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I went on vacation and missed this! Here's our lovable loser Rick Telander talking about his Glory Days with his old Coach Agase - who just happens to be the father of Score boss Paul Agase - who hired Telander to impress his dad.
Coach and I share some old war stories
July 24, 2006
BY RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. -- We talk about the war, both of them, all three of them. We have to.
"In World War II, we knew who the enemy was,'' says Alex Agase, my old football coach.
It has been close to 20 years since we have seen each other, 35 years since my senior season at Northwestern, when "Old Ag'' (he wasn't even 50) led our team to within a game of the Big Ten championship.
We were leading Ohio State at halftime in Columbus -- we had three interceptions of Rex Kern -- and then Woody Hayes went to the T-formation, John Brockington ran again and again, and ... aw, let it go.
"I would talk to my friends who were back from Vietnam,'' I say. "And they were confused. We all were. What are we doing? What's the point? The enemy wasn't even in uniform. It might be a lady, a little kid.''
The old Marine looks at me.
He's bald, wearing black shorts with black suspenders over a red shirt.
"Gonna wear the shorts till autumn,'' he had said in his gruff voice.
He's square, like a hewn chunk of granite.
Outside his modest retirement condo he shares with his wife of many years, Norma, there's a sign that says, "DON'T FEED THE ALLIGATORS.''
The old coach has his Purple Hearts and his two All-America awards as a lineman -- one before the war at Purdue, one after at Illinois.
Nobody ever was an All-American at two schools, except Ag.
It's not that he agrees with me.
Or even disagrees.
He looks at me awhile.
Here I am on a solo visit, out of the blue, the prodigal cornerback, the now-gray-haired kid who never quite fell in line, the player who was involved in some of the old coach's greatest team triumphs, as well as his greatest concerns.
This is about old difficult times, and new difficult times, as well.
It's that we would like to understand each other before the light is gone, two men from different generations, different backgrounds, with time passing so fast, neither of us a pupil or a master anymore, just men.
"It's like this war,'' Ag says at last. Meaning Iraq.
"It is,'' I say.
And there is our truce.
Kent State memories
It's all we can expect of humans on this troubled planet of ours -- shared experience, understanding, respect.
Northwestern coach Randy Walker died last month at 52, 32 years younger than the man who preceded him by five coaches.
John Hoerster, one of my NU teammates and an Agase favorite, died at 53 in 2003.
Teammate and offensive star Mike Adamle had seen me outside the NU athletic offices after the Walker shock and said, "Rick, you should go see Ag. He talks about you.''
And I always talked about him.
We are so different, which was why we had our rocky moments.
I remember the story Joe Mooshil, the old Associated Press writer, told me long ago about Agase, back when they both were soldiers in China after the war, getting the country working.
The door between cars on a military train transporting Japanese was locked. Mooshil was sitting on the inside. The handle rocked back and forth furiously. Silence. Then a huge fist crashed through the glass and turned the lock.
"It was Alex,'' Moosh said. "I think he had a cigar in his mouth.''
Football is a such an odd game.
You are alone, and yet you are a part of a much larger enterprise, one based on trust.
You have no clue as to what happened in a game until you talk to your teammates, hear the coaches, see the film.
"I remember trying to explain a zone defense to you,'' says Agase, shaking his craggy head. "And you didn't like that. You said, 'Just tell me who my man is.'''
I remember that, too.
The interstices and vagaries of zones drove me crazy, the crisscrossing and the floods and the uncertain responsibilities.
I needed clarity in my little life.
I needed it in football and in something so much bigger, the war.
The killings at Kent State came in my junior year, and Adamle -- who was from Kent, Ohio -- and I had gone to Agase to ask if players could wear armbands in the spring game to show our support for the students.
He almost let us. Which stunned me.
"When the rallies were going on and students tore up the iron fences and made the barricade on Sheridan Road, I drove around campus, looking,'' he says. "I saw the students and saw football players there. And I realized these were good guys, the quality people. That changed my mind.''
Football isn't like war
Not enough to let us wear black armbands, but enough to sense what we were going through, to feel empathy.
And empathy, I now realize, was something Alex Agase, the rock, always had.
There were rumors that demonstrators would disrupt that spring game. Maybe violently.
And Ag tells me now for the first time that the athletic director at Northwestern, Tippy Dye, had come to him and declared he would call in the police if that happened. And chaos surely would ensue.
Ag was against any of that.
"I made up my mind that if anything happened, I would blow my whistle and yell, 'Spring practice is over! See you in the fall!'''
We laugh. Not from high humor, but from understanding.
"I don't see any parallels between war and football,'' the old warrior says. "I really don't.''
And I realize how proud I am to have served under him.
Copyright © The Sun-Times Company
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