A Temple Tiger Football Legend by Jerry Fetters

Temple Tiger football season is upon us again. This is a football legend about a powerful Temple Tiger kicker during the 1953 season. At that time Temple was able to have both varsity and junior varsity football teams. It was too long ago for me to recall how the splits were made officially but even in hindsight it is clear that the better more experienced players were on the varsity and we others made up the junior varsity. We JV players didn’t get much playing time on the Friday night games so we had a few games scheduled for Thursday nights. One such game was against Frederick JV. It was a cold and windy night. The JV players were taken to Frederick on one of the school buses. Our head coach J.D. Lynch also went along to coach the JV team even though he had a varsity game the next night.

Being responsible high school students we were lectured on being sure that we took all of our equipment with us. We arrived in Frederick and changed from our street clothes to our Temple football uniforms and shoes. At least those of us who took all of complete uniforms changed into them. We went onto the field and prepared to kick off. Our kicker goes onto the field with one street shoe on his right foot and barefoot on his left foot. He kicks off and does reasonable well for such an equipment deprived football player. He smilingly trots off the field, Coach Lynch then calls Bobby Graybill aside and as Bobby tells the story, “really ate his rear about where were his shoes.” Bobby confessed that he had forgotten his football shoes and in the tension filled confusion he had also lost one of his street shoes. Coach Lynch told him to go to the bench and set for the rest of the game.

Bobby says, "It was so cold and I had nothing else to lose so after the half I just left the field and went to the bus where it had to be warmer." Being such a critical player, Coach Lynch never noticed his absence. Bobby got on the cold bus and decided to start the bus and turn on the heater. The heater was not very powerful but better than being outside. The cheerleaders saw Bobby on the bus and the bus running and they all drifted towards the bus one at a time. Bobby said he was in “hog heaven” being on the bus with all the cheerleaders. All of a sudden he looked at the gas gauge and it showed under a quarter tank. Bobby quickly shuts off the engine. After the game the team loaded onto the bus to head back to Temple. As we were starting out of town the driver noticed the gas gauge. Guess what?? No stations were open after 9:00PM. Bobby was in big trouble with both Coach Lynch and the bus driver. One hour later the bus driver had called a service station owner who reluctantly came and provided gas to the departing Temple Tigers and their former kicker. After that game, it was mutually decided between Bobby and Coach Lynch that Bobby would no longer participate in football. Thus the University of Oklahoma and probably some NFL pro team were eventually deprived of his prowess as a kicker.