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We have a new practice field that we haven't been able to get on yet during this football season. It still needs some leveling and some other work but we will be on it in the next year. My PE class was out playing touch football this past week on the baseball field, which has served as our football practice field for what seems like forever, and I started thinking about the old field. As we finish up our last season of football practice there I started thinking about what this piece of land has seen over these many years.
The dictionary defines a field as a piece of land devoted to sports. I don't know that this field could be described any better. There has been much devotion on this piece of property for nearly 50 years. When the new T.R. Miller High School opened in 1963, the Miller football team began practicing on the baseball field. Before the stadium was built in 1965, you got to the baseball field from a dirt road through the woods from Belleville Avenue. Every T.R. Miller football team for the last 49 years has practiced there. All the great teams have been there. The great champions, the great players have all been there.
Sometimes if you go by there when no one is around and just sit and listen in the silence you can feel the history. You can feel the humidity of the August practice, the one on one collisions, and the beauty of Walter Lewis running the option play. Near the left field foul line you can hear Frank Cotten chewing on a player as he spits tobacco juice everywhere. The linemen chutes always stood near the right field fence and it was Donnie Rotch's devoted area for nearly two decades. We use to kick extra points toward an old goal post in center field and late in the season the pecans would fall as the ball rocketed through the tree. The parents and the kids and the fans all stood under those trees and watched practice. I remember watching such a practice in the mid 60's, wondering if I would measure up as I watched Bucky Phillippi quarterback a pre season scrimmage. The soil must be sweetened with the sweat and blood of those teenage years, where they prepared for those Friday night games as though it might be their last. You can see the players, all on a knee listening to their coach. He is talking about pride in being a Miller Tiger and how tough the opponent is and the herculean effort it will take to win. Then suddenly it happened again. Dowe Aughtman splattered another runner and the sound echoed off of the brick of the football stadium amid the roar of his teammates. Then magically it is an overcast Monday in 1997 and we are working on a screen pass. You can see from the desperate look on their young faces that is Neal week and the opponent is fierce. I want to tell them to work hard on the pass, that it will be one of the great plays of the great upset. But I don't want to spoil the moment that is still four days away. There are two lines of players in all white uniforms facing each other in right field. I can tell from the helmets that it is long ago. In the flash of a moment I recognize the face in one of the helmets. I am 14 years old and it is my first tackling drill and like most Miller Tigers in their first tackling drill I am pretty nervous. At the same time in left field I am a senior and running with the ball with the confidence that four years of playing for T.R. Miller can bring you.
Is it possible? Like in Kevin Coster's movie Field of Dreams could they all be there at one time? Is it possible to see them, to hear them and to feel their presence? For this piece of earth was truly a field of dreams where we learned that great things were possible if you worked and tried and cared about each other. If you step on this field will you suddenly be seventeen years old again with shoulder pads and helmet in hand. One night you will drive by the field and the lights will be on. Is there a scrimmage in progress? Is that Pat Bryne I saw just throw a pass to Shine McCracken? Is that Mike Sasser and the '64 team battling the 1994 State Champions?
I will miss this old field. I know it was built for baseball but it has survived the wear and tear of 49 football seasons. We walked onto this field as children but left as young men ready to take our place in the world. I want to put a sign on the fence and I want it to say this--"The Spirit of T.R. Miller lives here."
If you don't believe me go by some night when the lights are on.
