Old School You--Sterling College

The Greatest Sterling College Warrior Game was . . .

1971 Hastings v Sterling College

The year, was my junior year (1971). The game, was against Hastings College. I consider this one of the greatest games because we played a nationally ranked team and won the game, 27-20. We played at Hastings College in Nebraska, which at the time, was ranked number 10 in the nation.

The quarterback and wide receiver were both All-Americans and coach told me I was going to guard the wide receiver no matter where he was on the field. I remember all week of practice, freshmen receivers were beating me all over the place. I couldn't guard my own shadow. I was a nervous wreck and when we got there, I just had to calm down.

On the second play of the game, the wide receiver just ran a quick out pattern to get the feel of the defensive back guarding him and catch a quick pass. I decided I was going to play bump and run the entire game, so I was right in his face. I turned, when he looked for the ball and there it was, for a quick interception, TD and an early Sterling 7-0 lead.

Hastings and Sterling swapped scores for the rest of the game, until the closing minutes. With the score tied 20-20, Hastings was going to punt the ball, but our defensive end (Stanley Collins, ‘74) ran into the punter and they kept the ball, moving into our territory and eating up the clock. It didn't look good for us, but our defense tightened up and forced them to punt.

With a couple minutes on the clock, Hastings punted and I received the ball, ran to my left and took it all the way for the winning touchdown, leaping over the punter to get into the end zone. Stan Collins ran all the way to the end zone and carried me back to our sideline on his shoulders. Later, on video, it was a tremendous block by our starting guard (Tim Adair, ‘73), that took out three Hastings players, that even let me turn the corner. If he hadn't made that block, I wouldn't have gotten another two yards.

A great game, great team work and overall "team pride" enabled us to win this game.

Bill Portz

1969 KCAC Championship Game: SC v Kansas Weslyan

Thanks for the opportunity to share memories from the best game I can recall being part of as a member of the 1969 KCAC South Division Champions. The championship game was played against Kansas Wesleyan in Salina on November 22, 1969.

KWU represented the KCAC North with a 5-0 division mark and a 6-3 overall record. Sterling and Southwestern tied for the KCAC South title with 3-2 marks, but Sterling received the nod to play in the championship because of a 10-7 win over Southwestern during the regular season. Sterling was 5-4 for the season.

The game pitted the number one ranked KCAC offense of KWU (25.3 pts per game average) versus Sterling's number one defense (10.0 pts per game average). KWU quickly jumped into the lead 14-0 on the running of Ron Alleger who rushed for 124 yards against the Sterling defense . Sterling struck back with a magnificent 91 yard kickoff return by Bill Portz and then Sterling scored again on a five yard td pass from Bill Grey to Greg Kerr to close the KWU lead to 20-14 at the half.

The second half saw KWU open the third quarter with a 34 yard run by Alleger to make it 26-14, but the Warriors fought back with a long drive resulting in a two yard quarterback sneak by Bill Grey to close the gap to 26-21. However, on this day the KCAC's number one offense got the better of the league's best defense with a final score to make it 34-21. The Sterling defense led the team all year into the playoffs, but on this day could not stop Alleger. The Sterling offense produced 275 yards of offense with Grey throwing for 127 yards and one touchdown, and rushing for 33 yards and a touchdown. Greg Kerr rushed for 58 yards and caught four passes, Bob Lewis caught four passes, and Wayne Scar Shierant caught three passes. Eli Visnich, Jim Abramson, and Bill Portz of that magnificent 1969 Defense kicked butt all year..

This was the first year in the history of the Kansas Conference where divisional champions played for the conference championship.

Bill Grey, Sterling College 1970

1969 Sterling College Warriors
Photo courtesy of Jim Abramson

What was the Greatest Sterling College game you ever saw or played?

Share your story by emailing Old School You
Enter to WIN a classic DVD of an SC game of your choosing.
Must enter to win.
One winner each month.
Include your name, address, and phone number. Send Now

____________________

Sterling College Football Blog