The Football Car

Jimmy, very good to hear from you again. I still am having to "put up" with your ornery ole brother, Gerald Byron, more than I want to. I hope you saw his blog.
These stories have been great for all concerned and they have spread even further than our expectations. Your words, "the values Coach insisted we learn and hold dear have guided me well", are so very true for all of us. I can think of many incidences in my life of coming to a crossroads and saying to myself, "what would Billy Portis or Coach Ward have done in this situation" and then taking the road less traveled to get to a goal. I think the values we learned from Coach paved the way to make our decision making a lot easier. I have been an " exercise nut" for many years but remember when my playing days at HHS and UT were over and thinking "thank goodness" I don't have to exercise anymore, then waking up one day and realizing, Coach Ward would be disappointed in my decision. He definitely changed my life with the lessons that he taught.
On a lighter note. I have a little story on our good friend and ambassador Johnny Radford. I only hope that his sweet little wife Trudy does not "get wind" of this story. Seems that the Mustang bus was rolling through Nashville on the way to Donaldson for the bowl game and Coach had warned the team not to be hanging out the windows and hollering at the female persuasion. Well, it seems that young Mr. Radford either did not hear this warning or elected to ignore it being over come with passion once sighting some of the Nashville beauties. Word has it that the quarterback was out the window to his waist, hollering at the cuties, when Coach came down the isle and grabbed him by the waist and started pulling him back in the bus. Johnny kept swatting at his hands thinking it was none other than a teammate. Well when Coach had had enough of this he jerked him back in and the look on Johnny's face as my brother Tommy says "was priceless". Would give a $100 bill to have seen that look.
JK, again so good to hear from you, and thanks for the kind words for Coach Welch and Ms. Johnnie(who are still going strong by the way). He added a great dimension to the teams he helped coached. He was about as tough as Coach Ward. The two of them together were awesome.
Little Paul and Bobby have expresed their gratitude several times for our efforts but I have explained to them that this has been a two way street for all of us.
Go Mustangs
Scotty Portis (Mustang 1955-58)

Scotty,first off a big thank you to you and your son for putting this together and thank you to Johnny Radford for forwarding it to me. I spent a lot of yesterday going through the stories and all the memories. It's hard to single out one or two but I have a few that stand out. I played on the varsity 65,66,67 and junior high the three years before that. I was fortunate to get to see some really good ballplayers and to be on some great teams. A few of my memories are:The football car. It's amazing in today's frame of reference that Coach would allow a high school kid to be responsible to drive a school owned vehicle to take people home but if not for that old car some of us might not have had the opportunity to play ball. In that old 55 Chevy the Jackson highway, Browning highway, and Lexington highway gangs all came together. In today's speak I'm sure that you could say that giving responsibility builds character and trust but for those of us who drove it as I did my senior year it was much more primal. If we screwed up Coach would kill us. No questions asked. But as a scrawny seventh grader it was a prime time to get to ride home with the "big guys"."Between the dummies" has been referenced to but I remember those today very clearly both the one on ones and the two on ones. I remember counting down the lines to see who you were going against and if your match was Johnnie Compton, the Wallace brothers, the Hall brothers, or many others your heart would be pounding. I also remember the feeling you had if you stuck your head in and at least got off a decent lick on one of the big guys Coach would holler out " way to go little man" or something to that effect and suddenly despite the fact that your shoulder was numb and your vision was fuzzy it was all worth it.Coach wasn't too big on trick plays so we didn't have too many but in 1966 we put one in. We would break the huddle and Lender Pearson ( I think) would be in the backfield and upon Tim's signal Lender would break and run toward the sideline like he was trying to get off the field, (too many men) Coach Ward on the sideline yelling at him and waving him over. At the last moment Lender would turn down field and the plan would be to pass him the ball while he was on the dead run. I can't remember if we ever ran it in a game or if we did if it worked but I remember running it over and over in practice and Coach Ward laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. Beat the hell out of running 32 belly over and over again.Last in case anyone ever doubted whether Coach Ward cared for his players should have been on the bus in 1966 when we went up to play Portland in The Bowl game that was the first overnight trip in recent school history. On the way up Coach came down the aisle and gave everyone two or three bucks. You see we were on our on for breakfast the next morning and he wanted to make sure everyone was covered. That simple act has stayed with me over the years as I am sure there might have been a few that wouldn't have gotten breakfast otherwise. That and who will ever forget our return to Huntingdon the next day. Thank you for the opportunity to share a few memories. The values Coach insisted we learn and hold dear have guided me well. All the best to the Ward family. Also I want to thank Coach Welch. He and Mrs. Welch had a lot of positive influence on us kids. Too bad we never get that many chances to say thank you.Regards,JK
Jim KirkseySchlumberger Carbon Servicesc/o Illinois Geological SurveyChampaign,Illinois713-614-1847 cell