Barefooted Football
by Twig Branch
One event that I remember vividly was the little peewee football team that coach Bo Holmes organized and coached. It was composed of boys twelve years and younger in age. The response from the boys was quick and positive. In fact, the excitement spilled over and filled all the people in town and every body got interested immediately.
It didn’t take long for the word to get out and spread like wildfire, Kosciusko had challenged Sallis to field a team. So that they could play us in a game and beat the stew out of us. Or so they thought.
Boy howdy! That went over like a lead balloon. It riled coach Holmes up and us boys as well and the entire community.
The high school team of Sallis Wildcats and Kosciusko Whippets, had been playing each other for years despite the Goliath and David comparison of the two. The city school, Kosciusko was probably three times or more the size of Sallis, a rural school. But in spirit and determination, Sallis could rival any of the larger schools and beat most of them.
Coach Holmes had a very successful back ground in football. He had been a high school coach of Kosciusko and Sallis and had a good record. However, his family was increasing and he decided to take a job with the postal service as a rural mail carrier. Therefore he was not teaching or coaching in any school system.
Looking back on this it seemed to me like he missed coaching, so when this challenge came he saw it as an opportunity to coach some more even though it was with younger boys on the pee wee level.
And coach, he did. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation of the upcoming game. There was a good turn out of boys to prepare for the game. Coach Holmes adjusted his time of the mail delivery route so that he could be available to coach the team during the activity period during the school day then the boys could still catch the school bus that took them home in the afternoon. The plan worked out well and the team was shaping up nicely.
There were many names on the squad some of which were: Kuykendall, Cain, Holmes, Branch, Culpepper, Smith, Dickerson, Porter, Crowder, Robertson, Donald, Abels, Burrell, Johnson, Aldy, Dean, Gober, Humes, Edwards, Waddell, Cochran, Young, Henning, Burnley, and others.
Our offensive players were designed to operate from a short punt formation basically. Often though we would spread a Kuykendall out wide right and spread a Cain out side left. Branch at tail back to handle the ball, and a full back next to the tailback. Our backs had lots of speed and toughness. Our favorite plays were end sweeps, power plays up the middle, and double reverses with either Kuykendall or Cain ending up with the ball going way wide around the end.
Coach drilled us until we were quite good and adept handling the ball and executing our assignments. Our defense lined up basically in a six players front with two linebackers behind them and backed up by three defensive backers. We were getting ready for the big game and excitement was high for everybody.
Game day arrived and the Sallis “Pee Wees” Wildcats loaded onto a bus to go to Kosciusko for the much-anticipated game. The morale was high all the way on the bus. There was singing, cheering, and yelling. We were all fired up and ready to get the game going.
The bus pulled onto the grounds near the stands and bleachers and parked so we could unload. Some of the Kosciusko students and fans were watching us as we unloaded from the bus and walked out to the game field. As we walked by them they began the taunting and belittling, trying to intimidate us. Hey Sallis did ya’ll bring your milk buckets with you? Where’d you get them overalls? Sears and Roebuck? Did ya’ll ride up here on your horses? Don’t ya’ll have shoes down there? Why are ya’ll barefooted? Is it true that ya’ll practiced with real pigskin? How long did it take for ya’ll to push that ole bus up here? Did ya’ll bring your biscuits and molasses for after game snack? Is your Momma coming to wipe your tears away? On and on it went but coach had told us ahead of time not to let it bother us. That they would try to tease us and get us upset. Just wait for the kick off. Then we’ll get after them and see who’s intimidated. After a short warm up period we were ready to play the game. All of the Sallis boys would play barefooted. We had no athletic shoes. The only shoes we had were work shoes, or to go to school shoes. Our feet were tough as leather though cause we were used to going barefoot.
The game turned into a rout. The Sallis Wildcats had the Kosciusko Whippets on the run. We were turning them crazy with our double reverse and then power smashes up the middle. We had scored several touchdowns early and were beating them good. But, they finally got loose on a long run to score their only touch down. It was my fault they scored. I missed a tackle on about the fifty-yard line. As I reached my arms out to grab and tackle the Wiles boy, my toes stumbled on a clump of dirt and grass and I lost balance and missed him. He eluded me and ran for a long touchdown for Kosciusko. I’ll never forget that missed tackle. I still remember it. But Sallis won about twenty-four to six. We didn’t hear any more taunting or jokes about Sallis because David had slain Goliath.