Flyers-Cavaliers matchup in 1981 was a bit soggy

The rivalry between the Marion Local Flyers and Coldwater Cavaliers reaches back to the autumn of 1955, and counting the 10 meetings from 1945-1954 when Marion Local was pre-dated by Maria Stein St. John's, their history has manufactured 71 football games.

Over 1,000 different players could recall some remarkable battles through the decades, so it is ironic how one of the most distinguished bouts ended in a scoreless tie on Halloween Eve in 1981.

"That was a very interesting game to say the least, but there is also a little history behind everything that unfolded," explained former Cavalier Bill Kanney, who was a first-team All-MAC receiver that season. "We played at Marion Local the year before and the conditions were absolutely horrible. They wanted to postpone the game, but our head coach, Bob Sielski, insisted on playing. It poured the whole time making it a muddy mess. I slid into the sidelines on one play and someone kept hitting me with an umbrella. We won 10-7, but I think the events of the whole night sort of started a little bad blood between the two programs."
  In 1981, the MAC had six teams and the league was in the second of a two-year stint during which each of them played two opponents twice in the same season. The Flyers took the first meeting of that season 14-0 in Maria Stein and entered the week-nine battle at 8-0 with visions of their first unbeaten campaign since 1971 well within reach. Coldwater, on the other hand, was struggling with a battered offense that averaged just over 12 points-per-game and was out of MAC title contention at 4-4 overall.

"We knew they were going to be tough. They were kicking everyone's butt all season and they were a very good team," commented former Coldwater offensive tackle Tom Homan. "We learned a lot after playing them the first time and watched a ton of film that week trying to break them down. League games were important to everyone then because the way the playoffs were set up, winning the MAC was what we played for all season."

As evidenced by the score, the game wasn't anything significant as far as the Xs and Os were concerned. Coldwater's lone scoring threat unfolded on their first possession of the game when backup quarterback Dan Brunswick directed them into the red zone, but the drive soon fizzled on downs. Coldwater's defense, along with several Flyer turnovers, kept Marion Local's wheels spinning in their own territory much of the first half before the two teams eventually retreated to the locker room with goose eggs on the scoreboard.

"It was pretty heated in the locker room at halftime," explained first team All-MAC running back Mark Schaefer. "We felt like we could be in trouble and knew we had to get something going in a hurry if we wanted to win."

The Flyer defense, led by All-MAC performers John Griesdorn, Mike Moeller, Matt Ranly, and Jay Homan, forced turnovers on each of Coldwater's first two series of the third quarter, but a punt and a turnover of their own kept the stalemate alive throughout the entire period. Third-string quarterback Don Klosterman appeared late in the game for Coldwater, but a fumble recovery by Fred Vehorn gave the Flyers life at the Cavalier 38 with 4:00 to play. They pushed down to the 20-yard line before calling upon exchange student and first team All-MAC kicker Peter Lunde to get some points on the board. His offering sailed wide right though, and soon, after 48 minutes, ten turnovers between the two teams, and no such thing as overtime, things ended in a tie.

"Obviously we wanted to win that game, but as it turned out, we were still able to win the MAC and we made the playoffs," remarked Ranly, who quarterbacked the Flyers that evening. "We knew Coldwater would be a challenge and both teams played with a lot of intensity that night. A win would have been great, but I think a loss would have kept us out of the playoffs so it worked out in the end."

The tie may have been much easier to digest if it weren't for the most significant ingredient to this entire story - the field was wet. How soaked it was exactly depends on which colors the person you ask was wearing that night, but it hadn't rained in Mercer County since Tuesday that week (.87 inches, according to the report in The Daily Standard that week), and the turf was a quagmire.

The accusations - and the mud-– started flying from the jilted Marion Local faithful almost immediately.

"We had some ground issues at the field for a couple of years and that season we planted all new sod," Kanney reasoned. "When it rained earlier that week, water got underneath the sod and by the time we started playing on it, things really became a mess. It was a very intense game regardless, but the conditions made it that much more difficult to play. It wasn't until I roomed at Ohio Northern with Greg Homan from Marion Local that I heard about how big of a deal those conditions were to their fans, and for years after that, the stories got bigger and bigger about how we purposely watered the field and even had fire trucks helping with the process. Those legends really made the rivalry that much more intense for quite a few years."

Sielski was delayed getting to the locker room after the game, and when he finally arrived, he was covered with handfuls of mud rifled at him as he exited the field. Later that year, at the basketball game between the two schools, students were decked out in raincoats, goulashes, and umbrellas, but at the time, it was anything but funny for quite a few Flyer fans.

"Some fans were definitely upset at the time, but for me it was just an unexpected challenge to play in those conditions. Both teams had to play the game and honestly it wasn't something I really dwelled on during the game. We just went out and played," Ranly recalled. "Afterward I had a feeling the whole situation would be something legends are made of, and I certainly don't hesitate to give my friends from Coldwater a hard time about it, but it is definitely all in good fun."

Although both teams had to play in the dreadful conditions, the Flyers, who averaged nearly four touchdowns per game, seemed to have a legitimate gripe.

Whether it was Mother Nature or the conspiracy theory, one certainty is that the legendary debate, now more than 30 years old, is a helluva lot more entertaining than the four quarters of football on that October evening in 1981.

"Looking back, it is sort of fun to talk about that game, but at the time it was really hard to leave there with a tie. It was a hard-fought game that someone deserved to win," commented Schaefer, who finished with a game-high 92 yards on 16 carries. "I will never forget how that field looked after the game. It was like a herd of cattle trampled it. It was an absolute mud pit. This game has been talked about for more than 30 years and I imagine it will still be talked about for another 30 years."