For many people that I knew high school was about football, all about football. It kept them going. It was why they came to school. It was why they stayed in school and it was why they finished school. It was their raison d’etre. Any social history of Port Credit’s first century needs to contain a significant section on football. It was so much more than a bunch of guys with pads, helmets and a ball. During my era, more than any other sport football projected a school’s sports image and its collective athletic prowess. It could convey the very essence of a school and what it stood for. At Port Credit that essence was the pursuit of excellence and nowhere was it more diligently pursued than on the football field. When you put on that game sweater you realized that you had a responsibility to something bigger than yourself and your team mates. This was Port Credit Football. Although it now seems to have declined in popularity and has a reduced importance in school life, for a large part of Port Credit’s existence football was a big deal. It dominated the Fall term. It demanded a major commitment in time and energy from the students who played it and from the teachers who coached it. Football left a lasting impression on anyone who took part. I’d wager that former players might not be able to remember all of their high school teachers but I’m sure they could name every teacher who coached them in football.
My first exposure to Port Credit football was entirely auditory. The house where I grew up was on Mineola Road about two hundred meters east of P.C.S.S. One October Friday when I was in Grade 8 the elementary system had a P.D. day and the secondary system did not. During the afternoon I was outside raking the leaves on our front lawn. As I worked I became aware of a large volume of sound that would erupt, subside and erupt again. It rolled over me in repeated waves. I was able to determine the source was a large number of people cheering and yelling in unison. At one point a high school student whom I knew walked by. I asked him what was going on and he replied that Port Credit was playing a football game. From the sheer volume I could tell a lot of people were in attendance and the opposition was taking a terrible beating.
Even if you didn’t play on one of Port Credit’s three age based teams, Junior B, Junior A and Senior, in the 1960s football made the autumn term a lot of fun. Fridays were game days and with any luck they would be a complete write off work wise. Quite possibly there would be an assembly or a pep rally in the morning. If Port Credit was playing at home it usually meant a Junior- Senior double header which would take up the whole afternoon. If it was an away game then there would be buses for fans. You got to see different real estate and check out the girls at another school. The icing on the cake was Port Credit usually won the games.
I didn’t go out for football until Grade 11 and that first year there were many afternoons when I seriously questioned my decision to do so. My first exposure to September football practice was an exhausting experience. There seemed to be endless calisthenics and wind sprints followed by endless drills that always seemed to finish up painfully. New plays had to be learned and remembered and new skills had to be mastered. At the end of the day you would crawl home almost too tired to eat dinner and not much good for anything else. You couldn’t wait for those first couple of weekends in September just so your body could rest sore muscles and to allow all manner of bumps and bruises to get a little better. For me, September football will always be heat, dust and sweat. Walking down the gym corridor you could smell a football dressing room before you got there. The distinct aroma of Atomic Bomb Liniment comes first to mind followed by the unforgettable odour of dried perspiration saturating gym socks, T-shirts and all other articles of equipment. September had to be survived but at least towards the end of the month the actual games started and life got a little easier. I don’t remember any player actually being cut from a team that I played on. The coaches didn’t have to cut anybody because the practices weeded out the loafers.
The month of October was the heart of football season. This was when you found out what kind of team you had and if you had a shot at the play-offs. A typical week was three hard practices followed by a light practice on Thursday and a game on Friday. Game days, home or away, meant you had to wear a shirt and tie to school. Before the game your equipment went on with extra care to be followed by our team sweaters that were only worn for games. The day before our coaches had encouraged us to clean our cleats and try to get our football pants washed for the game. Games never failed to be exciting especially if you won. There would be orange quarters to suck on at half time and a can of pop in the dressing room when the game was over.
In my memory I always identify November football with gray skies, cool temperatures and the smell of cold, damp earth. These were good things because if you were playing football in November you were in the playoffs. A championship game can be the best of times or one of life’s unforgettable heart breakers. The dressing room after the game will be a place of tremendous celebration and happiness or tremendous sadness depending on the final score. Players will remember for a long time the good plays they made and never forget the plays they wish they had made. These mistakes and missed plays will haunt their memories for the rest of their lives. If the championship was for a Senior title and you were a player of limited ability, like myself, then you were also aware this was probably your last game and you will never play football again.
Was it all worth it? Absolutely! Playing football is a quintessential experience of high school. As long as you didn’t suffer a debilitating physical injury then the takeaways were almost entirely positive. The lessons it taught were sometimes hard-learned but overcoming adversity builds character, confidence and mental toughness. This is much better preparation for the ups and downs of real life than some warm, fuzzy, feel good activity where there are no winners and losers but absolutely no connection to reality. The ancient Greeks were correct, a complete education trains the mind and the body to produce a whole person. The dedication required to play football did shape your mind and body and sometimes your heart and soul.
So whatever became of those football fanatics I knew in my youth? Most of them turned out just fine. The lessons they learned on the gridiron had a carry over into the rest of their lives. Because of football or in spite of football they got good educations – thank you P.C.S.S. If ever football disappears then a valuable part of the educational process will be gone from Port Credit. I hope that 100 years from now when people are writing about their high school memories for Port Credit’s second centenary some of those memories will be about football.
Dedicated to the memory of Bill Powel and Jim Renton, both exceptional football coaches.
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