Didn’t want to hijack the other thread that referenced a Marionville loss to Greenfield in 1977, but that brought back memories. The attached video is about 13 minutes long but possibly worth the time for those of us who love the underdog stories of small school players.
This undefeated class 1A state championship team featured a first year head coach (Jim Dykens), a running back named Billy Andrews (nephew of the Houston Astros’ Bill Virdon), Johnny Wooldridge at receiver (his uncle pitched for the St Louis Cardinals), and James Reeves, an all-Stater on both sides of the ball at TE and DE who went on to play at Missouri Southern. Not bad for a school of less than 200.
And the star of the video, David McNeel, who played QB and LB, walked on and eventually started at LB for Mizzou, was signed by the Tampa Bay Bucs, and played for the Grey Cup in the CFL. He was enshrined in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
As an 8th grader at the small school, I sat at the lunch table everyday with James and let him have any of my food he wanted, and then I finished what was left. He was nice about it and I was naive enough about it to think I was helping him to get bigger and stronger.