Did you ever wonder how Elbert Dubenion was recruited to play football at Bluffton College? Would you believe Leland Garmatter, whose funeral was Aug. 24, was the reason?
For newcomers to the Icon, Dubenion was Bluffton College's greatest football player. After college he played for the Buffalo Bills.
The following account is by Jim "Spike" Berry from the Icon's book "Bluffton: A Great Place to Miss." Spike explains the Garmatter-Dubenion connection. The intro to this story tells about Kenny Mast's coaching abilities at Bluffton College.
Here it is in Spike's words:
There was no conditioning program. No weights. None of that stuff. A couple weeks before the season started you’d say, “Boy I ought to running and I ought to start getting in shape.”
And again, going back to Kenny, he was a very unique person. First of all, he was way ahead of his time. I don’t think any individual could ever coach the way Kenny coached simply because of his personality and the things that he could do.
Kenny Mast was the only coach at Bluffton. The only assistants we ever had were if the kid was eligible or he transferred in. Everything meshed together and he was able to do things that you couldn’t do with a one-man coaching staff. ONU probably had five or six coaches, Findlay probably had five or six and Heidelberg maybe more.
At this time, Findlay was the big rival. And next to that would be Ohio Northern. It was the old “will the last one out of town turn off the lights.” The games were just packed.
Kenny was an all-Ohio basketball player at Heidelberg. When A.C. Burcky stepped down—he was coaching football, basketball and baseball and maybe even track. I don’t know. Kenny had just gotten out of the university. He had been in the Navy. He was from Sugarcreek. He was a good basketball player there. Then they offered him the job at Bluffton College to be the head football and basketball coach and track coach. His expertise was basketball.
Heidelberg had a great coach by the name of Paul Hoernemann who they called The Fox. Kenny went to him and was self-taught because he didn’t know anything about football. He spent hours and hours with Hoernemann. Kenny was just out of the Navy, so he was just 23 or 24 years old. Even when I was there Kenny was only in his 20s.
The program that we ran was a clone copy of what Heidelberg ran, and then we played them my freshman and sophomore year. It was kind of ironic. They had four players who played in the NFL. Jim Boeke played for Los Angeles Rams and Dallas, Conrad Hight played for St. Louis, Curby Smith played for (I don’t remember), and Bill Groman played for the Houston Oilers, Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills. He was Morris Groman’s cousin. And, of course, Dobe, played against those guys. Heidelberg was good. One year that game was our only loss.
Leland Garmatter enters the picture
Leland Garmatter played in a typical Kenny Mast recruitment. He was a very good quarterback. I was in the eighth grade and he was a senior in high school. After Leland’s senior senior in high school was probably Kenny’s first or second year. And it was the same thing. He was after Leland.
Leland said, “I want to join the service.” And Kenny said, “Come nine weeks. Just come nine weeks.”
So Leland went nine weeks and I think made first team all-conference quarterback and then joined the service.
Leland and Elbert Dubenion played together in Germany where they played other Army units. Leland was the quarterback and Doe was the halfback.
After the service, people were after Dobe. He had a full ride to Minnesota. Of course, you’ve got to know Dobe too, “It was too cold in Minnesota,” and he ended up in Buffalo. He and Leland kept corresponding, of course. Leland was driving back from Columbus and he took Dobe down to meet Kenny and that’s how he came to Bluffton.
