by Mark Tabb
Ed shook his head in disbelief that the word had slipped out. “We’re considering it, but I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said.
Later that afternoon, Ed came into Teep’s barbershop and announced, “We’re not going.”
Several years later, Simpson College offered Ed a job as its head football coach. Aaron and Todd had finished high school by this point. As Ed considered it, Jan told him, “If you’re going to make a move, this is the perfect time.” The job tempted him. After all, he had always dreamed of moving up to the college ranks. Every high school coach does, just as every college coach dreams of moving up to the pros. While Simpson was a small school, it offered Ed opportunities he could never dream about in a town like Parkersburg. Ed nearly took the job, but he finally decided to stay put.
No, Ed never imagined he would stay in Parkersburg forever, but those closest to him were not surprised. They knew how much he loved the town, and they saw the impact he had on his players. Frosty Westering’s book Make the Big Time Where You Are encouraged Ed that he was on the right track in his belief that bigger doesn’t always mean better. On top of that, all of his and Jan’s closest friends lived in Parkersburg.
Yet the single biggest reason Ed settled down for good in Parkersburg came down to one peculiar quirk in his personality: he hated change. Once he found something that worked, he stuck with it. In 1978, three years after he came to Parkersburg, he watched Emmetsburg High School run the “quick huddle” — that is, the offense breaks its huddle, runs to the line of scrimmage, and snaps the ball before the defense can get set. Ed liked it so much that he ran it in Parkersburg that season, and every other season for the next thirty years. He also used the same playbook year after year after year. Players who suited up for him in 2007 ran essentially the same plays he used back in 1987. Ed joked that he only had five offensive plays, which was not far from the truth. Opposing coaches knew exactly what A-P’s offense would throw at them. Yet knowing what play is coming and stopping it are two different things. Ed prided himself on having his teams in such good physical condition and so prepared for game night that they would outhustle and outlast their opponents.
Yes, Ed hated change, yet that was exactly what he faced nearly every minute of every day throughout the summer following the tornado. His life, his team, his community, his family — everything was in flux. The biggest change of all came at the school.
Aplington-Parkersburg High School was Ed’s mission field, his church, the place to which God had called him to make a difference in the lives of students. In July, just under two months after the tornado, a train of dump trucks and flatbed trailers carrying back hoes, excavators, and bulldozers pulled into the parking lot of Ed’s mission field. Slowly but surely over the next two weeks, demolition crews finished off what the tornado had started.
Watching the school come down, piece by piece, day by day, didn’t help the mood in Parkersburg. It felt like a protracted funeral. A group of students sat on the grass below the elementary school, right across the street from the high school, and wept. Periodically other students and their parents joined them. Every once in a while, someone pulled out a camera and snapped a few pictures. However, most people just sat and stared. They didn’t want to take any pictures. Most preferred to remember the school the way it was before the storm.
On the last day of the demolition, Chris Luhring drove out to the golf course looking for Ed. If this had been a normal summer, the golf course would have been the first place Chris went to find him instead of the last. But this summer was anything but normal, and today was an especially abnormal day, and not just because Ed had taken a rare afternoon off.
“Hey, Coach, how ya doing?” Chris asked. “Any day when I get to play golf is a good day,” Ed said with a smile.
“Yeah. You haven’t been able to do much of that this summer. So how did you do?”
“Played the front nine a few strokes over par. Didn’t do too bad considering how little I’ve played lately.”
“That’s good. Yeah, well, I just wanted to check and make sure you were OK, Coach. I better get back to work.”
“So what’s really going on, Chris? I know you didn’t drive all the way out here to ask about my golf game.”
Chris smiled. “Sure I did.”
“I know they finished tearing the school down today,” Ed said. “It’s all right. I would be lying if I said it didn’t bother me. That’s why I’m here instead of there. A friend told me I shouldn’t be there when they tore the last of it down, and he was right. So, yeah, it’s eating at me a little.”
“I’m sorry, Coach. I know how much the school means to you. It means a lot to all of us.”
“Thanks, Chris. I appreciate your concern. Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll be all right. After all, the demolition crew is just finishing what the tornado started. Besides, we’ve got to clear the site if we’re going to get into the new building by the start of school a year from now. Me and the principal and superintendent have already started talking about what we want to put in the plans for the new school. This is our chance to give Aplington and Parkersburg a state-of-the-art facility without passing a bond issue or raising taxes or any of the other things school districts have to do to build a new building.”
Chris knew his old coach meant every word, but he could tell this was a tough day for Ed. “Just like the football field, uh, Coach? Gonna build it back better than before.”
Ed smiled. “Yeah, something like that,” he said.
“So, you going to play the back nine?” Chris asked.
“No,” Ed said, “I need to get back to work.”
A week or so later, Ed called the school superintendent, Jon Thompson. “Jon, you’ve gotta come see this!” Ed said. “The lights are up!” “What?” Jon asked.
“The lights are up. The guys from Musco Lighting just finished installing the last of the lights. They don’t have any electricity yet, but all the light poles are up on all the fields —football, baseball, softball, tennis. You can’t believe how good they look.”
“Hey, Coach, turn around,” Jon said. “I’m parked right behind you.”
Ed spun around. When he saw Jon, he broke out in a huge grin and waved. Jon walked over to him and the two of them stood and stared and took it all in. The new light poles looked nothing like the old. Before, the lights hung atop wooden poles, sort of like extra-tall telephone poles. Not the new ones. Musco Lighting installed steel poles on every one of the athletic fields. With no trees or houses or any other buildings on the south side of town to block the view, you could see the metal poles shining in the sun for miles around. Not only did Musco install the lights; they donated the lights for the football field. Originally, they had offered to install the same kind of lights that the field had before. Ed wanted to kick it up a notch and install stronger, brighter lights. When he told Musco Lighting what he wanted, the company told him, “Sure. No problem. Whatever you need.”
Ed and Jon didn’t say a word for a few minutes as they stood and stared at the new light poles. Below them, workers cut I-beams for the new bleachers. From the far side of the football field they heard a cement truck backing up to pour more concrete near the visitors’ stands. “It’s going to happen,” Ed said. “We’re going to pull this off.”
“You know, Coach, I think you’re right,” Jon said.
Two weeks later, Jon’s cell phone rang again. Coach was calling. Jon glanced at his watch. It was after 9:00 p.m. The sun had slipped below the horizon, although it was not yet completely dark.
“Are you still in town?” Ed asked.
“No, why?”
“Meet me at the school.” “Why? Is there a problem?”
“Jon, do I only call you when something’s gone wrong? Wait, don’t answer that. Anyway, no. There isn’t a problem. Just meet me at the school. You’ll see why.”
Jon got in his car and headed toward Parkersburg. His son, Alec, was already there working out with the football team.<
br />
Long before he got close to the school, he knew why Ed wanted to see him. The entire south side of town was dark, just like it was every night. No streetlights. No house lights, nothing. That side of town had been dark for so long that the blackness looked normal.
But not tonight. There in the distance Jon saw the lights of the football field shining bright. By the time he got to the field, a crowd had already started to form. Football players and their parents walked around on the Sacred Acre like they had never seen light before. Adults laughed while players high-fived each other. The Fourth of July had already passed, but to Jon and the people dancing across the field, it felt like the Fourth of July and Christmas rolled into one.
The superintendent found Ed and gave him a hug. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life?” Ed said to him.
Jon grinned. “No, I can’t say that I have.”
Ed left the lights on for nearly an hour. No one wanted to leave the party. The A-P Falcons would not play their first game for nearly a month, and the bleachers, scoreboard, fencing, press box, and everything else needed for the game were far from finished. But on this night that didn’t seem to matter. The first light on the south side of town came from the Sacred Acre, from the field where Ed’s team played football, like a city shining on a hill. For the town of Parkersburg, it now felt like they had turned a corner. The town was not the same as it was on May 24, and it never would be again. But in the light of this night, the future never looked brighter.
CHAPTER 11
FIRST GLIMPSE OF NORMALCY
If we do what’s right, get better every day, winning will take care of itself.
ED THOMAS
IN 1995, APLINGTON-PARKERSBURG ENTERED THE SEASON one year removed from their first Iowa Class 1A state championship. On paper, it looked like they had a strong chance of going all the way again. Although they had lost fullback and defensive lineman Brad Meester, who had moved on to the University of Northern Iowa and then ultimately to the NFL, sophomore Aaron Kampman looked more than ready to fill his shoes. As young and inexperienced as Aaron was, Ed could tell he had the tools to be something special.
A-P opened the season at home against East Marshall on Labor Day weekend with high hopes for the season. A funny thing happened in that first game. Someone forgot to inform East Marshall that they were supposed to be intimidated by the mighty Falcons. A-P came out flat, and East Marshall seized the opportunity. No matter what Ed tried, the Falcons never got on track. East Marshall came away with a victory in a game Ed knew his Falcons would have won if they had played anywhere near their potential.
School was out for Labor Day on Monday, but Ed made his team come in for practice. The players, including his oldest son, Aaron, dragged themselves out onto the practice field, heads hanging low for what they called Black Monday. Monday practices after a loss were bad; the Labor Day practice after a loss was the worst of the worst.
Ed pulled his team over to a shady spot next to a storage shed. “Have a seat, fellas,” he said before practice began. “We need to talk.” The players found spots on the grass and sat in a mass circle around Ed. Assistant coaches Al Kerns, Jon Wiegmann, and Greg Fisher, each of whom had coached with Ed for years, stood in the back, arms crossed, smiles on their faces, wondering what he had up his sleeve today. While most coaches would launch into a tirade after such a disappointing loss, Ed always had something memorable planned to get the team’s attention after a big loss.
“Fellas,” Ed began, “I don’t have to tell you that Friday night’s game was not our best effort. I don’t know what we were doing out there, but I know this: We didn’t play like a team.” He then reached over and picked up a large jar filled with beans. “It’s kinda like this,” he said. Popping open the jar, he dropped a rubber ball inside. “The ball cannot float on its own,” he said as the ball sank to the bottom. He then screwed the lid back on and held up the jar.
“That ball and our season are a lot alike. Right now, it feels like both are sinking, but they don’t have to be.” He then began to swirl the jar around and around. As he did, the beans lifted the ball up toward the top of the jar. “You see, fellas, Friday night, we went out on that field and played like a bunch of individuals. Well, I gotta tell you, if we do that, our season will sink like this ball. But when we work together like these beans are, we can lift up this season and win games and reach the goals we set back in the spring.” Players’ heads started nodding in agreement.
Suddenly, Ed whirled around and slammed the jar against the wall of the shed behind him. The jar of beans exploded. “And that’s what’s going to happen to your season if we don’t start coming together as a team!” Ed shouted. “But Friday we’re busting out. Now who’s ready to get to work?”
The entire team jumped up and shouted.
Al Kerns slapped Jon Wiegmann on the back. “He’s always got something,” he said. “Ed always finds a way to get through to ‘em.” They won their next game 40 to 6. Ed had the same high hopes for his 2008 team, or at least he did prior to May 25. The previous season, the team won its first eight games by an average score of 35 to 5. The offense scored more than forty points four times, and the defense didn’t give up a single point until the third game of the season. However, they lost a nail-biter on the road to Starmont High School in the last game of the regular season, 28 to 25. Five days later, they played their worst game of the year against Newman Catholic in the first game of the state playoffs. The Falcons’ 2007 season ended with a disappointing 38 to 13 defeat. Even so, Ed could not wait for the next year. With a strong core of returning seniors, he thought this team could be special. Throw in some talented juniors, and it might just have what it takes to go all the way. For Ed, football season could not come fast enough.
Yet in the wake of the tornado, Ed’s team had already suffered a devastating loss before a single down had been played. Although only ten of his players’ families lost their homes, everyone on the team was affected by the storm in one way or another. Every single player had either a grandparent, aunt or uncle, or close friend whose home had been destroyed. Those who had lost their homes were now scattered across different communities in the area while they rebuilt their houses in Parkersburg. Ed wasn’t sure if those living temporarily in places like New Hartford and Grundy Center would be eligible to stay enrolled at A-P, much less play football. The team had the talent to go far, but Ed had coached talented teams in the past that didn’t fare well. Winning teams needed more.
And then there was the problem of focus. Since the day he took his first head coaching position in 1972, Ed demanded his players’ undivided attention as soon as football practice began. In his first year at Parkersburg, he ruffled a lot of feathers when he laid down the law to the farm kids on his team. One of his starters skipped school to help his dad pick corn. Ed cornered him the next day and told him, “You have to make a choice. You’re either going to play football or you’re going to help your dad farm. You can’t do both.” With the rebuilding in town under way, Ed wondered how he could capture his players’ attention in the same way. It’s hard to focus on a game when something much bigger surrounds you.
When the first few players ran out onto the practice field, Ed’s doubts about getting his team up for the season evaporated. His seniors showed up early and sprinted out like ten-year-olds fleeing the school building on the last day of school. “Hey, Alec,” Ed called out to his senior quarterback, Alec Thompson, “you ready to play a little football?”
“Are you kidding me, Coach? After all the work we did this summer, today feels like the start of summer vacation!”
“Attaboy,” Ed said with a smile. He walked away and said to himself, “I have a feeling this season is going to be special.”
The rest of the team showed up with the same kind of enthusiasm. It wasn’t just the start of practice that had them fired up. The tornado had made national news, and the story did not end when other natural disasters grabbed the headlines. News
crews from local television stations were out in full force that first practice, and the players noticed. When the lights of the cameras came on, the players jumped around and screamed and chanted with just a little more enthusiasm than normal.
“OK, fellas, gather in over here,” Ed called out to formally start practice. The team huddled around him. “Go ahead and take a knee,” he said. “Now, guys, I don’t have to tell you that this off-season has been different from any other year. But you know, even with everything going on and with all the work you fellas put into helping here at the school and around town, we had a really good summer in the weight room and in our conditioning program. And we had a good three-day camp for all the linemen last week.
“Now today we’re going to get down to actually getting ready for this season. I don’t know about you fellas, but it feels really good to me to be back out here on this field again and to just think about football for a change. This has been quite a summer. You’ve faced more adversity in the past three months than most people face in their lifetimes, and you didn’t let it beat you down, you didn’t let it define you or defeat you. Instead you made a choice to come together as a team and to work hard to clean up our field and to help people in town put their lives back together. Nothing we face this season will come close to what you’ve already overcome. I don’t know what’s going to happen this season, but I can tell you this: We’re already champions!
“Now get on your feet!” The team leaped into the air. “Where’re you from?” Ed yelled.
“A-P!” the team called back.
“Where’re you from?” Ed yelled louder. “A-P!” the team shouted. “Where’re you from?” Ed yelled.
“A-P!” the team screamed so loud it nearly knocked Ed over.
“So let’s get out there and get after it! Linemen over there. Defensive backs over there. Quarterbacks and receivers, over there!” With that, the team sprinted out across the practice field like they were running out for the start of the Super Bowl. Ed wasn’t quite sure, but he could have sworn that two or three players’ feet didn’t even touch the ground. It was going to be quite a season.