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BY TOM BOGGS

I find myself watching the football players in the middle of the line a heap of times, and I reckon that goes back to the fifties when I was a guard and linebacker.  When I first put on a “B” Team jersey, Thomas Jordan was the state elite for the Linden Red Devils, and I loved talking football with him ‘til he passed from the field.

Moving on to 1955, I was the new center, and I was protected on either side by the likes of Phillip Henson and Billy Gray Bedsole at guards.  Billy Gray might have weighed 140 pounds including his pads and helmet, and Phillip was as good a high school linebacker as Lee Roy Jordan was in college.  He was where the ball carrier was, and he teamed up at linebacker on defense with our tough quarterback, Ralph Etheredge.  Bloody noses on both sides of the ball on account of most players didn’t have face masks yet, and thus no facemasks penalties in the books.

Back to Buddy Bedsole, I remember thinking sometimes in practice if I was lined up opposite him if he was really intending to do me bodily harm, or just playing around. He didn’t seem to care if the boy opposite him was friend or foe, and I sure wanted to be his friend in practice .  Tough fellow just like Phillip and Ralph.

Now the next season in 1956 the Devils weren’t too shabby.  Didn’t lose but one game, and, well, yeah, it was Demopolis again, but real close. That was the year the Ref ruled that Demopolis quarterback “crossed the plain” and scored the winning touchdown.  We Linden boys didn’t know much about plains, but I recollect that when the dust cleared, my buddy, Bobby Jackson, was flat not across the goal line.  Oh, well, let that go after 68 years.

Anyhow, there were flat out not many points scored on Linden, especially up the middle.  Odell Vice and Charlie Henson plugged up that part of the ball field something fierce, and if, by chance somebody might slip past ‘em they let me finish off that runner from my linebacker spot.  Ol’ Charlie was a heap bigger than his brother, Phillip, but not any tougher I can report, but tough enough for sure.

Now, we Devils didn’t do that well in 1957, but I know Bobby Joe Hall was about as tough and mean a pulling guard as Thomas Jordan had been.  Built like a brick outhouse.  No way to hurt that boy, and I was always glad he was on my team, although I remember hitting him in the 1958 Junior-Senior Spring game, and just bounced off as he kept on a going.

Linden won a heap of games over the years before the Devils faded into history, and had some mighty tough fellows filling every position, but especially the middle of the line. When any opposing player walked off from a game with Linden, they were apt to admit they had been to a bloodletting.

Finishing up this subject, I reckon Lee Roy Jordan was the best linebacker I ever saw, pound for pound, and The Bear agreed, and crossing over to the east side of Alabama, when I think of an offensive guard, my mind settles on Zeke Smith from Uniontown, who signed with Auburn, and blew folks away.

What y’all wanner talk about next…quarterbacks or cheerleaders?