Writing ... As A Way To Participate In, And Remember, Springboro Football

My stepson Adam poses with our former next door neighbor and starter
for the Panthers in 1998 and '99, Jason Anderson.

As a kid, I always hated writing.

Now, strange as it may sound, it’s my therapy. It’s the diversion from a fairly hectic work schedule.

So when I thought about all the ways I could get involved with Springboro football – keeping statistics maybe, or doing the laundry, I don’t know – I decided to do what I enjoy the most.

I can’t tell you how thrilled and honored I am to write about the Panthers this season.

I’ve spent a lifetime around this program. It’s part of who I am.

I thought about all that a week or so ago when I sat in on a team meeting over at Camp Higher Ground, where the Panthers went on a retreat. Head coach Ryan Wilhite does a great job of teaching more than just the fundamentals of football, and this particular meeting was devoted more to personal growth than anything having to do with a blitz or a bomb.

I looked around and saw players who do more than just represent the 2012 Springboro football team. Instead, they represent an entire program that has a loud and proud history.

Dick Mahan led the Boro defense in the early 70s.

Jake Johnson is the newest version of Jim Denney, a wide receiver on the 1982 undefeated Panther football team. Jordan Niccol follows in the footsteps of Dick Mahan, a hard-hitting linebacker in the early 70s. Conrad Lamb will help lead this year’s defense the same way Jason Anderson did in 1998 and ’99.

The faces I saw all inherit a significant history. And they know it, even though there’s no way yet they can fully appreciate it. That won’t come for several years.

I’ve been around for just about all of that history, in some way or another.

I remember the Homecoming Game in 1967 or ’68 when the temperature was like 10 below zero (would a 7-year-old stretch the truth about something like that?) and quarterback Bill Crocker took a hard hit to the head and immediately came out of the game. Word soon spread that Bill’s helmet split right in two and he was on his way to the hospital, a report we immediately accepted as true. Because he didn’t play the next game, we thought he was dead. You’ll be happy to know that Bill Crocker and still alive and well to this day.

I remember the entire 1972 season and how, because the tiny locker room inside the school couldn’t house the entire football team, they instead huddled in a tree-lined area just at the north end of the school. My friends and I would sneak up to the corner edge of that area so we could hear all the coaches as they shouted directions at the players, who all looked so BIG. Head coach Don Ross never shouted, but then he didn’t need to. When he talked, everyone listened.

In a strange twist of fate, my family moved to Franklin when I was in junior high school, so I never got to play for the varsity the way I’d always dreamed I would. But I wasn’t done with Springboro football, and soon I took on a role I never dreamed I’d have.

I became sports editor of what was known then as The Star Free Press, which directly competed with The Franklin Chronicle in reporting all the events in Carlisle, Franklin and Springboro. People read newspapers back then, and the healthy competition between the two papers made for great exposure for Springboro football.

I remember the first time I met head coach Bruce Smith, whose father Everett had been one of my pee wee coaches years ago (a legend, by the way, the George Halas of Springboro football). He kept saying his team would go 1-9, maybe 2-8 if they were lucky. And he sounded serious.

Bruce Smith, head coach of the Panthers
from 1974-86 and then again in '88 and '89

Right after that I met Dave Stuckey, who was a 27-year-old assistant coach at the time. He smirked and said, with every degree of respect to Bruce, “don’t listen to him. He always says that.” The Panthers were 8-2 in ’81, then undefeated the season after that. I quickly learned that Bruce was the master at working any angle that would give him an advantage. And, considering how successful his teams were, he was good at it. 

My writing career lasted until 1987. After that, when I went to Springboro football games, I was a fan in the stands, believing that my writing days were over.

I saw the ’91 team, with Stuckey as head coach, win 9 of its 10 games. I saw the first-ever game in what is now known as Care Flight field, in 1996 against Carlisle, the school Springboro had opened the season against ever since the program started in 1965. And then because my family lived next door to Jason Anderson’s family, I saw a lot of the games in ’98 and ’99. Though my view from the top of the stands was much different than what I’d ever known, they were good times.

Rodney Roberts became head coach in 2002, which gave me two years to go to Boro games. Not only did I know of quite a few players because my stepson had played football with them over the years, now I had a fellow Wildcat in Panther land. Though I didn’t know him well, we nonetheless shared a bond. And when he enjoyed success, I proclaimed it was because he was Franklin, even though he had some great players named Carnes and Vanover and some kid named Jake who I think has done a thing or two since high school.

When I wrote the book, “The Heart of the Panthers,” I did so because I had this huge longing to record some of Springboro’s football history. As the town grew bigger and bigger, that little town we used to know has all but disappeared. The present day scenes feature the Panthers under the direction of Rodney Roberts.

The 2012 Panthers after their final pre-season
scrimmage against Franklin.

And I figured that would close out my writing career officially. What else was there to do?

Then Facebook brought an entire reading audience to my living room computer. 

I created a page devoted to “The Heart of the Panthers,” where I could post photographs, write new developments – what’s more – get instant feedback.

That was great, but still something was lacking. I didn’t have the press credentials that gave me a real reason to ask questions of the coaches and players.

Now, with this position with The Springboro Sun, I do.

I’m not a coach, so I’m not around to say who should be on the field and what play ought to be run. I’m too old to play quarterback. So this is the best way I know to be part of the program. I’ll help create scrapbook material, and put it in context of Springboro’s overall story. 

Are you ready for some football? Yeah, me too.