I was the starting center on my 1973 junior-high football team, the Kenilworth Rebels. The gentleman pictured above is, Bruce Matthews, a 2007 inductee in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, who played for nineteen years as a center (and other offensive line positions) with the Houston Oilers, a team which relocated to Nashville, and rebranded themselves as the Tennessee Titans. Bruce was also a member of that 1973 Rebels football team. That’s right, I played center, slotted ahead of Matthews on the offensive depth chart.
Now, in fairness to Bruce, I was an eighth-grader, and he was a year younger than me; starting-lineup preference was likely given to the older kids. But, the record-books (and my uncanny ability to recall meaningless events from nearly fifty years ago) reflect this inconvenient truth (for him, not for me - this story has been decent cocktail-party fodder for me over the years).
So I spent that season with our quarterback, John DeLong’s hands on my butt, instead of Bruce’s butt (in the early 1970’s, center to quarterback “snaps” were primarily executed in that manner, rather than the “shotgun” formation snaps which are now much more common - a fine, “touchless” solution well-suited to pandemic football, and to our growing phobias regarding touching in general).
The Matthews clan has spawned a multi-generational NFL legacy, likely unmatched by other such families. Bruce’s father, Clay Mathews, Sr., was a lineman for the San Francisco 49ers in the 1950’s. Bruce’s older brother, Clay Jr., played linebacker for the Cleveland Browns (primarily) for eighteen years. Clay Jr.’s son, Clay III, was also a standout linebacker for the Green Bay Packers for a number of years, in addition to his brother, Casey, who spent a few years in the NFL. And, of Bruce’s five sons (of seven total children), two of them have played in the NFL, and another is in the college ranks now.
Talk about the family business! Sure, I went on to play freshman football on the “B” team (not even as a starter) in high school, but for all intents and purposes, my professional football career reached its apex with the Rebels at age thirteen. Yes, my two brothers also toiled for the Rebels, and, their results were much more tangible than mine, in terms of statistics, such as number of tackles, which our head coach dutifully provided to the local weekly newspaper, the Wilmette Life. The only newspaper mention of my exploits on the football field, which I can recall, was a tag which read, “Bill Southern played his usual steady game at center.” This is our cross to bear, right Bruce? Centers are the Rodney Dangerfields of football squads (i.e. no respect). Although you have received numerous awards, and several multi-million dollar contracts, and there is that bust of you in Canton, Ohio. So, maybe it’s just me.
But, don’t feel badly, Bruce - I recall hearing that Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. His basketball career seemed to work out alright. And, I wonder if the guy who beat him out for a spot on the team also evolved into a paunchy, middle-aged accountant, as your former teammate did.
Well, even though my football career peaked at the tender age of thirteen, there were other mainstream sports, including baseball, basketball, and hockey (I don’t count soccer, because, at that time, the soccer team comprised only those kids whose moms wouldn’t let them play football, because it was too dangerous). You may reasonably wonder whether I possessed the athletic prowess which enabled me to best future hall-of-famers in those sports. I’m glad you asked:
Baseball - I pitched a bit in Little League baseball, but mostly played third-base (managers always put the fat kid at third base, because he doesn’t have to be as quick or as nimble as, say, a shortstop). We didn’t utilize a “Jugs gun” (a radar-based machine which measures the speed of a pitched baseball) in Little League, but if we had, I would have been surprised if my fastball clipped thirty miles-per-hour - an abysmally slow speed - and, I didn’t possess any breaking stuff either - I wasn’t fooling anyone at the plate. Both my brothers were decent catchers, but I always flinched when the batter at the plate swung at a pitch, so that wasn’t going to work for me. Perhaps I simply didn’t have the tools to succeed at the game, and by that I mean the proper baseball glove. My glove was a “Ted Abernathy” autograph model glove - Ted was a quirky, “submarine ball” pitcher, who toiled for a whole bunch of teams over a fourteen-year career - the submarine pitch, as you might imagine, was a bizarre, underhand delivery motion - quite rare indeed. Just think what I might have accomplished with a Ron Santo or a Billy Williams autographed model (two of my heroes of the 1969 Chicago Cubs). In any event, although I played organized baseball at least one summer while a high-schooler, there was no path for me there.
Basketball - Junior high was also high-tide for me in this sport - I tried-out for our school team, the Joseph Sears Panthers (the Rebels were a village team not affiliated with the school; hence, the different mascot), in seventh-grade. Tryouts were conducted one day after school, and were mostly concluded by six o-clock p.m., at which time the coach congratulated those players who had made the team, and thanked the others for trying-out; they were all then dismissed, with the exception of me, and a classmate, Bruce (why was every one of my classmates named, Bruce? It must have been very confusing for teachers taking attendance, eh?), who would have the opportunity to play a game of one-on-one, with the winner being offered the final spot on the team. Having spent countless hours dribbling and shooting a ridiculous, red-white-and-blue basketball (styled after the old ABA ball from the early 1970’s) in my driveway, at a lower-than-regulation-ten-foot-hoop mounted on our garage roof (upon which I was still unable to dunk a basketball), I was able to defeat Bruce in the game of one-on-one, and secure the final spot on the seventh-grade basketball team. To my knowledge, this Bruce has not earned a spot in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, Massachusetts, but I still felt a sense of accomplishment in playing my way onto that team. Never mind that my playing-time that season was extremely limited, and my budding basketball career was curtailed at that point. As an added bonus, James Naismith, the inventor of the game of basketball, is the answer to the trivia question, “Which University of Kansas basketball coach is the only coach to record a losing record at the University?” Truly ironic, no? And, you’re welcome.
Hockey - Again, I believe my lack of success on this front may be attributed to an equipment problem. Well past the time at which my classmates were skating with hockey skates, I was outfitted with hand-me-down figure skates. Even though Kenilworth flooded Townley Field, used by the Rebels in the fall, for skating, and me and my siblings developed our own backyard skating rink each winter, I never learned to skate backwards, and was quite clumsy on skates. This skills gap disqualified me entirely from competing in hockey.
But, you shouldn’t feel badly about my lack of athletic achievement - I don’t. I feel as if I’ve excelled in my chosen field, and I’ve been blessed with a loving wife, and children, and grandchildren, and supportive friends, and valued colleagues, blah, blah, blah. . .And, Bruce Matthews and I do have something in common, in terms of professional recognition: we are both enshrined in institutions located in the state of Ohio. I’ve already shared with you information about Bruce’s spot in Canton, Ohio. As for me, my portrait appears in the hallway of an office in Columbus, Ohio, which features pictures of all the presidents over the years of the Ohio News Media Association, upon whose board of trustees I happily served for a number of years in the 2010’s. There is, however, no bust, and no multi-million dollar contracts. And, I’ve searched through my entire wardrobe, and I cannot put my hands on a single sports jacket resembling the iconic yellow one sported by my old classmate Bruce - I must say, I’m a bit envious of that jacket.