On my second birthday — that would be Oct. 12, 1968 — Ohio State opened its Big Ten season in Columbus against Purdue, a team that had held the No. 1 ranking since the start of the season and that had destroyed the Buckeyes in a visit to Ohio Stadium the previous year. Ohio State was ranked 4th in the country, but were 13-point underdogs at home.
The Boilermakers were loaded — Mike Phipps was having an All-America year at quarterback, and Leroy Keyes, the team’s halfback, would finish second in the Heisman Trophy voting to some guy from Southern Cal named Simpson.
Ohio State had some talent too, although people were still figuring out just how good its sophomore class would be. Rex Kern, John Brockington, Jim Stillwagon, Mike Sensibaugh were all part of a recruiting class that was still just seeing its first few weeks of playing time — freshmen were ineligible to play back then — and it appeared they would turn out to be pretty good.
Another member of that class, a defensive back from Passaic, N.J., named Jack Tatum, would figure to be a pretty big part of the Purdue game. The legend says Woody Hayes gave Tatum, who was already proving to be a standout cover man and a fearsome hitter, one assignment — follow Leroy Keyes everywhere he goes.
Ohio State won that game 13-0, and Tatum largely shut down Keyes. That game was a springboard to an undefeated season and a national title after beating USC and the aforementioned Simpson in the Rose Bowl.
There are plenty of reasons to remember Jack Tatum — They Call Me Assassin, Sammy White, the Immaculate Reception, Darryl Stingley — and if you look around Deadspin or other sports blogs this week, you’ll see that there are plenty of people who think Tatum, who died earlier this week, is a dirtbag, especially for the paralyzing hit on Stingley.
Dispatch sports columnist Michael Arace makes an excellent point in his column about Tatum. He said everyone remembers a portion of the quote from the book — “I like to believe my best hits border on felonious assault…” — but they rarely remember the rest: “…but at the same time everything I do is by the rule book. My style of play is mean and nasty, and I am going to beat people physically and mentally, but in no way am I going down in the record books as a cheap-shot artist.” The rules were different then; Tatum’s hits were vicious, but legal.
He probably won’t go down in the record books as a philanthropist either, even though he raised a ton of money to help fight diabetes, a disease that forced the amputation of one of his legs and left him hobbling whenever he made appearances at recent games in Columbus. He’ll be remembered as the Assassin and not as the Reverend, a nickname given to him by teammates for his quiet, soft-spoken nature.
That’s OK. As was the case with Woody, the folks in Columbus know the story. And we know Jack Tatum was one of the best ever.
As per Andrea’s request:
I have no idea why I did that. I also don’t know why I don’t still have the Batman or Robin dolls, but I do still have Robin’s costume.
A couple weeks ago Mrs. Crappy and I made a quick trip to Columbus to finally clean out a storage unit we’d had there since before we were married. We had the help of Fred, Ethel and Juan when we loaded the truck, but we unloaded it ourselves when we got back — on the hottest day of the year at that point — and we were pretty freaking sick of the boxes, furniture, books and all the other crap by the time we were done.
Until we started looking at some of the stuff.
For me, the best part was coming across a plastic tub that my mom had labeled as my toys. I knew she had kept a few things, but I didn’t know exactly what until I popped that box open the next day. Here’s what I found:
For a couple years — late elementary school or early junior high — I was a member of the Upper Arlington Swim Club and swam competitively. Even though I never could figure out the butterfly, I was pretty good, at least until I got fat and started playing football.
I also apparently missed a potential career in automotive engineering (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!), as evidenced by this blue ribbon in my first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. If I recall, my dad and I loaded the front end of the car with lead (totally legal, I swear), and sanded the crap out of the loosely tacked wheels. Win!
What can I say? I watched Star Trek reruns. And Spider-Man has always been my favorite comic-book character. Among the other things not pictured: two boxes of comics, including several pretty-good condition issues of Spider-Man from that book’s first year or two, all of which were, uh, liberated from my grandparents’ house.
OK. Remember those metal, vibrating football games? The ones where you were never really sure where the players were actually going to go once you got them lined up and turned on the board. And your quarterback might end up vibrating in circles in his own end zone? I played that, a lot, with a couple of friends. Not only did we have leagues and seasons, but we went to the trouble of buying blank players and painting them ourselves so we could have the teams we wanted. Pictured above: Ohio State, UA (the high-school team I would play for a couple years later) and the Cleveland Browns, in all their early 1980s, orange-pantsed glory. Not pictured: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their creamsicle uniforms. Also not pictured: the Stillers. I didn’t like them then, either.
There was some other stuff in the box , like a wooden owl coin bank that I have had literally as long as I can remember and a Batmobile — sized to fit dolls similar to Spider-Man and Mr. Spock — that for some reason I felt I had to modify with a White-Out paint job.
Yeah, I have no idea either.
There was some great stuff in that truckload we brought back from Columbus — a couple pieces of furniture we’re already using, a much newer washer and dryer, all my old records — you guys remember those big vinyl platters that played music, right — and boxes and boxes of books. But for me, that one box –a fairly modest one, when compared to most of the stuff we hauled back here — contains more memories than rest of the stuff in that truck combined.
Filed under: Home,Ohio,Pittsburgh,Uncategorized | Tags: grumpy old guy, history, mild irritation, uncategorizable
This is Ohio. I grew up there. From where I live now, it’s less than an hour’s drive to the west.
This is Columbus. This is where I was born. It’s a pretty cool place. I just spent a weekend back there, seeing a Dead show downtown, seeing high school friends I don’t see enough at a reunion and spending a Fourth of July in a suburb that celebrates it like no other place I’ve ever been. Columbus is a different place than it was when I was growing up — and by that I mean it’s only gotten better.
And this? This is Athens. Yeah, it’s a little college town, but it’s as important to me as any other place on the planet. In the decade I lived there, I met the people who are the best friends I have. It’s where I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. And it’s not only where I met Mrs. Crappy, but it was important enough to both of us that I took her back there in December 1998 so I could ask her to marry me. That’s just a few of the reasons why I’ve always thought of Athens as my spiritual home, a place I can return to and immediately feel centered, no matter what has changed since my last visit.
I lived in Ohio for the first 28 years of my life. That time and those experiences inform everything I am and everything I do. I’m thankful every day to be here in Pittsburgh, to know the people I do and to have the fun I’m having, but am, and I always will be, an Ohioan.
Got a problem with that?
Filed under: Music,Ohio | Tags: hippie music, road trip, history, holiday fun, woo-hoo
This is the exactly wrong way to do this, but the first part of this review won’t make a whole lot of sense to anyone who didn’t see Furthur at the LC Pavilion in Columbus Friday night.
HOLYCRAPDIDYOUSEEHOWTHEYPLAYEDALONGWITHTHEFIREWORKS? KINGSOLOMONANDLETITGROW? ANDTHEMUSICANDTHEFIREWORKSENDINGATTHESAMETIME? DOOOOOOOD….
It’s easy for me to lapse into hippie babble when trying to describe Friday’s second set, which was punctuated by the Columbus Red White and Boom fireworks show going on over our right shoulders. For about 25 minutes — and two songs, King Solomon’s Marbles, a frantic instrumental from Blues for Allah, and Let It Grow, a driving, tumbling section of Wake of the Flood‘s Weather Report Suite — the music and the explosions intertwined, a breathtaking experience that jumped completely outside the normal context of a Grateful Dead show. I don’t think the band could see the fireworks from the stage, but they had to be aware that the show was going on — the lights and sound, which you can hear pretty clearly on the aud recording uploaded a day later, had to be evident even from their vantage point — and I have to think they played to the fireworks while they had the opportunity.
The fireworks were a bonus to what turned out to be a hot show in a jammed little amphitheater. I had done my best to listen to recent Furthur tapes to get a sense of what this band was all about and found something I hadn’t heard for a while. It’s not the steady shuffle of Ratdog; it’s not Phil and Friends looking to head out at every turn. But it is still familiar, something truly evoking the Good Old Days, and the difference has to be John Kadlecik, the former Dark Star Orchestra lead guitarist — the guy who filled the Jerry slot for them since that band began — who was tapped by Bobby and Phil, no less, to fill that slot in their new band last year.
As a founding member of the world’s most thorough Dead cover band, Kadlecik’s knowledge of what GD — and Jerry — sounded like through the years is as solid as anyone’s, and Furthur benefits from that experience. The Garcia-esque licks were all over the setlist — Loser, Shakedown and a stunning Standing on the Moon sung by Weir — but Kadlecik’s not just a Garcia clone. When the band launched Solomon’s at the outset of the fireworks show, John and Phil slid into a slippery jazz-funk jam before hitting that song’s requisite licks; his solo halfway through Let It Grow was a unique take on a bit of music we’ve been listening to for years.
To me, Kadlecik’s role in yet another rebirth of Grateful Dead music is a pretty big deal. For the moment, Phil and Bobby are having a good time playing together, thanks (apparently) to the input from the new guy, and as none of the Surviving Four are getting any younger — Phil turned 70 earlier this year — the opportunities we have to see them playing together — and really having fun together — are probably numbered. Maybe Kadlecik’s presence is the kick in the ass they needed.
That’s good for them. And that’s good for us, too.
Filed under: Food and Drink,Music,Ohio | Tags: hippie music, history, beeeeer, yum, yet another dreaded bullet update
- I hereby declare myself a successful participant in June’s NaBloPoMo event. I do so with your endorsement; 65 percent of you who voted in the poll I put up on Wednesday said so.
- Another 28 percent of you said I should get over myself. This is probably the correct answer.
- The classmates’ happy hour last night was a gas. My high school class was enormous — about 550 people — and it seems like each time I go back for a reunion I find a few more people I haven’t seen or spoken with in a very long time. I didn’t get as freaked out about this one as I have with others, and that “Holy crap this is weird” feeling passed pretty quickly. Big fun, and part of me wishes I was going to the actual reunion tonight.
- The rest of me is pretty damn happy that we’re seeing Furthur tonight.
- OK. Mrs. Crappy is on her way to Columbus from Pixburke, which means I have just a couple hours to run some errands.
- And have lunch at White Castle. Wooooo!
