# 6 Assistant Coach

 

Assistant Coach.  Barry Saunders.  Longest standing Coach in ORHS history.  Saunders proved to be resilient and worked with six Head Coaches.  He had the peak experience of Coaching in four State Championship Games, which resulted in 3 State Championship Titles: 1979, 1980, and 1991.  Saunders received the East Tennessee CAREacter Star Assistant Head Coach of the Year Award in 2019.  Coach Saunders had a gift for working with Kickers.  He is highly respected In Oak Ridge and he too showed much love for his Players.  

This picture shows Saunders making some very important coaching point about Kicking and me once again deep in a daydream.  You can see clearly that we are at Blakenship Field and that means we were preparing for a big Playoff Game.  I’m wearing a Practice Jersey.  

Now that all of the Coaches have been covered, this is a good transition point to the Senior Players of 1980.  One of the unique characteristics of the 1980 Team is that there were 22 Starters.  11 on Offense and 11 on Defense.  No one started both ways except #21, Scott Monger played Running Back & Strong Safety. All 1980 Starters, but Bart Brinkman were Seniors.   Bart was the only Junior who started in 1980.  It’s impossible to not reference the 1979 Season when reflecting on the 1980 Season because it was a seamless transition for all of us 1980 Seniors.  All of the Senior 1980 Starters played on the 1979 Championship Team.  Richard Malinauskas being the only exception.  In the series of Post moving forward, I’ll speak to the 1980 Seniors who had the unique experience of going 22 and O from the 1979 Season to the end of the 1980 Season.  I’ll start with the Offense.

# 5 Assistant Coach

Assistant Coach.  Barry Voskamp.  He wasn’t in charge of the Team, or the Offense, nor the Defense, yet Coach Voskamp commanded the same level of love and respect as Hale, Brewster and Graning did.  And this is what a Team is all about.  United We Stand, Divided We Fall.  Voskamp day in and day out gave 100% of his love and energy to our Team.  He loved every single kid and went out his way to authentically get to know each of us.  He too loved Football and all of his Players.  We loved his East Coast accent and we always felt like he was one of us.  He had an amazing way of connecting with young men.  When I decided to attend Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) he was a strong advocate for me.  EKU is where he received his Masters in Education Degree.  It was very helpful for me to have Coach Voskamp so enthusiastically support me.  For 13 years he gave and gave and gave some more to the kids at Oak Ridge High School.  Thank you Coach Voskamp for giving so much of yourself to so many. 

#4 Offensive Coordinator

Offensive Coordinator. Chick Graning. A Mastermind of complex offensive schemes.  The Genius with a Bird’s-Eye-View from The Tower.  Chick Graning loves Football.  Two-time High School All-American and Captain of the football team at Baylor School in Chattanooga, TN. All-Star Running Back under the tutelage of the infamous Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech.  Legendary for the brutal, cheap-shot that he received in Georgia Tech vs Alabama rivalry game that broke Chick’s jaw (picture from Chick at Tech).  I’m super privileged to have played on his Offensive Line as Left Tackle.  Chick believed in me as a starter when others doubted.  I’m grateful for him for this was a formidable period of my development as a young man and I needed to be around men like Chick.  He led his Players with heart-felt affection.  No doubt, he loved us like he did his own children and we loved him as if he were our Father.  At Blakenship Field he had a commanding view of the field from the press box from where he executed his well-orchestrated game plans.  More interesting though, on the road, he had a scaffolding Tower built on our sideline.  From The Tower he called the Plays that eventually led to a dreamlike season with 13 Wins and 0 Loses.  My gut tells me there’s never been a High School Coach as smart as Chick Graning in the United States.  He taught Economics and could have easily had a career on Wall Street.  Yet Football was his Calling and he stayed true to his Bliss.  And we the young men that had the privilege of playing for Chick were given a gift that propelled us all onto becoming strong independent men.

#3 Defensive Coordinator

Defensive Coordinator.  Paul Brewster.  The epitome of a tough Defensive Coach.  A strong, disciplined man who showed love for his Players in his own way.  Brewster would often say: “I don’t have time to tell you all the things you’re doing right.  When you come down to the Field, leave your feelings up on the fencepost and pick them up on your way out.”  Brewster initiated us boys into men.  He taught us how to be respectable Warriors.  He taught us how to fight in the “Sweat Box".  None of us will ever forget “Top Cat”. It’s was a form of hand-to-hand combat with a broomstick-handle like weapon that was padded on both ends.  One of his favorite sayings was “You’re going to get your Tally-wacker knocked up into your watch-pocket.”  Good advise to always be on-guard when you enter the Field-of-play.  I learned this the hard way. When I was a Sophomore, I stood daydreaming during practice one hot afternoon and a Senior came out of nowhere and blindsided me—knocked me flat on my back.  I jumped up, the Senior shrugged and said, “Coach Brewster told me to do it.”  My head was In-the-Game every practice after that hit.  In 1979, on another hot practice day, I watched him whip the bare-calves of a big defensive tackle with his leather whistle strap.  He demanded the big lineman get his feet moving in the drill with an offensive lineman.  This was totally acceptable in 1979 and he was initiating us boys into being men.  We needed the tough-love Brewster dished out to us.  We feared Coach Brewster in a respectful way.  We loved him and we knew he loved us all in return.

#2 Head Coach

The Head Coach.  Emory Hale.  No one loved more than the Big E.  He loved his Players dearly.  He loved their families and knew all the Mothers and Fathers, even siblings by first name.  Most all, he loved to win.  Losing, even the thought of losing made him physically ill.  His leadership style was uniquely his—it could not be replicated.  Big E led with a palpable passion and relentless energy that was contagious to all who crossed his path.  He pushed us and pushed us and pushed us more until we got close to his drive for perfection, yet we never fully satisfied him.  It would take a novel to fully explore the complexity of the Big E.  Make no mistake, this was his Team and the 1980 Championship was His Win—all others were playing supporting roles.  He delivered Wins and that’s what Oak Ridge demanded him to do.  No boy was turned away by Big E.  If you wanted to be a Wildcat and you were willing to endure the rigorous practices and being constantly pushed to exhaustion physically and mentally, you had a jersey.  I personally owe much to Big E and I'm grateful for the love he gave me. Thank you, Big E.  You deserve a standing ovation for the love you so generously bestowed on every single boy who desired to be a Wildcat.

#1 The Champions

40 years ago we were The Champions.  Being a member of the 1980 State Champion Football Team in Oak Ridge, TN was a special honor.  This was a special team.  What made this team special was love.  The Coaches loved the Players.  The Players loved the Coaches.  The Players loved each other.  The entire community took great pride in loving the Wildcat Team.

Oak Ridge, TN Football has a rich legacy that dates back to the 1st State Championship in 1956.   I’m writing a series of post that highlights the unique players of the 1980 Championship Team. The post that I’ll share are dedicated to my refections of this Special Football Season of 1980 and the Seniors who graduated in 1981. This is Post #1. In the next Post, I’ll speak to the Coaching Staff (pictured above), the Special Men who led their Players to a 13 Won and 0 Lost Season and finished #3 in Nation.  

Striking Terror

Striking Terror is the action-packed story of Micah, a teenage amateur magician who travels from his London home to stay with relatives in Jerusalem. While there he befriends Shireen, a young Palestinian girl. Unbeknown to Micah, the girl is preparing to blow up the bus he rides to school. When she changes her mind, she earns accolades—and threats of vengeance. Micah must use his magic skills to rescue Shireen from a murderous brother whose honor Shireen has besmirched. But  nothing is what it seems. While Shireen seeks to become an advocate of peace in a divided country, Micah suspects a hidden agenda, a sinister plot to turn his new, unsuspecting friend into an agent of death and to plunge the land into the abyss of war once more. Unless they can uncover the truth in time…

This unique book is by Denis Lipman and written for young readers aged 11-14.
To learn more about Denis Lipman click here.