By CHUCK MILLER, BHS Class of 1987

 

Though I do not remember the exact date, I do remember the moment my blood began to bleed Bridgeport Indian red.  I was in grade school at Johnson Elementary sometime in the mid-1970s.  A few of the high school players came over to talk to the kids and read us a story.  They were big and friendly.  One of them even let me try on his helmet.  It might have been about eight sizes too big, but to me it was a perfect fit.  I had found my heroes and knew just what I wanted to be.  Right through my own playing days and well into middle age, wherever life has taken me, I have followed my Indians without missing a beat.  So it is no surprise I am sitting in Honolulu, Hawaii, this morning, drinking my coffee and reflecting on yesterday’s big win and even bigger things to come.

 

With a long string of playoff appearances and seven state titles ranking us among the state’s elite programs, Bridgeport football has a well-documented tradition.  Given such an illustrious history, readers may not realize the historical significance of Saturday’s semi-final matchup with the Wayne Pioneers.  To my recollection, the Indians have only been this deep in the state playoffs with a chance to repeat as state champions three other times.

 

The first such occurrence was in 1987.  The 1986 team, of which I was a part, had won the state title the previous year in dramatic fashion, driving for a late field goal to top the Tucker County Mountain Lions by a 10-7 score.  That Tucker County team was led by star quarterback Jed Drenning, who would go on to tremendous college success in the West Virginia Conference.  Like many talented teams, however, they were not quite able to crack our long-honored formula of ball control running and stout defense – the Bridgeport way.

 

I was a college freshman in the fall of 1987, away from home for the first time and scratching my way through a demanding course schedule.  I held tightly to the familiarity of Indian football and followed the season closely.  Many good players remained from the 1986 title team, and I felt they would be primed for another deep playoff run.  By Bridgeport standards, the team stumbled a bit during the regular season, losing two games.  Nevertheless, come playoff time they had gelled together and made a run to the semifinals. 

 

On a frigid Saturday morning, my college roommate, Tim Randolph (#11 on the all-time player countdown), and I made the four-hour trek from Grove City, Pennsylvania, to Buckhannon to watch our alma mater take on those same Tucker County Mountain Lions for the right to return to Laidley Field to defend our state title.  Diminutive Lonnie Sprouse was our star that day, running for over 200 yards in the sub-zero weather and willing us to overtime.  If Sprouse is not on that list of Bridgeport’s great players, I am pretty sure several of his teammates who are can recall picking themselves up off the practice turf and picking dirt clods out of their ear holes after being leveled by the 140-pound dynamo.  Alas, Sprouse and the rest of the team’s valiant effort was not quite enough, as Tucker County emerged victorious in the double overtime thriller and our opportunity to repeat was extinguished in the cold.

 

Our next opportunity to repeat as state champions occurred two short years later, in 1989.  We had won the 1988 state title over Winfield, stifling their own bid to repeat that season, in an epic, four-overtime thriller played at Mountaineer Field.  My uncle, not connected to Bridgeport football in the least but nonetheless a witness to a number of historic moments as I dragged him to games during family Thanksgiving visits, watched in amazement with me as notoriously conservative Wayne Jamison called perhaps the greatest trick play in West Virginia high school football history – a two-point conversion pass by the holder on the extra point try that would have sent the game to a fifth overtime.  Drawing his line in the sand, Jamison ended the game right there for his exhausted team and did so with a call for the ages and a 29-28 victory.  It would be Jamison’s fourth and final title in an illustrious coaching career.

 

The 1989 team was stacked with talent and led by a pivotal contributor to the 1988 title, fullback Chris Marteny.  They rolled through the regular season undefeated, ranked #1 in the state AA polls, and into a semifinal playoff match-up where they enjoyed home field advantage against the Musselman Applemen – the same Applemen who they had shut out the previous season in the playoffs 35-0.  Randolph and I stood on the top row of the bleachers along with the diehard old men who told irrelevant stories of the old days – yes, I realize I’m becoming one of these old men – and watched a hard-fought first half that saw us go to the locker room with a 7-0 lead. 

 

The excitement was palpable in the stands despite the close battle.  I mean, how many second half leads had Bridgeport ever blown at home?  On this day, however, a legend on the other sideline, Denny Price, had a trick up his own sleeve in the form of a harmless looking little wingback counter play that caught our defense flat-footed and went for two long second-half touchdown runs.  All I could do was shake my head in disbelief as I trudged from the stadium that day to lick my wounds.  Life was not all bad – I still could count on Twin Oaks pizza to soothe my pain – though there really was a collective cloud over Bridgeport for a few days following that heartbreaking 14-7 loss and end to a 20+ game winning streak.  I remember Randolph dissecting that counter play for me as he inhaled an entire pizza and thinking that as good as this team was, it could have used his steady presence and football IQ developed as the son of a coach (his father, Gene, was an Indians assistant and later head basketball coach for many years) in the middle of its defense on that afternoon.

 

2001 was our third opportunity to repeat as state champions, and it looked as though the third time would be the charm.  After a 13-year championship drought, Bridgeport football was back in a big way!  Okay, it never really went anywhere, as we had many good teams during the 1990s that just couldn’t quite close the deal.  2000, however, was a different story.  We beat the Wayne Pioneers for the state title to complete a perfect season and rolled through 2001 undefeated and virtually unchallenged behind the bone-crunching running of C.R. Rohrbough. 

 

My faithful uncle had interrupted his peaceful Thanksgiving vacation to ride to Wheeling with me in 2000 and was headed back, perhaps reluctantly, for a return trip in 2001 to watch a heavily favored Indians team take on the #6 and twice-beaten Poca Dots for the state title.  Who knows how he really felt about another frigid Friday listening to me talk incessantly about the stick-I, the 4-3 defense, and all things Bridgeport.  He sat down on the butt-numbing bleachers – his ridiculous-looking Russian ushanka-hat perched firmly on his head – unscrewed the top to his trusty thermos, and poured a hot cup of coffee to combat the cold.  Looking back, he probably wished he had something a little stronger in that thermos to help him contend with my ramblings for the evening.

 

Finally, after two disappointing semifinal defeats, we had made the long journey back to the state title game to defend and seemed primed to add “repeat champions” to our illustrious football resume.  We drove the length of the field on our first possession, ripping off several big runs and owning the line of scrimmage, to take a 7-0 lead.  And then the bottom fell out.  Poca scored 21 unanswered points, staying a step ahead of our defense, including a halfback pass for a touchdown that caught us completely by surprise.  They sealed the victory with a late interception as we entered desperation mode and began doing the one thing Bridgeport does not often do except in the direst of circumstances:  throw the football. 

 

The only thing that could shut me up had happened.  I was shell-shocked into silence by the Dots’ unexpected onslaught and the beginning of a mini-dynasty that would see them reel off an incredible three straight state titles.  Turns out my uncle did not need to spike his coffee; the Dots took care of that for him.

 

This brings me to our current opportunity.  After surviving a brutal schedule that saw us go 5-1 against six playoff teams (three in AAA and three in AA), we emerged as the top playoff seed.  After rolling over Liberty Raleigh in the opening round, we dispatched Robert C. Byrd in the second round.  Beating a good team twice in one season is never an easy task, particularly when that team is your cross-town rival and coached by your former coach who knows you as well as anyone. 

 

This year’s defense has been as dominant as any I can remember.  The run defense is virtually impervious, holding several opponents to negative rushing yards and virtually forcing opponents to play a one-dimensional passing offense.  Byrd, for example, ran 23 times for -23 rushing yards on Saturday.  Still, the team has a small chink in its armor; one that Coach Carey and RCB did a good job uncovering in the first half despite their inability to generate even a threat of being able to run the ball.  We are prone to giving up big passing plays, and they exposed this weakness to the tune of two first half passing touchdowns to keep the game close before we pulled away in the second half.

 

Remember 2009?  Wes Tonkery and crew may have been one of the smallest AAA schools in the playoff field, but we were both physically dominating and feared.  We manhandled two much larger schools in the playoffs and went on the road to tangle with South Charleston for the right to play for the state title in the large school class.  Across the state, pundits had preached that you had to pass to win in AAA, and here we were on the precipice of proving them all wrong.  We went to South Charleston and outplayed the Black Eagles in almost every facet of the game, rolling up a ridiculous rushing total, dominating time of possession, and beating them up.  And yet we lost 28-25, due largely to a couple of long passing plays that bailed them out.  They went on the next week to dominate the Brooke Bruins for the state title – a championship I maintain was ours for the taking if not for a couple blown coverages.

 

What might the outcome be this week?    Will we finally continue our run toward avenging past disappointments or will Wayne avenge its own monumental disappointment?  As if beating them by a razor-thin 14-13 margin in last year’s state title game wasn’t bad enough, the historical significance of the game was tremendous.  They came in riding a 26-game win streak, tying them for the most consecutive wins in state history.  Winning not only would have given them the coveted state title, but it would have also preserved their place alone at the top with 27 straight wins.  Even if we do win, a formidable foe in Westside or potentially unbeaten Frankfort lies in wait (the Falcons are 12-0 heading into their semifinal matchup).

 

I was on Maui during last year’s matchup with Wayne, riding to the top of beautiful Mount Haleakala.  Though I was thousands of miles from home and enjoying the beauty of another world, a small piece of me remained with my Indians in Wheeling’s driving snow.  Through the magic of technology, I even managed to tune in to internet radio coverage as we made the drive to the summit.  I am sure my girlfriend thought I was completely nuts as I cheered wildly when we scored to take a slim lead into halftime.  This Saturday, I will be enjoying a weekend getaway on the neighbor island of Molokai.  When we booked our trip I teased her that I am our lucky rabbit’s foot, and that destiny demands I travel to a neighbor island to preserve our victory formula – my superstitious equivalent, albeit it a far more pleasant one, of some baseball player on a hitting streak refusing to wash his disgusting socks.

 

At kickoff, I will be starting a mule ride down some of the most spectacular sea cliffs in the world.  I am sure I will be clutching the reigns for dear life and that internet radio will not be an option this time.  Perhaps that is for the best, as I really should be living in the moment and enjoying this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  I will not be the only one with such an opportunity, however.  The members of the Bridgeport Indians football team, though they are young with full and rewarding lives ahead, also have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  They can be the first team to do something no Bridgeport team has been able to accomplish previously.  They can be the first to call themselves repeat champions.

 

Roll Tribe!

 

Editor's Note: Chuck "C.D." Miller (pictured below) was a member of the 1986 Class AA state championship football team and currently lives in Hawaii. To photo shows Bridgeport's Frank Jenio congratulating huge Tucker County lineman Shawn Long after the Indians' 1987 semifinal loss in Buckhannon, while the second photo is of C.R. Rohrbough being drug down by Poca defenders in the Class AA title game. Bottom two photos courtesy of the BHS Journalism Department.