Football team didn't always have all of the necessities

I received a newspaper clipping that appeared in the Chicago Daily News in Sept., 1945, from Clare and Ken Scamen of Morris. The headline reads "Morris long on players but short on cleats.

The story, in short, told of coach C.W. Wallace taking over the weak sister in the Corn Belt Conference. During this era, Morris was considered mainly a basketball town. Thirty boys turned out the previous season for football and were winless. However, during the '45 campaign, 64 players turned out. That was great except for one thing, the school did have enough shoes for everyone.

About 40 boys had football shoes, a dozen or more had gymnasium sneakers. Some even wore street shoes and some had GI boots. One player, according to the article, said, "If we don't get football shoes pretty soon, we'll go out there bare-footed and Morris high school will be known as "Wallace's Hill Billies."

Actually according to Morris Community High School records, the coach's name was spelled C.W. Wallis.

The Corn Belt Conference was made up of Pontiac, Fairbury, Normal, U.High and Morris. The Redskins opened the season with a 6-0 win over Mendota,then beat Dwight 39-0. The 'Skins dropped the next three games to Normal 13-0. Pontiac 40-7 and Lemont 13-6. The Maroon and White then beat Trinity of Bloomington 12-7 , but lost the final two games to Fairbury 6-0 and University High 28-7.

There were two photos with the article and the players in the two shots were; Ed Osmonson, Wayne Tesdal, Stanley Kopczick, and Harry McCormick, Eddie McNabb and Coach Wallace.

Finally the new shoes did not help much as the team finished with three and
five losses.

Some of the veteran players on the 1945 team were;  Bob Bell, Louis Cheshareck Norm Jorstad, Ronnie Younker, Ed McNabb, George Tabler, Wayne Schaible, Ed Osmonson, Harold McCormick, Jerry Donahoe, Dick McTague, Robert (Butch) Waters and Don Neushwander,Sr.

I was going through my records and checking how Morris has done in years gone by. During the 40s, Morris had 31 wins, 47 losses and 3 ties. The 50s were 24-57-2, the 60s 67-28-4 and the 70s 50-47. The victories really started to pick up in the 80s as the Skins were 94-18. The 90s they were 96-19 and from 2000 up to this week, Morris is 95-22.