When my son was small enough to sit on my lap we read bedtime stories next to his window looking out at an ancient oak tree. Beyond the oak to the west, there was a row of houses which backed up to Silver Lake Road, and then a flood plain and timber where the Caney River flowed indifferently south. On Friday nights during football season, the treetops that enveloped the river glowed like a theater marquee, lit by the high school’s stadium lights..

Friday nights in the fall smell different, like a chill mixture of smoke from burning leaves, hot dogs, fresh popcorn, wool, leather, and yellow mums. On those autumn Friday nights, we set aside the book and simply enjoyed the Bruin band playing the fight song. “B-R-U-I-N-S, Blue & White, Blue and White, Fight! Fight! Fight!” The rumbling notes wafted through the timber so easily that it seemed as if the band was playing in our front yard. The band calling young men to the gridiron felt like a rush of adrenaline.

I played football for the College High Wildcats back in the day. The sounds of rousing Sousa-like notes from the marching band on a Friday night made you want to run through a wall. Or do an otter drill. One frigid rainy Friday night during my senior year, word circulated through the locker room that when we ran out onto the field the entire team was to sprint along the sideline in front of the home bleachers and dive headlong into the pile of water and mud. The entire team instantly transformed from gleaming warriors to muddy cold otters, running, screaming, and diving into the abyss of pre-game primal gamesmanship. I miss that feeling that is difficult to replicate as an adult. When I was young, I felt it but could never describe it. Now that I have the words, the experiences are missing, evaporated from a pool of bygone sweat, blood, and passion.

My earliest memories of Friday night football came while watching the Dewey Bulldoggers play.  

David Burns was a gritty halfback and one particular Bulldogger I remember well from watching him play at the old football field next to highway 75 which allowed those driving past to catch a glimpse of play without buying a ticket. 

Dewey beat a heavily favored Nowata Ironmen team which featured Emory Hicks (All State, played at KU, and NFL). The game was fiercely fought and the 21-20 victory placed Dewey in the playoffs. According to David Burns who is carrying the ball in the picture, “”There was a huge brawl at the end of the game, middle of the field…..GLORIOUS!”

David’s little brother Jimmy and I waited in the line of well-wishers after the game as the sweaty grass-stained players made the walk back to the locker room. I was cleaning out my closet once and discovered a tangle of used chin straps from those handed to me and Jimmy by weary Bulldogger players. I wonder if the equipment manager ever wondered where all the chin straps went. 

Coach Noel Due coached the Dewey football team for 12 seasons, mostly during the decade of the 1960’s. He was a World War II veteran cut from the mold of Lombardi and Ditka and as tough as the Lucky Strikes he smoked. 

#73 James Williams #51 Jim Warwick #21 David Burns Background Roger Conner

According to David Burns, “Coach Due’s teams never ran more than a half dozen plays, crossbuck, roll out pass, dive, sweep…but we practiced them over and over and over. He told us if we got these plays right, we can beat just about anyone. My sophomore year in a sleet storm, Jenks beat Dewey 12-8 in the state playoffs. (Jenks was a much smaller school then!) Several of those Jenks players went on to play at OU.” 

Although those Dewey teams ran the ball on most plays, they did throw some passes. The quarterback from that era, David Cole, threw nine passes to Burns his senior year. He was a very accurate passer. Mr. Burns said, “I caught all nine passes thrown to me that year with a cast on my hand. I had to catch them because they were thrown so perfectly.” 

A newspaper clipping of David Burns catching a 49 yard touchdown pass from David Cole with his right hand in a cast. 1965 Collinsville game  

Mr. Burns goes on to talk about the joy of playing for those coaches and with his teammates, describing those moments before the game and the smells of Friday night. 

“Growing up in a house where smoking was frowned upon, I had determined to not smoke. But to this day, I love the aroma of cigar smoke. Why? When I catch a waft of that smell, I am immediately transported back to my most “hallowed of memories”…climbing the steps up to the coaches’ room to be taped or wrapped for Friday night games. There was the distinct aromatic blending of sweaty jocks and socks, “Tuff Skin” spray, Cramer-gesic Balm and a blue cloud of smoke hanging a foot down from the ceiling. That smell of tobacco smoke blended it all together in the most pleasant, most special of my memories. In that blending of smells are the pain, bleeding, and sweat of laborious practice, and of combat, and the “butterflies” of anticipation.

There was nothing pleasant in the pain, bleeding or sweating…but somehow, when it all combines, it is most special of all my memories. I think it’s because my respect and admiration for those coaches – WW II vets and heroes to me – and my love and respect for my teammates which somehow became inseparable from the aroma, or at least so closely associated, I can’t parse them out. I limp and wince today from injuries received in those days. Yet…I would not change a thing…and would give anything to do it again.”

#67 Bill LaRue #21 David Burns #33 Wayne Pope

You can’t go home again. But sometimes you can return to those memories when the band plays and the football team runs onto the field. You inhale the aroma and remember when you were teammates, yes, but also brothers. The blood and sweat mingles together with the balm and smoke, an elixir that calms your aching knees. You are 17 again and ageless with nothing left in reserve, it’s all out on the field, heart, body, and soul. Within the crucible of competition there is no other place on earth that you would rather be but on this cleat trampled sod as you walk off the field holding a helmet scarred with the colors of the opponent. You hand your chin strap to some nameless eight-year-old kid who writes about it half a century later. Some of us are lucky, I guess. Moments like that live on in our hearts forever.

P.S. Shortly after writing this piece, I sent it to the guy who caught those nine passes in 1965 with a busted arm. Here is what he said: 

“Oh my…can’t see well…something in my eye. That’s too much. But so, so sweet. You captured the mood, the feeling, the butterflies, the comradeship of “combat”, all of it. And, no you can’t go back…but let’s just linger here a while.” David Burns

On June 20, David Burns told me that he was being admitted to the hospital. He passed from this life July 2, 2023, sure of his calling and destination. He was a man admired and loved by many and I will miss him.