Wewalkedoffthefieldnumberonec

Author’s Commentary Many years have passed since I last walked the hallways as a student at Ironton High School. The building has since been torn down and replaced by a modern structure. Yet, no heavy equipment can remove the memories of my time in that iconic structure. Senior march-ins and march-outs at the auditorium, sitting upstairs as a freshman in the auditorium’s ‘peanut gallery’( the last freshman class to do so), lifting in a weight room without air conditioning or functional windows, the new gym decorated for the prom in 1980 (first junior class to select that site), using Ohio University’s computer room and writing programs in BASIC, eating lunch upstairs in the cafeteria my senior year with football players such as Brent Wilcoxon, David Clay and Darwin Conwell, and receiving an outstanding education from distinguished teachers such as Sherman Blagg (Best math teacher I ever had at any educational level.) and Murray Greenstein (It’s hard to top hearing about Woodstock and Vietnam from a man who was actually there!). (L) The hallways at Ironton High School were once walked by nationally-famous athletes such as George McAfee and Coy Bacon. (CL) Senior portraits were shot in the summer. With Ironton’s strict haircut policy (off the neck and ears with a finger’s width of space above the eyebrows) for all sports, students often let it grow long in the summer. A few guys even sported a little facial hair which was also taboo. (CR) Sherman Blagg, a brilliant mathematician, taught my Algebra I, Algebra II, Pre-Calculus and Computer Math classes. (R) Eye-catching lockers in school colors were added while I was a student. Each full-length locker contained a built-in combination lock. Unfortunately, students quickly found out that the locks could be defeated by simply jerking the upper corner of the locker. Students subsequently added their own locks to eradicate the problem. One of the great traditions during our time at Ironton High School was senior march-ins. With the others classes already seated in the auditorium, seniors marched in right past the rest of the kids to take their seats near the stage. While the other classes remained seated, seniors would march out of the auditorium. John Moritz, a senior, struts into the auditorium for an assembly. Marching in behind John Moritz is Nita McClary. Seated on his right side are Sheila Rath (dark hair) and Lisa Snoddy, juniors from my homeroom. Tim Steele, a junior, is seated behind the young ladies. I am seated to Tim’s right. The two-floor auditorium was a beautiful facility that was capable of holding about 1,200 people. It was the perfect facility for major school and community events. When I was a freshman at Ironton High school, pep assemblies for the football team were held in the auditorium. With a booming band and a loud student body, pep assemblies inside the auditorium were thrilling and earsplitting. Pep rallies for the 1979 football team were conducted inside the new gym. The Ironton Sports Center (Harold Conley Center) was a nice facility, but pep rallies never had the same ambiance inside the massive gym. Students and teachers at Ironton High School openly discussed teachers’ unions and strikes during my time in the building. The 1978 strike at Logan and media coverage of strikes at other school systems in Ohio brought the topic to the forefront. Unlike other districts around Ohio, Ironton had no teachers’ union. One teacher told me that he/she was a professional and did not need a union. Another teacher vowed that he/she would never join a union. Years later, the Ironton district finally unionized. Interestingly, both teachers became members of Ironton’s union. Frau Ori was my teacher for German I and German II. Friedrich was my designated first name in her class. She was a talented and well-loved teacher. During her time in the building, German became the most popular foreign language at Ironton High. I must have talked a few dozen kids into taking her class. “Frau Ori’s favorite color is lavender, she loves pizza, and the only thing she dislikes is winter. Her hobbies are traveling and reading. The thing she likes most about life is people.” (1978 yearbook) Even after all these years, I still have a decent vocabulary. Here is a brief message to one of my favorite members of the Ironton High faculty. Du bist sehr schön! (You are very beautiful!) Can’t forget those German umlauts! The school produced both academic and athletic stars during my years in the building. Yet, it was a team accomplishment in 1979 that thrilled an entire city and set in place a new bar for football at Ironton High. Despite the passing of almost four decades, the accomplishments of the 1979 football team are just as vivid in my mind today as it was my junior year in high school. I was privileged to grow up in the Sedgwick Meadows area of Ironton. Within easy walking distance was the Sedgwick Dairy Bar at 1725 Thomas Street (owned and operated by Thelma Mowery), the ballfields at the Ironton Junior High School on Delaware Street, the hills along U.S. 52 which the local kids hiked and a colossal private pool called Sta-Tan that was owned and operated by the Staton family. This group of Ironton High students from the 1975 yearbook took time to climb the high dive at Sta-Tan Swim Club. The high dive was strategically positioned between two lower diving boards. The depth of the water directly below the higher diving board was fourteen feet. I must have climbed that staircase thousands of times every summer. The lifeguard sat in the nearby elevated chair, and high divers had no problem drenching the chair’s occupant with a well-placed ‘cannonball’ or ‘watermelon’. The pool was a virtual orphanage every summer. Once the membership price was paid, the pool became the cheapest babysitter in town. This Green Valley house served as Fred Staton’s business office in 1964. Not only did residents of Sedgwick Meadows and Green Valley typically join the nearby pool owned by the Staton family, most of us lived in homes constructed by Mr. Staton. Some of us even lived on streets named after members of the Staton family. (L) Sta-Tan Swim Club, a private pool that opened in 1960, saw enormous crowds in the 1970s. There were days when the massive parking lot was so full that cars parked on Means Street. Many kids peddled to the pool and locked their bikes on the bike rack. At times, it was nearly impossible to find your 10-speed or banana-seat bicycle in the rack. As a high schooler, I enjoyed flying off the high dive, pick-up basketball games on the weekends and euchre over at the covered-concession stand. Slowly, the city’s declining economy took a toll on the business. The iconic pool failed to open for the 2018 season, leaving the city without a facility offering vital swim lessons. ( R) Released on October 20, 1979, Tom Petty’s breakthrough album made him one of the hottest artists around. I can still remember hearing Don’t Do Me Like That (Released in November 1979, it was the band's first Top-10 hit.) and Refugee (Released in January 1980, it peaked at 15 on the charts.) blasting away on the jukebox located in the concession area at Sta-Tan. Tom Petty, now a rock legend, passed away in 2017 while I was in the process of writing this story. (Photo by Jim Ridgeway) When I was first asked to write this article, I felt that I was not the appropriate person to convey the story of these young men. After all, I was a kid that walked away from the football program following my freshman season. Although I am not sure if I would have added anything more than an extra practice body, a few team members might feel that I should have gotten off the diving boards at Sta- Tan and joined them at physical fitness and two-a-days. On the other hand, I believed I was fully capable of telling their amazing story. I knew every player on that 1979 team. I had tackled most of the backs, and I was blocked by most of the linemen. I was also close friends with several of the players. (L) The 1977 freshman football team at Ironton High School had a large contingent of kids on the team when the season started. The number dwindled to around 17 or 18 before the end of our schedule. We had a great team, and our only loss was at Waverly in the final game of our season. We are pictured here in our red practice jerseys with ‘Ironton Frosh’ on the front. We wore the red jerseys to varsity home games at Tanks Memorial Stadium, where we worked gate security and performed other tasks for the school. Most of our team worked to secure the gates and field from improper entry. I was positioned in the stands to ensure people did not hop the fence into the reserved seats. A few freshmen performed duties for the varsity team on Friday nights. “David Clay and I were managers for the team, so we travelled and schlepped bags and equipment, and set up cups of Coke in the locker room that the team got at halftime,” recalled Steve Sutton in a 2018 interview. Not a single member of the freshman team ever complained about what we were asked to do on Friday nights.

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