Dozens of people showed up at Salem High School Saturday afternoon for the dedication of Bill Schuchardt Stadium. Most everyone in Salem knows about the Schuchardt football era, which was the best the hometown Tigers have ever experienced and among the best, ever, in Missouri.
The numbers are impressive – in 32 years here Coach Schu was 255-91, won 14 South-Central Association and 12 district championships, went to the state semifinals or final five times and had one losing season, his first – on his way to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
The best of the Schuchardt-led Salem seasons – and obviously there were a lot of good ones – were from 1998-2002 when Salem went to the semifinals and finals those five times and were 58-9. As luck would have it, we moved to Salem in January of 1996, so I was here for those glorious years.
I call them glorious years because I can’t think of a better word. There is nothing like a championship sports team to not only bring pride to a community, but to unite it. In those days everybody went to work Monday morning with a smile on their faces, and on Fridays had their Salem football flags flying. Salem folks showed up in big numbers at home and on the road. It was, as they say in the sports world, a dynasty.
Don’t get me wrong, good sports teams don’t make good communities, but they sure help. At that time Salem was doing well for itself, with a diverse economy, plenty of locally owned businesses and community involvement.
I fell in love with Salem – and its football – pretty quickly.
Many is the night the late Dwayne “Scoop” McClellan and I climbed into one of the newspaper cars and made road trips to places such as Houston and Mountain Grove and Mountain View to tell of the exploits of the Tigers (and get this fact: during 1998-2002 Salem was 32-2 against SCA opponents). Scoop wrote about it, and I photographed it.
Many of the same players we wrote about and ran photos of in The Salem News attended Saturday’s dedication of Bill Schuchardt Field. It was a long time coming. Schu resigned in 2013. He’d bought a house in Florida and did some coaching down there before returning to Missouri, finally ending up in Rolla the past few years as an assistant football coach.
Schu, his wife Karen and football sidekick and right-hand coaching man Tom Dillon were at Saturday’s dedication, along with former coaches and former players. I won’t begin to name them. Schu had 34 all-state players and a lot of great assistant coaches, and many of them were on hand for the dedication Saturday. Some former players looked like they could step back on the field now and make a play or two. Some did not. Some were there with their kids, who have or will one day soon play for Big Blue.
Lots of memories came back to me as I watched the scene unfold, watched the interaction between players and coach. Heard the stories. Listened to the accolades.
Bill and Karen lived across the street from what is now Bill Schuchardt Field. A player once held his dad’s memorial service in the south end zone. The fire truck sirens sounded loud and often during the Schu years, signifying another one of many Tiger touchdowns. The hills on either side of the stands were full of Tiger fans and Tiger pride. Before every game the team would make the walk downhill from the locker room to the field, a police car siren blasting notice to the fans and the opponent that Salem was on its way. Look out.
And when the game ended, everyone would gather on the field and after a victory sing “Salem Will Roll Tonight.” The victories were many. Everyone knew the words.
I remember one time riding with Buzz and Rose Powell in their motor home to an out-of-town playoff game. Buzz had taken his motor home to a few games already, so I thought it only fair that I offer to pay for some fuel. I told Buzz to fill it up, and I’d go in and pay. Buzz neglected to tell me he was running on empty, so it cost me $325 to fill ‘er up. Buzz laughed about it. So did I a few years later.
I watched my daughter Catherine cheer and my future son-in-law star for some of those great teams. After one game Catherine and I left immediately for Columbia where we had tickets to the Mizzou football game the next day. Catherine, as was her habit, slept on the way there and was still wearing her cheerleader uniform. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to Columbia, and as I entered Vienna, the local cop greeted me with siren blaring and pulled me over for let’s call it being slightly over the speed limit. Catherine slept through it all.
“You were driving a little fast, sir,” he said, shining his flashlight at Catherine as she slept hard with mouth open. “Has she been drinking?”
I admitted my slight excess when it came to the speed limit as I hit the Vienna city limits and responded to the officer.
“Yes, I am anxious to get to my mom’s in Columbia,” I told him. “I will slow down. . . . No, she hasn’t been drinking anything. She was cheering at the Salem football game tonight.”
“Did they win?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“They always do,” the cop said as he closed his ticket book without giving me a ticket and wished me a safe and slower trip to Columbia.
I could write a book about my memories of Salem football and side stories during the Schuchardt years. So many good coaches and players involved. So many wins. So many fun times. So much community pride. Those who went through those years have similar experiences and memories. The winning and all the accolades that went with it were great, but as Schu said Saturday during an acceptance speech of sorts, it’s the relationships that mean the most.
A special camaraderie forms when you play sports. Those relationships are cemented on Friday nights and during pizza parties, film sessions and post-game celebrations. Win or lose, many of those relationships last a lifetime. But like it or not, admit it or not, there is something special about the memories when you hoist championship trophies. There is more emotion you want to cling to; Tears of joy in victory and tears of heartache in defeat. The more you celebrate at the time, the more you want to celebrate it over and over and over again, year after year, and in this case, decade after decade.
For a couple hours Saturday, we celebrated Schu and Salem football once again. It has been two decades since that run in the final four and a decade since Bill Schuchardt roamed the Salem sidelines. But no matter how many years distance us from the dome and the titles, and the good years we had before and after, celebrating those glorious years will always be worth doing. Bill Schuchardt says we have a lot of people to thank for that, and he’s right. But none played a bigger role than he did, and no one is more deserving than he is to have his name on our community’s high school football field.
