20 Years Ago, Shipley Saved the Day

It was the greatest high school football game I've ever seen. It might have been the greatest single play I've ever seen. And it was, like so many exciting things in my life, 20 years ago.

Oh, I've always said the Prep-Lincoln Southeast playoff final in 2000 was an all-timer, and the way the Class C-1 and Class B finals played out in 2004 - Norfolk Catholic over Boone, Pius X over McCook, both in the final seconds, both on the same Saturday - is something I won't likely ever forget. (I said the same thing about what I had for breakfast today and that didn't work out so good, but stay with me.)

And who could forget my heroic role in Arnold's big win over North Loup-Scotia in the 1974 Loup Valley Conference championship game. I lent my shoes to Dan Keyser, who was the real star of our team. We all have our roles...

Great as all those moments might have been, the greatest high school football game I've ever seen was on a cold November night back in 1994, when Aquinas beat Battle Creek in double overtime, 29-28, to win the Class C-1 state championship. (A night made all the greater by the fact it was played on a home field, Battle Creek's, but that's another story for another time...)

The game would have been an all-timer if Chris Shipley hadn't made the play of his life, one of the greatest in the history of our state's high school game, really, but he did.

After finishing the first overtime still tied, 22-22, Aquinas scored on its possession in the second overtime and kicked the extra point to take a 29-22 lead. Battle Creek answered quickly with a touchdown of its own, scored by the state's then-all-time leading rusher Todd Uhlir, cutting the Aquinas lead to 29-28.

Battle Creek had seen enough. The Braves, behind their big, bruising offensive line, one which included future Husker Matt Hoskinson and Uhlir, a powerful two-time all-state running back, were going for two.

**********************

Shipley and his teammates had been down this path before. The previous season, the Monarchs beat Norfolk Catholic 12-0 in the Class C-1 final, though they had suffered a regular season loss - to Class B champion Columbus Scotus. No shame in that, but Shipley says his team wanted to make things perfect in 1994.

"We wanted to be 13-0. And we knew that in order to do that we'd have to beat Battle Creek somewhere down the line. We were glad it was in the finals after what happened when we were sophomores," he says. What happened when they were sophomores was Battle Creek rolled the Monarchs, 50-14. "We were 5-4 that year and got in as the last seed but still made the finals. Either way, that game stayed with us for two years, so we were ready to go that night when we were seniors."

Besides Shipley, himself a two-time all-stater, the team was led by brilliant senior quarterback Jay Pelan. It was a team with a strong senior class, and a budding young star coach in Ron Mimick, who would go on to win five state titles; this year he could play for a sixth.

"That" was a cold night in Battle Creek, the wind roaring out of the north, teeth chattering throughout the stadium. Regardless, Shipley played the game in short sleeves. "Personally, I never wore sleeves, even though my mom said it made me look so cold."

The game went back and forth, with each team taking its turns with the lead, before the game settled into overtime. When it came down to that final play, Battle Creek's two-point conversion, Shipley had already done his part and then some to keep the Monarchs in the game. He'd finish with 23 tackles - "Coach Mimick said at the time he didn't know if he'd ever seen that again from one of his players in such a big game" - but there was one more hill to climb, one more power play to stop.

************************

In the huddle prior to Battle Creek's conversion try, Shipley remembers not so much of a roar from the crowd as he did a sense of white noise enveloping the huddle. "We were encouraging each other but you had to yell to be heard. Or maybe we just yelled because we were excited, but either way there was a lot of yelling, a lot of energy," says Shipley. "We knew what was at stake."

Battle Creek favored an option play with a give, or fake, to the fullback and then a pitch to the running back, the brilliant Uhlir. It's a play that had given the Monarchs grief all night long. "They'd run that lead play and sucked us up a few times and that led to some big gains for them. I was pretty sure they'd go with that play again," says Shipley, the team's middle linebacker.

With the snap of the ball, Battle Creek faked the ball to the fullback, then with two big linemen, Hoskinson one of them, pulling in front of Uhlir it looked as though the Braves were going to win state with a successful two-point conversion.

Shipley knew better, but he knew he'd better hurry.

**********************

"I saw the linemen pull and knew they were going to get Uhlir the ball. I found a lane and as I got close to him I can remember reminding myself not to worry about making the highlight reel, just wrap up," says Shipley. "I made the tackle and everything got real crazy."

After the whistle had blow, and Aquinas had won the state title in the greatest high school football game I've ever seen, Shipley was in more danger than he'd been all night long. In their excitement, his teammates were going to break him in half, Shipley was sure of it.

"As we got up from the play, I knew we'd won state and I was pretty excited myself, but I turned and the whole team was running toward me, Coach Mimick in the lead," says Shipley. "As all the other players jump on us, I'm trying to hold him up so he doesn't get hurt and I feel like I'm getting my legs broken.

"It was an awesome feeling."

*********************

Shipley graduated from Aquinas in the spring of 1995 and later played football at Doane College, where his team, sadly, ironically, lost in the national playoff semifinals by a single point. He'd go on to graduate in 1999 before joining the U.S. Army, and later earned his Master's degree from Central Michigan University.

Shipley is currently the Director of Fleet Management for Crete Carriers, a trucking firm, his office based in Lincoln. He served as a volunteer assistant at Doane for a couple of years, and has spent the past 10 seasons as an assistant football coach at Nebraska Wesleyan. He and his wife of eight years, Danielle, have two children, six-year-old Calvin and two-year-old Anna.

*********************

Tonight in David City, Aquinas and Battle Creek will again meet in a playoff game with a lot at stake; the winner will advance to the Class C-2 state final in Lincoln.

One of the key players on the Aquinas team is an outstanding linebacker, name of Mitchell White. Shipley knows a little something about White - he's his nephew, his sister Jenny's kid.

"I get to as many Aquinas games as I can, especially to watch Mitch play, and there's not many nights when somebody at the game doesn't bring up that play," says Shipley. "It's sort of taken on a life of its own, really. I actually had a guy at work tell me that somebody else said he needed to ask me about some game we played against Battle Creek."

So, Shipley told the story yet again. Gladly.

In a touch of irony, Uhlir, the young man Shipley tackled on that cold November night 20 years ago, had broken the rushing records held by Shipley's cousin, Dennis Korinek, who played his high school ball at tiny Ulysses, located just north of Seward in east central Nebraska.

The circle of life, Nebraska high school football life, rests its head in David City tonight. And Chris Shipley will be there, again.