When football was king in Nevada Part 5: Week 6, Aurora

Editor's Note: This is the fifth installment in a series by Shane Cavanah, who was the head coach of the 1975 Nevada Tigers football team that was recently inducted into the Nevada High School Wall of Fame.

Every Friday morning, my buddy, John McKinley, who was the play-by-play radio announcer along with Lyle Catron, and I would make the weekly trek to the KNEM studio to do a day-of-the-game coach's show. John was always easy to work with each week and I have to say, when you're winning, those shows are a whole lot more fun to do than when you are losing! This particular week, our opponent was Aurora. I knew John had attended Aurora High School back in his day and that he would like nothing better than to knock off the Houn' Dawgs.

We were well-aware of Aurora's passing offense. Their quarterback, Mitch Ware, would later become the starting quarterback at Southwest Missouri State. We were also aware that he had a bevy of receivers that he liked to go to often. We had not met a passing game such as the one we would be up against when we got to Lawrence County.

A lighting malfunction greeted us when we arrived on the field at Aurora. The lights were only working on one side of the field. The last thing I wanted to do was load up the bus and return to Nevada only to make the return trip the next day. We decided to play with lights on one side of the field. I figured if Aurora approved of that arrangement, then we would, too, since they were probably going to throw the football more than we had planned.

Aurora scored first in the contest as Ware found a receiver in the end zone from 35 yards out for the first TD. Their PAT was successful and the Houn' Dawgs took an early 7-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. Nevada struck pay dirt early in the second period as Scott Kennedy and Jim Borders opened a gaping hole for Larry Hillier and he scored from 27 yards away. Bill Jones' kick was good and the game was tied 7-7.

Defensive end Charlie Johnson intercepted a Ware pass after Carl Steffan pressured the quarterback to set the Tigers up again at the Nevada 33-yard line. Nevada utilized both the pass and the run in moving the ball to the 1-yard line before Jimmy Rice plunged over the goal line. Jones again kicked the PAT and the Tigers led, on a dimly lit field, 14-7, at halftime.

Halftime entertainment was provided by the Aurora High School marching band and a truck from the power company! Finally, the lighting was remedied and the second half was under way. John McKinley had warned me before we made the trip south that we would hear over and over about "Ole Joe Clark went to town, don't you be kickin' my dog around." And sure enough, they played that song throughout the entire game.

Carl Steffan recovered an errant snap from the center on a punt attempt by Aurora at the 12-yard line. Following two plays and a Nevada penalty, Mike Domer found Jimmy Rice in the end zone for a 14-yard touchdown pass. A Bill Jones extra-point kick put the Tigers up 21-7 with 4:51 remaining in the third quarter. Aurora would answer on an 18-yard pass play by Ware with 14 seconds remaining in the third period. The PAT kick was good and the Tigers lead was cut to 21-14 at the three-quarter mark.

Rice was inserted into the Tiger secondary for extra help against the Aurora passing barrage that was sure to come during the final period. Jimmy made his presence felt as he picked off a pass early in the fourth quarter. Nevada was able to break the game open at the 2:16 mark when Duane Belcher charged into the end zone from 4 yards out to give the Tigers some breathing room. Jones' kick was good, and the Tigers escaped with a 28-14 win.

Even though we were now 6-0 on the season, the pollsters dropped us to fifth in the weekly poll. Rock Bridge, Chaminade, Jackson, and Kansas City Manual all were ahead of us. Mountain Grove and Union, also 6-0, were behind us at the Nos. 6 and 7 positions. Harrisonville was in the poll at No. 9. Next up for the Tigers would be the undefeated Mt. Vernon Mountaineers.

On Wednesday of the Mt. Vernon game week, I was sitting in my office during my planning period when suddenly fellow physical education teacher, Nancy Brocka, appeared at my door with an expression on her face like I had never seen before. I knew something was wrong even before she had an opportunity to utter a word.

She proceeded to tell me that Jimmy Rice had sprained his ankle in her class while playing volleyball. I tried not to panic even though, inside, my heart seemed to be in my throat! I went to the locker room where Jimmy was already applying ice to his injured ankle. It already looked like it was the size of a large grapefruit and getting bigger as we spoke.

With Duane Belcher still not 100 percent from his earlier ankle problem and Bill Jones out with an injury for this week, we certainly didn't need this! We had been working with Jeff Marquardt at Jones' tight end position, and we already had worked with Larry Hillier and Charles Routledge at different positions as alternatives in the backfield. Now, further adjustments would have to be made to replace our leading ground gainer of the season.

It just happened that the Mt. Vernon game week was also district teachers' meeting week and school would be dismissed both Thursday and Friday to allow Nevada R-5 teachers to attend the meeting. That would give me two full days to work with Jimmy and his injury. I asked him to meet me at the field house at 8 a.m., on Thursday, to see if we could come up with some sort of a treatment. When he arrived the next morning and got out of his vehicle, my heart sank to an all-time low. Jimmy could barely put any weight on his ankle.

He would tell me later that he didn't panic because he didn't see any such panic on my face. Let me tell you, looks can be deceiving! I truly felt that any hope we had of beating Mt. Vernon, continuing our quest for the Southwest Big 10 Conference Championship, and entering any post-season playoffs had dissipated with this latest injury.

I remembered a treatment that I had discussed with Coach Bob Fairchild of Chillicothe High School sometime earlier using extreme heat and cold to make an injured area contract and expand with regularity. The reason being each time the procedure is done, the injured area, after contracting, would eventually return closer to its normal function. I thought we might give it a try, but I knew it would be up to Jimmy as to how much treatment he could stand.

I was hopeful that he possessed a high threshold of pain. He did! The treatment consisted of 20 minutes in a whirlpool at 109 degrees with the water flow aimed directly at the injured area, followed immediately by 10 minutes in a bucket of ice. The heat would expand the injured area and increase the blood flow to it. The ice treatment would contract the area back toward normalcy. We were supposed to do the process three times. Three times in the pool and three times in the ice bucket followed by four hours of rest was the recommended procedure to obtain the full benefit of the treatment. Jimmy did not complain once about the discomfort. We decided to go through the same process on Friday, but agreed we would have to quit early to allow the ankle enough time to recover naturally from the extremes it had endured.

When Jimmy arrived back at the field house on Friday morning, he could put some weight on his ankle but he had to "peg-leg" walk to the training area. I was sure there was no way we could use him at all that night. We had been careful not to let any word escape about Jimmy's injury. The reason being we were hopeful that we might be able to use him as a decoy.

We repeated the ice/whirlpool treatment two more times on Friday morning. My plan was to dress him out and use him in certain situations to draw attention from the other backs if his degree of motion would allow it. We stopped the treatments right after lunch and sent him home to rest the ankle while we hoped for the best -- and expected the worst.

This time, we moved Larry Hillier, again, to Jimmy's halfback position with Charles Routledge inserted in Hillier's normal wingback slot. We were counting on Duane Belcher being recovered enough that we could get more quality playing time out of him at fullback.

Jimmy arrived early that afternoon so I could tape his ankle as well as I knew how. I instructed him not to go out to warm up with the rest of the team. Instead, we sent him out on the practice field area under the watchful eye of Coach Larry Testman. Coach T. was to loosen him up any way he could. Again, I was not counting on any kind of contribution from Jimmy that evening. When the two returned from the practice field, the ever-optimistic Coach T. whispered to me that he thought Jimmy might be able to play a few plays.