Yes, classmates and friends, I am having another birthday

Most of you are 63 already, but I turn 63 on Friday, May 23. I tend to look back on these occasions. 50 years is a good, round number.

In 1964, my blood was freely flowing Green and Gold, the colors of our Alma Mater.

The class of '64 was unique because they were the original baby boomer class. May dad got home from the war in Europe in 1945, and my brother was born in 1946. He and his classmates were the 6th graduating class at Borah. 

In sports the class of '64 thrilled me and broke my heart. The biggest thrill was in the fall when they beat Boise 21-20 in the Veterans Day game.

• The Boise brave captains from the top were Steve Brown, Paul Gentle, and Vern Morse. The Lion captains were Denny Neilsen, Ron Imel, and Tom Stuart. What a game it was. It was televised for the first and only time, and my Lions got it done for the 6th straight year. Ron Imel was one of my heroes. It probably is not a coincidence that he was a quarterback. In one calendar year, between May of '63 and March of '64 he earned the following honors: State champion in the 120 yard high hurdles, all-state in football, and AP state player of the year in basketball. However, he was part of the heart-break crowd, too. The 23-1 Borah Lions lost to Twin Falls in the 1964 state championship finals. And then the track team, which had won 3 state titles, finished 2nd to Boise in the state track meet.  I just did not like seeing Borah lose. One of the reasons was that Dale Cady, the star of the Borah-Boise football game and probably the fastest sprinter in the state for the decade of the 60's, pulled a muscle in the middle of the season and the team had to compete without him. See if his picture reminds you of one of our fellow classmates in 1969, who also happened to be a track star and, most importantly, the star of the '68 Borah-Boise game.

• Five years later with names like Wadsworth, Minter, Griffen, and Phillips, the Lions would win their 2nd straight state track championship. Well, one of these days I'll write about something besides sports at Borah. Yes, I think I will. But not on my birhday. Oh, I got a green Schwinn 10-speed for my birthday in 1964. How cool was that.

When Lions Were Kings VI

Who are these guys, where are these guys, and why are two of them not smiling?

First of all, from left to right: Yours truly, Craig Carroll (how did a junior get in this picture?), Erick Wadsworth, Darrell Burchfield, Bob Griffen, B.J. Johnson, and Don Minter.

This picture is from the Pasco (Washington) Invitational, a track meet in which schools from five states competed. The Lions ran away with the title, something that was no surprise, really.

So who's not smiling? Erick isn't. Erick won the 440 yard dash (remember yards before there were meters?) earlier that day.  However, the mile relay team which he anchored, and which had not lost in two years, did not win at Pasco. Some of you may remember that Erick did not take to losing very well (or fouling out of basketball games, but that's another story for another time) and that day was no different.

If you have followed track in Idaho you know that the rules changed over the years. When we were in high school Erick only competed in two events, but if the rules had changed earlier he most certainly would have been in three or four events, and probably would have won all of them. There is one story that I remember well. Basketball season had come to an end in 1969 and Erick had only been out for track for a few days. There was a multi-team meet at Meridian, and Erick decided, since he wasn't "in shape" yet, that the only race he would run was a heat in the 100. We joked about it on the bus on the ride over, but my laughter didn't last. Here was a guy who ran cross country, ran the mile and 440, and I, a sprinter, was in the same race with him. You guessed it. He beat me by 2 or 3 steps.

Don Minter was not smiling either. He won the 100 yard dash that day in Pasco and anchored the 440 relay team to victory. However, he was the defending Idaho state champion in the 220, but he finished fourth or fifth. He didn't like losing any better than Erick.

On the other hand, Bob Griffen should have been all smiles. He stood on top of the winners platform in Pasco for winning the 180 yard low hurdles, the long jump and finishing first -- or was it second -- in the 120 hurdles, along with running on the victorious 440 relay team. 

Craig Carroll was a phenom himself. As a sophomore he set the school long jump record and as a junior he finished third in the 100 yard dash in the state track meet. But it was his high jumping that literally drew a crowd. Craig used as his jumping style what was then called the "Fosbury flop". Dick Fosbury was a high jumper from Oregon State who won the event at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. If you saw his form today you might ask, "What's the big deal?" Nowadays all the top jumpers attempt to clear the bar going over back first, but except for Fosbury and a few others, nobody else was trying it in the sixties. Craig used it, and jumped well over six feet, and it was so unusual that at large track meets a crowd would often gather to watch. Some would would actually laugh because it looked so odd, but not the competition that he defeated.

As impressive as the football teams where in my high school days -- only one loss in three years -- that year's track team impressed me more. Even though the Lion football team of my senior year produced four starters on the Boise State team that one its first bowl game victory as a four-year school -- with one of them being an All-American, and a total of three getting NFL tryouts -- I guess I wasn't that impressed because it was pretty much expected at Borah in those days. However, when it came to track, I was quite in awe of guys like Erick, Don, Bob, Craig and others, like B.J., Darrell, Bill Cady, and Danny Knighton.

Track practice was really humbling. For example, maybe on a Tuesday Coach Arnold would have us run six 220's for our work out, and we were to work on our stride and run, say, three-quarter speed. I would have to run all out just to avoid finishing embarrassingly far behind, and I could hear these guys talking to each other as they ran, while I was half-certain I was going to die. It was not unusual for me to lose my lunch and breakfast while these guys were strolling to the locker room.

1969 ended with another state track title for Borah, the second straight and fifth in nine years. But Erick still wasn't smiling. The mile relay defended its title with him running the anchor leg, but he missed setting the state 440 record by a tenth of a second. I ran on the medley relay that day and we didn't get a ribbon. But it's a team sport, right? And at least I didn't lose to Erick in a sprint.

One of my favorite yearbook pics: Don Minter as Santa Claus, giving the peace sign

Cardinals, Pirates, LA, Oh My

   

I don’t watch baseball that much anymore.  But I watched and listened to all that I could in the 60’s.  Right now, the Pirates and the Cardinals are playing for the right to go on to the ALGS.  I had several teams that I rooted for in those days, and Pittsburgh and St. Louis were two of those teams.  Among the reasons were that both teams had a player from the Boise Valley, where I grew up.  Vern Law pitched for the Pirates, and in 1960, the year they beat the Yankees in the World Series, he won the Cy Young award and also won 2 games in that seven-game series.  Larry Jackson pitched several years for the Cardinals before being traded to the Cubs, where he won 24 games in 1966 and finished 2^nd in the Cy Young voting to a guy named Sandy Koufax.  I followed baseball almost religiously, and I remember Pirate names on the world champion 1960 team like Smokey Burgess, Bill Mazeroski, Dick Groat, Don Hoak, Bill Virdin, Bob Skinner, Dick Stuart, Elroy Face, Harvey Haddix, and, of course Roberto Clemente. 

In the mid-sixties I became more of a Cardinal fan, even after Jackson left St. Louis for Chicago.  Dick Groat was traded to St. Louis, where he played shortstop.  I chose number 24 as my number one year in baseball because that was his number and he was my favorite player.  Groat, along with Bill White at first base, Julian Javier at second, and Ken Boyer at third were the starting infield for the National League one year.  Curt Flood, Lou Brock, Mike Shannon, Tim McCarver, and, of course, the original “Mr.” October Bob Gibson were on those teams.

I was never a huge Dodger fan in those days, but I vividly recall 50 years ago this month watching them sweep the Yankees in 4 games to win the ’63 World Series.  Pitchers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Johnny Podres, buried the Yankees.

So who am I rooting for in this game tonight?  Like a lot of folks I’d love to see the Pirates go on, since they made the post season for the first time in 22 years, and haven’t been in the World Series since the “We are Family” Pirates of 1979.  On the other hand, the Cardinal uniforms are just the coolest of all time. 

One of the reasons I don’t watch too much baseball is that the games start way to late in the eastern time zone.  So I’ll find out in the morning who won.

Lions, Linemen, and Candy-Ass Backs

Listening to Greg Phillips interviewed on the radio last week brought back some memories.  Well, maybe the memories are never that far from my mind.  For most of us who graduated from Borah in 1969, high school football was our last ‘hurrah’, although some of us played 1 year of college ball.  But Greg, Ted Buck, and Darrell Burchfield (the Vandal) played 4 years of college football.  Jeff Phillips had to hang it up early at BSU, after his knee finally convinced him football was over for him, or he would have put in his 4 years, too.  Greg and Ted were part of the Boise State starting offense in 1971 that had 6 former Borah Lions in the starting lineup and captured the Camellia Bowl championship, the biggest NCAA Division II game at that time for small colleges west of the Mississippi. 

In high school Greg was the most vocal of the “five friendly fannies” – a term for interior linemen that a former college coach used to use – and he wasn’t afraid to give his opinion on spoiled backs.  I remember a late summer afternoon in ‘68 when I was standing around shootin’ the breeze outside the locker room with, I think, Bill Cady and Don Minter, while Greg, Jeff and Ted were working on blocking techniques about 50 yards away on the practice field.  And Cratz was working them hard.  A few minutes later they were heading into the locker room for a drink of water.  As they walked past, Greg couldn’t resist a comment (he rarely could resist one): “You guys are workin’ real hard.  Candy-ass backs.”  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that description, and probably not the last.

 That whole line was quite a crew.  If you follow high school football today you might find it hard to believe that it was rare when a team had even one player weighing over 200 lbs in the starting lineup. When we were juniors, senior Bruce Cleveland was the only offensive starter over 200 lbs, and he weighed 205.  Ted, Greg, and Jeff tipped the scales at 225, 235, and 235 respectively, and with Darrell Burchfield weighing in at 200 at tight end, well, there was no line comparable.  Tony Wallace – who in my opinion was pound for pound the toughest Lion of all, weighed 180, which was an average lineman size.  And then there was center Tom Perkins at, uh, 170, and I think he was fudging a bit at that.  Of course, to me, he was the most important guy on the line because he was the one who snapped the ball to me every play.  And he was completely dependable.  The first game of the year I had a big blister in the palm of my left hand so I had to receive the snap with one hand, so all snaps had to be perfect.  And they were.

The truth be told, it was the offensive lines at Borah during those championship years that made the Lions almost unstoppable – the Lions were Kings of the Southern Idaho Conference for 13 of 14 years between 1958 and 1971  And they had to put up with a lot, including being told they were too slow, not tough enough, and then reading about the ‘candy-ass’ backs on the sports page of the Idaho Statesman.  But, hey, this blog is read by literally dozens of people.  So enjoy some glory, you…you…big time linemen.

The Conversion of Malcolm Muggeridge: Anthropology Meets Theology

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah had a life changing experience, which is described in the sixth chapter of the book that bears his name:  “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple…. And I said ‘Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and…my eyes have seen the Lord of hosts!”

Below are three paragraphs about the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, written by pastor and author Richard D. Phillips.

Malcolm Muggeridge, the famous British journalist, had a life- changing experience that was very different from the prophet Isaiah.  Yet in one respect it was quite similar: they both came to a piercing awareness of their depraved spiritual condition.  But whereas Isaiah learned to say “Woe is me!” in the face of God, Muggeridge learned it in the face of a leper woman.

On assignment in India, Muggeridge went to a river for a swim.  As he entered the water, his eyes fell on a woman bathing.  He felt an impulse to go to her and seduce her, just as King David felt when he saw Bathsheba.  Temptation storming in his mind, he began swimming toward her.  The words of his wedding vows came to his mind, but he responded by just going faster.  The voice of allurement called out, “Stolen water is sweet” (Prov. 9:17), and he swam more furiously still.  But when he pulled up near the woman and she turned, Muggeridge saw, “She was a leper…. This creature grinned at me, showing a toothless mask.”  His first reaction was to despise her:  “What a dirty, lecherous woman!” he thought.  But then it crashed in on him that it was not the woman who was lecherous; it was his own heart.  This is precisely the teaching of the Bible about the moral and spiritual condition of men and women: our hearts are corrupt, our minds are depraved, and our desires are enslaved to the passions of sin.

It was not by chance that Isaiah felt his depravity when confronted with God’s holy presence, any more than it was by chance that Muggeridge’s glimpse of his true condition led to his conversion to Christianity.  One way to put this is that theology and anthropology are always linked.  In order to understand the truth about yourself and other people, you have to see the truth about God – and vice versa.  John Calvin made this point in his Institutes of the Christian Religion”, commenting that one may begin a study of theology either with God or with man, since to know either correctly, you must correctly know the other.

(From the book “What’s So Great About the Doctrines of Grace”, by Richard D Phillips)

Letters to my Stepdaughter VI

This is the final installment of my letters that I wrote to my stepdaughter.  This one was written in February of 2013.  Much has happened since I wrote the first one in November in 2012.  My goal was to introduce myself to her, since we had only spoken a few times.  In intoducing myself to her, I could not keep from presenting the gospel, because the gospel is a part of me.  Or maybe it would be better say that I, by the grace of God, have entered into the gospel through Jesus Christ and I now have my life in its midst.

Warning signs are everywhere, such as “Caution”, “Wrong way”, Dead End”, “Railroad”.  We get away with ignoring some of them without immediate consequences.  But if we ignore all of them, we do so at our own peril.  Many of them I don’t like.  I prefer to pick and choose.  As serious as it can be to drive thru a dead end sign, nothing compares to violating God’s holy, immutable laws.  Nothing even comes close.

 Like it or not, believe it or not, you and I entered this worlds with “dictator” written on our foreheads – no, written on our hearts.  In God’s great patience, He patiently endures our rebellion, foolishness, and, worst of all, hatred of all that he stands for.  By nature I am moody, selfish, prone to addictions, irresponsible, lustful, and on and on.  Those are the visible fruits of a life that inwardly is something much worse.  I want to run my own life.  That’s why I am a dictator, and an evil one at that.  Nobody, not even the God who made every atom and rules an immeasurable universe, is going to run my life. Or so I think.  He says “the soul that sins shall die.”  I think I can possibly tremble for a few minutes about such a statement, but eventually, I’m going to do what I want. 

Do you think seriously about what the serpent, Satan, told Eve when he tempted her to eat the fruit and break the one “no-no” that God had given her and Adam?  He told her she would be like god.  Now, the real God, the only God, had told the first man and woman that they would die when they ate the fruit.  And they did – immediately.  They ran away, hid, and made clothes for themselves out of fig leaves, hoping to hide the God who was now their enemy.  There was no sorrow for sin, no plan to confess to God what they had done.  Read it again.  When God spoke to them, they tried to place the blame somewhere else – Adam blamed Eve, and she blamed the serpent.  The Holy God showed mercy and allowed them to live physically, but they were quite dead in the way that really mattered.  They were spiritually dead.  Here’s where you and I come in.  We died with them, before we were even born.  Don’t even try arguing the point, because He has said it is so, and no other opinion matters.  Through Adam and Eve came death into the world for everyone who came after.  Period. 

Now, here is the incredible lie that we believe.  We think we are alive.  We live in self-delusion.  We proclaim ourselves masters of our fate, we boast that we can follow our hearts (which are fully corrupted by our rebelliousness nature), and we think that we are basically good, and just have a few faults that drag us down from time to time.  We lie to ourselves.  Worse, we live a lie before God.  Can a man say “I believe in God” and then turn around and live for himself and give only lip service to God?  It happens all the time.  So, return to the warnings where we started.  I can warn you about many things.  Just to name a few signs, there is wastefulness, slothfulness, substance abuse and the corrupt life that goes along with it, sex outside of marriage, being quick-tempered, jealousy, and worshipping idols – an idol being anything one puts ahead of God.  Do you know what?  I stole that list out of the Scriptures.  Sin is not hard to find, and God hates sin. 

The list is not without meaning, and neither is a sign.  But a sign’s value is not in what it is by itself, but what it is pointing to.  I cannot beg you hard enough to do what you must do.  What you must do is run to Jesus, bow before Him, and confess that you, like me, are sinner who needs mercy, and then rise up prepared to follow Him to the ends of the earth.  But I cannot move you, persuade you, or bribe you to do so.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit that transforms a heart.  I pray daily for you.  God bless you and reveal His wonderful grace to you, Dear Stepdaughter.