Fred
I enjoyed Ron Habegger's perspective on the 1958 BHS football team… he was right “we were making memories.”
What he didn’t say was that this team was considered (in 1958) one of the best BHS football teams ever. This was a time before there were state rankings or a playoff system. There were less then 30 members on the team which, required starters to go both ways, but there was a lot of depth in positions and everyone played.
One of the strengths of this team was “speed,” and most members were also on the track team, which won the Northwest Conference track championship.
The loss to Elida was somewhat expected. Elida was a much larger school and probably should not have been in the Northwest Conference.
The loses to Ada and Elida came early in the season and with most really good teams they improve and get stronger as the season goes on. The big game of 1958 and in the Northwest Conference was between Bluffton and Columbus Grove. By the time of our meeting Bluffton and Gove were both considered area football power houses.
The game was “hyped” for weeks with much local anticipation; however, Bluffton’s win was controversial. It was rumored that BC football standouts Joe Urich, Jim Weaver and Don Darbyshire scouted Columbus Grove and knew every play in Groves’s playbook.
The three BC students were on the sidelines that November night and did more coaching than Frank Osborne and Joe Harris. It was estimated that the crowd that night was the largest ever to see a Bluffton High School football game.
Years later Joe Urich told me that the three of them hid out in CG’s press box for a week watching their practices they were each paid $15 for there scouting reports.
It’s interesting that Darbyshire was a CG graduate and his brother, Lynn, was on the CG team. For some reason we could never beat Ada even though Bluffton was a much better team.
Rudi Steiner
Homewood, Illinois
