My senior year was a good year. I joke to others that the pinnacle of my life was when I was 17 and 18 years old and it has been going down ever since. Well not really true of course but it was a year that many good things happened to me at Van Horn, most of which were blind luck and coincidental.
Football summer practice was just as miserable as it had been the previous three years. Tom and Tim were again the two best players we had on the team but I was by far the luckiest. The first stroke of luck I had was misfortune for another. My position at center was pretty well established but due to a coaching decision I was moved to the defense and a guy named Orin Walker was put in at center. He was big and strong so there wasn't anyway I was going to be able to regain my position, but I really didn't care, there was room for us all and overall we would have been a better team. But then Orin broke something, foot, hand, wrist, I forget. He was out and I was back in. As an aside that was a life changer for Orin. He was good enough and perhaps could have gotten a scholarship to play at college. I had forgotten all that until our 45th class reunion when Orin reminded me of what had happened.
Anyway our team went on to have a losing season again but because of my name, Snapper and my flare for the dramatics while on the field, those that selected players for special recognition would remember me and cast their vote my way. It sounds very egotistical to relate now but it is what it was. That year I made second team all conference, first team all area, first team all district, lineman of the year for the Independence Examiner, the First Team All Star for the Kansas City Star, and All Star Lineman for the KC Star. To top it off I made First Team All State and Honorable Mention High School All American. Wow, did my head expand. Forget the fact that Tim and Tom could kick my ass any day of the week, Orin too if he hadn't been crippled up. Luck and coincidental things have happened to be all my life. I think the scientific name for it is synchronicity.
I received 26 scholar ship offers that year, visited many of the big 8 schools, interviewed with Dan Devine and double dated with Earl Denney from MU. However the big University schools knew what they were doing and passed on me and the offers I had were from the smaller schools around the country. The smaller schools didn't give "full rides" and I did not have enough money to attend them. I remember Montana State and West Texas State were very interested. The Freshman Coach from MU came and visited me after my interview with Dan Devine and told me flat out that they did not think I was Big Eight material but wanted to keep me in the state and perhaps after a couple of years playing for a smaller school I would be ready for the big time. He told me to pick any school in the state of Missouri and they would make sure I received sufficient funds to attend. Northwest Missouri State and Southwest Missouri State immediately contacted me and I chose SMS.
The rest of the school year was a typical Senior year. I learned to drink beer that year, ran around with my friends, did OK grade wise but never managed to get more than a 2.5 grade average, continued to date Jan most of the time, and was just the cock of the walk, at least in my own mind. There are a lot of little stories about that year that stand out but perhaps they are for another time.
Towards the end of school that year I knew that in just a matter of weeks my life as I had known it up till then would completely change and I plunged towards graduation with the same insecurities as most of my fellow students.
On graduation night my dad gave me a watch and my grandfather gave me a ring that his dad had given him. I still have the watch in my jewelry box and the ring I gave to my oldest grandson at his graduation.
That summer MU got me a job working for the highway department and Jan and I started dating again pretty steadily. The job allowed me to save just enough money to ease the financial burden of going to college along with my scholarship and sometime in August Jan and I had what would end up being our last date. We communicated a couple of times after that and I ran into her once by accident years later just for a few minutes, but in actuality have had no real communication for the last 45 years and don't suspect we will.
The morning I left for college my grandmother and grandfather cried and as I drove off to yet another great adventure I went by Van Horn and waved good by. I think I might have shed a tear or two myself.
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