, Louis Cheshareck Norm Jorstad, Ronnie Younker, Ed McNabb, George Tabler, Wayne Schaible, Ed Osmonson, Harold McCormick, Jerry Donahoe, Dick McTague, Robert (Butch) Waters and Don Neushwander,Sr.
I was going through my records and checking how Morris has done in years gone by. During the 40s, Morris had 31 wins, 47 losses and 3 ties. The 50s were 24-57-2, the 60s 67-28-4 and the 70s 50-47. The victories really started to pick up in the 80s as the Skins were 94-18. The 90s they were 96-19 and from 2000 up to this week, Morris is 95-22.
The Redskins are 6-4 for the year with a game at home against Mendota Saturday at l p.m. Morris and Mendota have met 27 times over the years with Mendota leading the series 15 wins to 12 for Morris. The last time the two teams engaged in gridiron play was in 1975, with Mendota winning 32-0.
The Trojans have had some great teams especially in the 50s when they had Bill and Jim Brown and Ray Jauch. Bill Brown later played at Illinois and was a star running back for Minnesota Vikings. Jauch was a
standout in the Canadian league. Other standouts for Mendota that ring a bell to certain people were Howie Becker,later great coach at Wilmington High School and Jerry Auchstetter, standout coach at Geneva High School.
Mendota has defeated Morris seven straight times, with the Redskins winning 19-0 in 1949. Morris was paced by two little All Staters in Jim Cryder and Bob Brayton. Jerry McTague was a standout at linebacker and fullback on that team.
The football Guru's picking the NFL games had a bad weekend of picking winners for this column.
Professor Don Neushwander, Jr., Nick (All Business) Vidito and this writer were all 8 right and 5 wrong. Tony (The Wonder Boy) Darin had an off week and ended up 7 right and 6 wrong. Due to a mix up, we did not have a guest selector this week, so we
will have two this week.
Up to date totals reveal Tony and Nick with the best mark at 61 right and 27 wrong, while Neush and I are both 60 and 28. The guest record is 52 and 23. We all picked the Bears and they needed that win. We agreed too much, by selecting Detroit, Indy, Jets, Dallas, Houston, Bears, San Diego, Arizona, the Giants and New Orleans. Nick selected Minnesota, the rest picked Green Bay.
The Bears host Arizona Sunday at Noon and then need to rest quickly, because they play a Thursday night game at San Francisco on November 12th.
Good Luck to our area prep football teams this weekend.