Durham returns to Linfield for a day
By ALLEN MOODY of the McMinnville N-R/News-Register,
7/14/2005
Most people in McMinnville know that they Linfield
Wildcats are closing in on their 50th consecutive winning season in football
and many would be able to tell you that Jay Locey is the Wildcats' head coach.
There also are plenty of people in the area that could tell you who the head
coach was when the Wildcats starting their streak of consecutive winning
seasons - Paul Durham.
On Wednesday, a good-sized crowd of friends and former
players gathered for a luncheon at Linfield College to pay tribute to Durham,
who leaves his Hawaii home annually to return to the region for a week.
"It's a wonderful thrill," Durham said of
seeing his former players. "I look forward to it. I don't know how could
get any better."
Now in his early 90s, Durham is still sharp as ever and
the former coach's speech was well-received and often interrupted by laughter
at some of his stories, including several jabs at basketball referees. His son,
Terry, was a former longtime NBA official and also was in attendance.
"We're in stitches listening to him," said
Tigard's Bill Dressel, a former player of Durham's. "We have a speaker and
then we let Paul speak so he can rebut any of the speakers and throw in his two
cents worth."
Dressel said it was the ninth luncheon that was held for
Durham and it's grown throughout the years.
"It started out being for anybody that played for
Paul in all the years that he was football coach and then it involved into
anybody that played for him or were friends of his," he said. "We
just opened it up because people were asking if they could come. It's just a
mutual admiration society of Paul. He's so amazing."
Durham, who also served as the sports editor for the
News-Register for several years while coaching the Wildcats, said the thing he
is most proud of is the type of players that he was able to recruit to
represent Linfield.
"You have to have good people," he said.
"A lot of them of them have done wonderful things after college. I claim a
lot of them as my sons."
Durham became the athletics director at the University of
Hawaii after leaving Linfield and has lived in Honolulu for the past 37 years.
"Obviously I think it's pretty nice," he said.
Durham said that he stays in touch with quite a few of
his former players.
"A lot of them come to Hawaii and we have lunch and
tell a few lies," he said. "I'm lucky that way."
Durham may break with his tradition and make two trips to
McMinnville this year, as his 1961 team, which was the first undefeated, untied
team in school history, is being inducted into the Linfield Hall of Fame.
"I think they were the best team that I ever
coached," Durham said. "That's my opinion."
While the event was winding down a number of players were
making plans to be back next year for the 10th annual luncheon.
"Just seeing Paul is the highlight," Dressel
said. "I see him once a year and seeing all the old coaches and players
and hearing all the old stories is great. Every year you hear something new.
It's a great reunion of Linfield players."
Durham said he appreciated the way the people of
McMinnville treated him and wanted them to know that Mac will always have a
special place in his heart.
"Thank you for being so nice to me and my family
while I went to college here from 1932 to 1936 and when I lived here after that
for 20 wonderful years," he said. "I was lucky."
Durham's official Linfield Hall of Fame biography:
Over 20 years since he left Linfield to become athletic
director at the University of Hawaii, Wildcat coaches continue to pass down to
their athletes Durham's positive values of sportsmanship and scholarship. Now
retired and living in Honolulu, Durham coached football at Linfield for 20
seasons, compiling a disguished record of 122-51-10 (.694).
He guided the Wildcats to six conference titles and two
appearances in the NAIA national championship game. His most outstanding
seasons as coach came in 1961 and 1965. In 1961, Durham's Wildcats capped the
first unbeaten, untied season in school history with a trip to the
"Camellia Bowl" played in Sacramento, Calif.
Linfield was the first
school from the Northwest Conference to participate in the NAIA football playoffs.
The Wildcats narrowly lost the national championship game, 12-7 to Pittsburg
State of Kansas. Linfield again finished unbeaten and untied in 1965 and beat
Sul Ross State 30-27 in the semifinals before losing to St. John's of Minnesota
33-0 in the so-called "Champion Bowl" played in Augusta, Ga.
In the
season-opening football game of 1967, Durham brought the Wildcats to Honolulu,
where they beat the University of Hawaii, 15-13, at rainy Honolulu Stadium.
After the season - Durham's last as a Linfield coach - Hawaii hired him as its
athletic director thanks to that upset win and for other reasons.
