Dad, the athlete

These pictures were copied from my dad's high school yearbook. The top picture is his senior year basketball team that won the class championship. Dad is the second from the left. The next picture is the track team with my dad standing with the check mark above his head. The next picture is my dad with his football team. He is the second from the left, kneeling with the big smile. Then another picture of dad with the basketball team. He is the one on the left in the front row - get those knees! The last is my dad, third from the left on the back row with the baseball team.

You might say dad loved athletics. He certainly was active in all available sports of the day. The following excerpt is taken directly from dad's life story:

Athletics were always of great interest to me and at that period of time basketball was real popular in the area. A group of my friends and I purchased a basketball and began playing on an outside court on the dirt ground. We put baskets on backboards fastened to large pine poles which we dug into the ground. We were 12 or 13 years of age at that time. When we entered high school at about the same time, we had already had a lot of practice in playing together. The year we were freshmen, the Snow Academy team almost won the state championship, which was played at Logan , Utah. By the time we were juniors, the varsity team consisted of myself and my friends who had played on the sandlot. We won our district and the playoff with the Sanpete district and were entitled to enter the State Tournament in Salt Lake City. There were no classifications then such as triple A, double A, etc. All high schools were in one classification regardless of the number enrolled. After district play offs, there were eight teams competing in the State Tournament, which was held in the old Deseret Gym in Salt Lake City. It was quite an honor to be one of the eight teams. We entered the tournament and were eliminated by a team from the Davis High School. They went on to win the championship that year. Anyhow, it was a highlight in our young lives.

As seen from these pictures, dad was also on the track team and was on the University of Utah varsity track team when he attended college there. He ran the 220 yard low hurdles and the long jump. He won the long jump event in a dual meet with B.Y.U. in his senior year at the U. When dad was a senior in high school, they introduced football in the school and dad was the regular quarterback.

I remember dad telling me that his father was not keen on all of his athletic pursuits. He complained to him a fair amount about how it was such a waste of time that could be better spent on school or work on the farm. Knowing my dad, and reading his life story, I'm sure he did his good share of the work and was certainly a good student, but that didn't seem to appease his father. One day, they were in the fields putting up the hay, which consisted of loading it onto the wagon and his younger brother, who was 9 or 10 years old, was on the wagon doing the "tromping", which was packing down the hay after it was pitched onto the wagon so they could fit as much as possible on the load. Something spooked the horse that was hitched to the wagon and he took off across the field with the haywagon and dad's little brother. Dad was across the field from this and when he saw what was happening, he sprinted diagonally across toward where the wagon was headed and caught up with the horse and saved the wagon, hay, horse and little brother from a disastrous accident. Grandpa's comment was, "Well, I guess those d---- athletics are good for something.