casey hines
Regular Season
Regular Season
As a sophomore in the 1997 season, I had no idea what kind of thrilling ride we were going to go on. I was mostly a junior varsity player for most of the year and after my freshman year I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue playing. I didn’t enjoy getting hit by older players and I didn’t really understand our system. I remember playing linebacker and tight end on the junior varsity team and we didn’t have much success at the junior varsity level. The coach I didn’t like being coached by was removed and I did enjoy getting coached by our former youth coach Frank Smith. Frank went on to help build the Pioneer youth program and I’m not sure I ever heard him raise his voice. Most of the time when you play junior varsity you are not given the perks of a locker room. You are dressed with your cleats, girdle, and football pants on the bus and your jersey, helmet, and shoulder pads are put on the back seats of the bus. If you are lucky you get a snack after the game, but that is not always the case. Anyways, I remember playing a game at Carroll in Flora, IN. I was playing inside linebacker and by a grace of luck I picked off a pass and I ran for my life and ran it all the way back for a touchdown. I was slow so I kept looking over my shoulder about 10 times. I was so proud of myself, not because I ran for what they call a pick six, but I was glad I didn’t get caught and I didn’t pass out running back a 70 yard touchdown. So, lets get back to the regular season. The first game was against Tri Central. This turned out to be a very easy game with a score of 67-7. This was not really a test, but our speed looked incredible against poorly coached defenses. I’ve found that most high school coaches work very hard on offense and defense sometimes does not get coached very well. The next game was against our enemies to the North, Winamac. Winamac was the biggest school in the Midwest Conference. They were a 2A school and had tremendous success in the 1980’s and 1990’s with many conference championships. I remember Coach Johnson writing on the chalkboard 3.5 yards on the board before the game. This was the goal for the offense because if we got 3.5 yards per play then we could move the chains and get first downs. Winamac always had great athletes and this was sure to be a test for our team. Winamac was big and physical and they made up for poor schemes with great athleticism. Their way of defending the wing t was to put 10-11 guys in the box and stop the run. They were not skilled at stopping the guard trap play or the waggle pass play. Pioneer found their groove in the 3rd quarter. Our running back Michael Pugh would run for over 200 yards. Michael and some of the players had a tradition of going to the Mr. Happy Burger restaurant in Logansport and getting 25 cent cheeseburgers on Thursday nights. Michael probably had no idea that he would run for over 200 yards. He threw up those cheeseburgers in the huddle during the second half of the game. I think he came out one play and went back in. The Panthers ending up destroying a talented Winamac team 47-13. 2-0 and 1-0 in the conference was a good start. Winamac was the best team in the conference and we just hammered them. This could be interesting. The conference had some successful teams in the 1990’s, but was this Pioneer’s time. The next seven regular season games would be no contest. Coach Johnson had a way of making us think every team we played was better than us. One of my favorite stories was when we played Frontier high school in Chalmers, IN. David Russell was one of our running backs. Coach Johnson had a dislike for David’s fumbling problem. He would called David fumblerooski and make comments out of frustration because of his fumbling problem. David was running a play and fumbled the ball. I think David was frustrated so he chased down the guy that picked up the pigskin and ran the other way and stole it back. It was so funny to me that he fumbled, chased down the guy and got the ball back. The unfortunate event of that game was our sideline camera man and assistant coach Frank Smith getting hit on the sideline and damaging his leg. I think Frank was on crutches for a few weeks after getting hit. Frank was such a role model and fantastic coach. He was not upset about getting hit. I think the guy that hit him was none other than David Russell. We won the Midwest Conference fairly easily going 9-0. That was not much of a test for our small, but fast team. We would get that test in the Indiana football tournament on our run to the state finals.