Frankly, casinos were my thing, still aren't. Yet there we were.
It was, with apologies to the Four Seasons, November, 1992, a bitter, windy day, overcast and all that. Really nasty. But it was nice and toasty at that Yankton, S.D., casino where my longtime assistant Tim Nicholas and I were having little to no luck at the games of chance. While casinos were my thing, still aren't, they've always been Tim's and when he suggested we try our luck at the casino before the game I said, sure, why not.
The game was at Bloomfield, the 1992 Class C-2 state championship game between the Bees and Cambridge. Bloomfield had reached the 1990 state final and also the 1991 state final, the latter losing to Bertrand, more on that in a moment, while Cambridge's star was beginning to ascend under hall of fame head coach Dan Keyser, my soon-to-be-retired fellow Arnold Cardinal. Bloomfield had a great coach of its own, one of my favorites, Gary Walling, the only guy I remember coaching a state final in a leather biker's jacket, though I may be mistaken.
We got there in plenty of time to shoot the game - and by that I mean take game photos - but it wasn't exactly the kind of night when you wanted to be out in the elements. Trees are at a premium in Bloomfield, at least at the north end of the football field where the wind was roaring while the temperature plunged. About the time I - in my sweatshirt, heavy winter coach, stocking hat and gloves - was about to say something like, "gee, it sure is cold out here," I turn to my left and what do I see?
That's right, Stu Minnick. Make that the great Stu Minnick, one of the big early supporters of Huskerland Prep Report and the stats guy and reporter for the Cambridge football. At the time Stu was, what, a million years old or so and all he was wearing was this worn out, ratty old orange windbreaker, which was sort of his trademark. Fluids were streaming from his eyes, rolling down his cheek, making him look all the colder. Never felt weaker about how I handle the cold than that night.
That night, that game at least, ended in spectacular fashion if you were a Bee or a Bee backer, as Bloomfield - which threw the ball about as often as I caught a winning hand that afternoon in Yankton, which is to say hardly ever - won the game 21-20 on a late - gasp! - scoring pass. Bloomfield got its state title, its only one so far in the playoff era, while Cambridge gathered itself and won C-2 five of the next six seasons.
Our job then was to get to Battle Creek for the dying moments of Battle Creek's 50-16 C-1 state title win over Aquinas. Battle Creek is further from Bloomfield than a guy thinks, or at least this guy, who didn't really allow for all those red traffic lights while driving through Norfolk on our, um, sprint to Battle Creek. Hall of fame coach Bob Schnitzler had plenty of great football teams at Battle Creek but I am not sure if there's been a better one than that 1992 team. In the the semifinals they beat Wood River by 51 points and team which had a quarterback you might have heard of - soon-to-be Stanford recruit Scott Frost.
We got there OK, got a couple of photos and look a much more leisurely drive home to Central City. See, that's how it was back in the early days of the Huskerland era, when state football championship games were played at home sites. Starting in 1996 all the title games were played at Memorial Stadium, which worked out great for @HuskerlandBob the reporter, but not as great for @HuskerlandBob the fan of the game. From the beginning I missed those home site championship games, even if it meant only getting to see one, two or three of them, racing like a madman from town to town to make it happen.
Now it seems, just like fashions, everything comes back into style as COVID has forced our 2020 state championship games away from Memorial Stadium in particular and Lincoln in general. (We still get the six-man championship game at Kearney, as has become a happy tradition.) That leaves me with some decisions to make on which games to attend which will bring back some happy memories though it would have been nice if somehow these final games could have been staggered. Surely I'm not the only one who would have liked to race from game to game.
Another of those pre-Memorial Stadium championship came in 1991. We started publishing Huskerland in 1990 and didn't really have much of a long-range plan or even what we wanted the old girl to become. In fact, in year one our little newsletter didn't even cover the playoffs, so those 1991 title games were a first for this new high school sports publication.
That year I caught a break as the Class B championship game was played at Cozad where the Haymakers of Brendan Holbein and Chris Dishman would host Elkhorn, followed by an evening game at Bertrand, a handy 40 minutes away. Cozad was also where my mom and dad lived so I and my wife Huskerland Penni were able to stop by the house and say hello. I miss those days, as my dad died in 1998 and mom died just two years ago.
Holbein broke a long TD run, my friend Russ Holen lost his mind on the final minutes of the KAMI radio call of the game, and Cozad had its first playoff championship, 17-6. I had two sisters (and later four nieces) graduate from Cozad so I felt like I somehow had a piece of the action with that championship. Not as much as Russ, trust me, but still.
Later we pulled into Bertrand on what had proven to be another windy and bitter night for football. I'll save you the drama, my old pal Ron Kubik coached Bertrand to a 16-15 victory that night in the Class C-2 championship game, but that's not my number one memory. My number one memory was how the nice folks from Bertrand were thoughtful enough to have the visiting fans, that night and every night, facing into that howling, bitter north wind.
That's what they call a real home field advantage. Buckle up, kids, it's championship week.
