by Joe Stout
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1946 seemed to be a new beginning.\u00a0 The war was over and no longer were the graduating classes going to be 95% girls.
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We also had a new bunch of teachers that were not much older than the graduating class.\u00a0 There were, Miss Maddox, Mr. Holmes, Miss Rowlett, Mr. Gulley along with returning teachers Mrs. Brooks, Mrs. Payne, Mr. Orr and a new principal Mr. Tuck following Mr. L.S. Miles.
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John Gulley taught history, phys. Ed. And was the new football coach.\u00a0 During the war years Mr. Smith served as coach with the help of some former football players but he was not a trained coach.\u00a0 Mr. Gulley was a strict disciplinarian\u00a0 compared to what all the team had been used to in the previous years.\u00a0 This season of 1946 promised to be a good year for football at Greenfield High.\u00a0 One of the main problems Coach Gulley had was that his way of coaching and the lax way that had been done in the past caused many of us to resent this new way.
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If you were born after 1940 the single wing formation that Coach Gulley taught us and used would seem strange.\u00a0 This was about the time the T formation came into use.\u00a0 Prior to that time most games in football would be low scoring games on both teams if they were fairly equally matched.\u00a0 The single wing was a game of systematically gaining a few yards at a time and\u00a0 punting to keep the opponent in his own territory.
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Coach Gulley\u2019s teaching was just the basics and using them to perfection as well as the most rigorous physical workout possible.\u00a0 Much of our practice would be calisthenics, blocking the dummies (including using each other as the dummies by standing still) running no less than 15 laps around the outside of the field.\u00a0 Watching the teams of today I wonder if there would be any players if that type of practice were used now.
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Mr. Gulley was one of those persons that did not engage in conversation with anyone.\u00a0 He would answer questions, give directions, but his use of words were the least that he could use in coaching, teaching or just everyday interaction with people.\u00a0 Because of this he was given the nickname of Silent John.
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We were to be in bed by 9 p.m. each night and John would make his usual walk (he had no car) around downtown to see that none of his players were out past curfew.
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The Gleason game that year was a close one and in the final minutes we were behind just a few points.\u00a0 We were down on about the five yard line and Travis Usery the tailback carried the ball on a plunge for what we thought was a touchdown.\u00a0 \u201cSwat\u201d Scarbrough from McKenzie was officiating the game and he ruled that Travis\u2019 knee touched the ground on the one foot line.\u00a0 This caused us to lose the game and the fans and players were enraged.\u00a0 The officials had to be escorted out of town and some of us players along with fans chased them at high speed all the way to Dresden where they went into a restaurant and the police came to protect them.
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Those of us that participated were kicked off the team and Greenfield was put on probation by the TSSAA.\u00a0 This caused what was a promising season to end up being a mediocre one.
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Mr. Scarbrough became the mayor of McKenzie years later but he never officiated another ballgame.
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Coach Gulley and Miss Rowlett returned the following year as teachers and began dating.\u00a0 Later in the year they married.\u00a0 This was my senior year and I was allowed to go out for football again and I was in the wing back position which was a pass receiving and reverse hand off type running play under the single wing formation.\u00a0 But as luck would have it, James Lee \u201cHorsefly\u201d Rogers, our quarterback was ruled ineligible to play.\u00a0 \u201cHorsefly had played while in the eighth grade and under the rules you could only play four years.\u00a0 The quarterback position under the single wing formation was not a ball handling or running position as it is in the T. formation.\u00a0 It is basically a running interference and blocking position for the fullback and tailback.
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Blocking was not my strong suit but Coach Gulley was forced to put me in this position due to the limited number of experienced players on the team.\u00a0 Other than instructions from Coach Gulley and being asked questions by him in class I had never had a conversation with him.\u00a0 Praise from him on the football field was a rarity or even an unknown.
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In the game that year with Princeton, KY we were deep in their territory.\u00a0 A double reverse play was called.\u00a0 This was a play where the ball was centered directly to the fullback who then spun around handing the ball off to the wingback running around the left side and just after receiving the ball handed off to the left end running in the opposite direction around the right side.\u00a0 The other team was fooled on this play other than the right end and their left halfback on defense.\u00a0 My job was to run interference and block the opposing player.\u00a0 These two opponents were side by side and were the only thing that could stop James Porter our left end from scoring.\u00a0 I threw a block on the left end low below the knees cutting him down completely.\u00a0 The left halfback did tackle James after a short gain.\u00a0 Coach Gulley sent in the next play by Billy Wright who was my substitute.\u00a0 As I was coming up to Coach Gulley I was certain he would tell me what a nice block I had made on the left end but instead he asked, \u201cwhy didn\u2019t you block both of those men.\u201d
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In later years at the first reunion of our class of \u201c48″, John attended and carried on a conversation with me for quite some time.\u00a0 This conversation in one night was more than the total of what we had in the two years I had known him while in school.
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In recent years Greenfield has had what we call homecoming where we have a dinner and anyone that has ever attended Greenfield High comes for this gathering.\u00a0 Silent John has never missed a \u201c47 or \u201c48″ class reunion or a homecoming in over 50 years until last year after losing a bout with cancer.
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He was missed.
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Joe Stout\u00a0 1946 seemed to be a new beginning.\u00a0 The war was over and no longer were the graduating classes going to be 95% girls.\u00a0We also had a new bunch of teachers that were not much older than the graduating class.\u00a0 There were, Miss Maddox, Mr. Holmes, Miss Rowlett, Mr. Gulley along with returning Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-gutenberg.php","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"full","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"MaryCarol","author_link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/author\/marycarol\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Uncategorized<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020 7:05 am","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020 7:05 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1114,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}