Dodging with Durham sports column by Paul Durham, N-R Sports
editor,
Oct. 17, 1962, McMinnville News-Register
IT’S DOUBTFUL THAT ANY Linfield
athletic team ever took a trip to play a game which would compare with the one
to Chico over the weekend. The weather had been bad in Chico all week prior to
the contest and athletic director Mackey Martin called the local campus
(Linfield) Friday morning at 8, one hour after the Wildcat gridders had boarded
a bus for the 500-mile jaunt into California, to call the game off.
Martin then contacted the state
police to head off the Linfield team, but for some reason the state police
never stopped the bus.
By the time the big blow hit
the Willamette valley the Linfield crew was well into northern California and
missed everything except the heavy rains. Highways were covered with water in
places and traffic was held up at times or went through on a one-way basis.
Saturday morning Martin
tentatively called off the game to protect fans, player and field, since the
rain was still coming down in sheets. Then at 12:30 in the afternoon he
definitely declared the game off and the Wildcat players packed up their gear
to return home. By 12:45 they were all in the bus, the motor was warmed up and
the gang was all ready to pull out when George Maderos drove up to the motel
where the Linfielders stayed and said to athletic director Martin: “I think we
ought to play.”
Linfield coaches agreed to
follow through on whatever decision was made on the game by the Chico State
pole and Maderos prevailed.
So the Wildcats from
McMinnville rolled out of the bus, unpacked their suitcases again, and headed
up town for lunch. It was too late to get both a lunch and a pre-game meal, so
the two were combined into a sort of pre-game brunch, whatever that is.
Actually the game was a bit on
the different side, since the players soon became completely covered with a
sort of slimy mud that the white-shirted Linfielders looked completely black as
did the red-shirted Chico players. Luckily the players knew which side of the
scrimmage they were supposed to stay on.
On top of the muddy conditions
of the field, a strong wind swept from one end of the playing layout to the
other and had quite an effect on play. Linfield punter Pat Thurston had two
boots with the wind which went 55 and 50 yards but didn’t do quite as well when
the kicked into the breeze on two other occasion, eight and 10.
But the members of the two
teams got to play a game, had a lot of fun, and that’s what athletics on the
amateur plane are all about, they tell us.
::::
Chico, Cats in 6-6 Tie
(edited)
By Hal Cowan, N-R Sports Writer, Oct. 17, 1962, McMinnville
News-Register
CHICO, California – Linfield
still remains undefeated this week, but the Wildcats have been tied.
At a result of Saturday’s “mud
bowl” at Chico, Calif., Linfield now owns a 3-0-1 record for the season, thanks
to a 6-6 tie with the Chico State Wildcats on a field that resembled anything
but a football field.
Five days of solid rain in the
Northern California city had made Chico’s College Field a mired mess of mud. Veteran
newspaper reports in the area called Saturday’s game conditions absolutely the
worst the area had ever observed. Within three minutes after the opening
kickoff players from both clubs were beyond recognition.
The only difference between the
two teams from the stands (viewed by around 200 hearty souls) and the press box
was a red stripe on the Linfield helmets. Both teams were white helmets.
The game was played in
gale-type winds and heavy rain.