The Night The Tigers Got Out Of Their Cage

“It would have taken a dinosaur to knock down those doors, but—unfortunately for ‘The Coach’—he was line-bred back only to the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch!”

by Don Kenton Henry

It was a crisp “Indian Summer” evening, and a full moon hung over the playing field like a white china plate. It and an Indiana October sky of 1969 had the best seats in the house for our homecoming game with arch-rival Blackford County. They were an undefeated, perennial state football powerhouse known for crushing their opponents by fifty points or more with their “All-State” offensive and defensive lines. Their reputation was so fearsome they didn’t require a mascot and were simply referred to as, dreaded, “Blackford.”

My team, the Peru High School “Tigers,” had compiled a less-than-stellar record of one and six coming into tonight’s game. We were a “rag-tag” band of math majors and merit scholars better suited for academic game shows than “blood and guts” on the gridiron. Our quarterback would one day be a state appellate court judge; our running back—my wife’s psychotherapist. Perhaps the most brilliant and enterprising among us was our center, Bob. He became a bio-chemist by way of Purdue and patented a chemical which—when added to raw sewage—made it smell like perfectly good tacos. Bob would come to claim he had sold large quantities to the city of Tijuana, Mexico allowing him to retire early. Though we came to refer to him as the “Ron Popeil of Poo” at all future meetings of the Rotary, we remained skeptical. Years later, walking across the border from San Diego, I was alternately confused and convinced.

Trailing only 24 points (24-0) almost mid-way through the game, we were playing well above our heads. Suffice it to say, we were in desperate need of a hero—any hero! We couldn’t afford to be picky. And that was lucky because, sitting on the bench, weighing one hundred three pounds in full pads, I was definitely in disguise as far as football heroes go. I wore size thirteen shoes at one end of my five-foot-six-inch frame and a twenty-four-inch head at the other—appendages you would typically find on an NBA draft pick, not a “walk-on” from the speech team. My head, in fact, was so big that, until tonight’s game, I had gone the entire season without a helmet. (Not that it mattered because, at this point, “Coach” had not seen fit to take me off the bench.) However, just before game time, Clem, a toothless, fifty-year veteran of our janitorial staff, pulled me aside and proudly presented me with a helmet he had found, just the day before, in a crate in the far reaches of a storeroom under the stadium bleachers. It was a leather model (one without a face mask) from Knute Rockne’s heyday. “Now you’re official, kid!” were the words from his grinning gums as he handed me the helmet. I squeezed it on and ran to the nearest mirror in the locker room. I fancied I looked just like Ronald Reagan in Knute Rockne, All American, filmed at Notre Dame—only about fifty miles up the road. Aside from the fact neither Ronnie nor George Gip had braces and rubber bands on his teeth, I could make no distinction.

The coach had been trying unsuccessfully all season to persuade me to return to Mrs. Sims’ speech and debate team or, at the very least, convert to “first string” equipment manager. To encourage me, the coach had me—practice in and practice out—serving as a blocking bag for the varsity or as the kick-off and punt returner on special teams. Off the record, the assistant coaches told everybody to “fall back and let Henry take the ball!”

“Wake-up! Wake-up! Henry!” were the first words I heard after Ron, “The Bull” Bullock squeezed my head as though it were in a steel vice while tackling me. The equipment managers kneeled over me, waiving smelling salts beneath my nose. “You only lost ten yards on that return before you went unconscious!” they explained in a failed attempt to encourage me.

Ron "The Bull" Bullock

Having already “lettered” in record time on the speech team, I had yet to prove my athletic prowess and would not be deterred. Game after game, I sat on the bench at the end opposite “Dorfman,” future proctologist to our parents. Dorfman had barely accumulated more PT (playing time) than me, and we both occupied our time on the bench—when meteorological conditions allowed—making mud pies. Mine were of the basic “Smiley Face” type.

“Hey, Henry! … Check this out!” Dorfman pleaded while sliding down the bench and simultaneously displaying, in outstretched hands, another creation resembling an anatomical or biological anomaly.

“Ugh!–What’s the diagnosis this time, Dorfy?”

“Don’t know—the lab results aren’t back yet,” he answered with a somewhat demented gleam in his eye.

It had been twenty-two years since The Tigers had defeated Blackford. Many of our fathers had played on that “Cinderella” squad back in ’47, and it was with the greatest earnestness they implored us to do them proud and kick Blackford’s tail! Sitting on the sidelines, calculating the possibility of history repeating itself for the sake of our fathers, I concluded the odds to be about forty-three million, one hundred fifty-seven thousand, three hundred and twenty to one. Still, I sat there secure with the thought that I, and any physical shortcomings on my part, would have no bearing on the outcome of this game. It was this thought which comforted me as (mercifully) halftime arrived. We made our way deep into the bowels of the stadium. To our locker room, commonly referred to as … “The Dungeon.”

“The Coach” had reason to be mad. The score remained 24 to nothing in favor of Blackford, leaving us well on our way to losing to them for the twenty-second season in a row. Though he may have been a man with a vocabulary limited to one and two-syllable words, there was nothing limited about Coach Werner’s physical expanse. A former defensive lineman for the Kansas City Chiefs, he stood six-foot- six and weighed over three hundred and twenty pounds. His complexion fluctuated from lesser to greater shades of purple, and—when he spoke – “The Gods” trembled, and the wire-reinforced plate glass windows in the walls of the dungeon pitched in their frames with the caustic crescendo of his indictment of our heritage and manhood. As evidence, he cited Mother, God, and … Apple Pie. He addressed us as “Commies,”; “wimps,” and “Girlie-Boys.” (I interpreted this as meant in general and did not refer to me specifically.)

But the coup de grace came when he thrust his right hand high in the air and beseeched us, “Do as I do!” (we all reached high in the air) “Now, jam your hand between your legs! (afraid not to–we jammed!) “Now squeeze real hard … and …if you feel anything at all—though I doubt you will!–I want you to go out and kick Blackford’s butt!”

I was so deflated (and not wanting to admit I’d squeezed and come up short) that, by the time the coach got to the team prayer, I slipped through the locker room doors into the archway of the stadium for a breath of fresh air.

And then … it happened. Why? … I do not know. To answer that is like trying to answer the question, “How long is a string?”… I just don’t have enough information. All I know is, I reached over and grabbed the case-hardened padlock which hung from the heavy dead-bolt; quietly shut the double, four-inch-thick steel doors of the locker room; latched the latch; slipped the padlock in; and … locked the lock.

In an instant – a tidal wave of horror rushed over me! What had I done? I had just taken an entire team hostage! Thirty-odd teammates, managers, and coaches on the inside … and me—one hundred and three-pound sophomore, third-string wimp on the outside! I stood paralyzed – afraid to flee through town in my uniform–“A Deserter!”.

The team had just finished its prayer as the marching band played the last note of our fight song. I heard one or two anemic rebel yells, followed by the sound of cleats against concrete, as “The Tigers” trotted toward the doors. The first bump against the door was subtle and muffled. The second, not so much so. And then the incredulous cry—”Hey, we’re locked in!” and the shoulder pads began to bang. “Umph!-Bang!”… “Uuummph!-Bang!” came the sound as wave after wave of players hurled themselves into the wall of steel. But the doors did not give. Even when the entire defensive line hit the doors as one, the doors did not give.

Then … IT” came—like a bellow from the depths of hell: “Outta my way you mothers!” Have you ever heard of a bull elephant in a rut? Well, I don’t need to, for I heard Coach Werner as he smashed like a bowling ball through pins of players sending them sprawling in all directions just before hitting the doors at Mach IV! Did you know steel can scream? I know it can stretch! For I saw two-inch thick hinges stretch like taffy as Coach hit the doors! They stretched but did not break.

I saw a lock you can shoot with a thirty-ought-six … bend before the brute. Bend … but did not break. Time after time, Coach hurled himself against the doors. Time after time, the doors screamed … but did not give. It would have taken a dinosaur to break down those doors, but—unfortunately for “The Coach”—he was line-bread back only to the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch!

Then—like a dying rhino—I heard him bellow, “Henry! … I’m gonna kill you! Now … how … did he know … it was me? What had he done—taken a “head count”?!

Well, that’s the only encouragement I needed! I sprang from the archway of the stadium to take the field. No sooner did the crowd see me fly from the bowels of the stadium than it roared to its feet. As I dove through the paper-covered hula-hoop, the noise was deafening! I was a’ high-steppin’; afeared the coach was right behind me.

I was in the middle of the fifty-yard line when the crowd finally realized something was amiss, as the ovation began to subside . . . dramatically. (I suppose I was a bit conspicuous being the only player for the Tigers to take the field.) Not one to bask in the limelight, I quickly made my way to the end zone to engage in a flurry of calisthenics at a rate I only hoped would make me invisible! Blackford had already taken the field and was warming up in their end zone but now paused to stare at me in puzzled amazement.

Have you ever heard a sports announcer silent for lack of words? Have you ever seen a band director freeze, band baton in hand, in mid-note? Not a drum beat; a trombone boned or a tuba tubed. Cheerleaders were frozen in mid-flight. I know. I was there. All by myself in the end zone. I proceeded with a hyperactive display of jumping-jacks and was so scared I ripped off seventy-five one-arm push-ups! I was standing on my head bicycling when the astute janitorial SWAT team of Peru High finally succeeded in freeing the coach from the confines of his cage. Like Godzilla, Coach thundered from the archway. Again the cry—”Henrrry! … I’m gonna kill you!” This was the only sound, and it reverberated, like the bombs over London, off the walls of the stadium.

Who would have thought a three-hundred-pound purple mass could travel so fast? Who would have thought someone with size 13 feet and “chicken legs” could outrun him? I dodged. I darted. But when I zigged–he zagged! When I hid behind the goalposts—he almost knocked them down! He was insane in his pursuit!

It was in the ranks of the marching band that he finally caught up with me when I was clotheslined by a trombone slide. He picked me above his head, shook me till my fillings came out, and body-slammed me head-first into a tuba. Then—with the tuba still on my head—threw me into a fireman’s carriage and bore me into the locker room.

The comeback was great! The score was 24 all by the end of the third quarter. We were awesome! We completely shut down Blackford in the second half and won the game 31-24 in the closing seconds!

Call it luck. Call it skill. Call it anything you will. I call it … Inspiration”! I know … for I heard the roar of the crowd when the coach took the playing field without me. I felt the incessant pounding of 4,000 stomping feet above me. I could feel the electricity of a man and team … inspired.
Yes—even bound—and gagged with dirty jock-straps and stuffed inside a locker—deep in the bowels of the stadium . . . I knew “I”. . . had inspired The Tigers . . . to victory.