This is the fifth installment in a sevenpart series on the 2002 Guthrie Blue Jays football team. Reporter Sam Hutchens spent the summer tracking down a multitude of former players, coaches — and even a former Oklahoma City mayor — to tell the team›s championship story. The Guthrie News Leader will run a part weekly to correspond with the ‘02 team’s 20th anniversary.
By Sam Hutchens
Spaghetti was part of Guthrie’s success. Tiger Woods helped, too.
Even through that incredible blitz of outscoring teams 230-36, and not to mention the rough opening stretch, Guthrie went through tense moments.
Offensive coordinator Chuck Atchison attributed the Blue Jays’ success to what they did away from the field.
“We didn’t win that year because we were the most talented, that was for sure. We won that year because we were the best team and I think we’re the best team because of all those relationships and all that camaraderie,” Atchison said.
When the team did have problems, it was easy to address them. Players felt less like teammates and more like brothers down the stretch in 2002.
Coach Rafe Watkins remembers encountering a situation that epitomized his team’s close bond. Halfway through Guthrie’s first playoff game, Watkins and the coaching staff trotted to the locker room. They had just wrapped up a lackadaisical half against Ardmore, and Watkins knew he needed to say something to get his team going.
But when he drew close to the locker room, Watkins paused. He heard something unusual.
“There was cussing,” Watkins said. “It sounded like a fight was going on.”
Watkins cracked the door open, peeking in at his team. Senior lineman Kyle Smith, whom Watkins decreed the best leader he’d ever coached, was standing where Watkins usually stood. All the other players were kneeling around him, in various states of undress, absorbing Smith’s words.
“He said, ‘I know where every one of you m—--f—-- live and I will come and personally kick your ass every day if we don’t start playing better,’” Watkins said. “You could have heard a pin drop in there. I closed the door real easy and backed out. I didn’t really have to say a lot to them at halftime.”
Watkins later pulled Smith aside. Watkins didn’t appreciate the cursing, but he absolutely appreciated Smith’s message. And the results. Guthrie beat Ardmore 29-12.
Smith could lead like that because the Blue Jays were more like a family than a team.
Team meals were the crux of offthe- field bonding. The entire team ate together on Thursday nights before a game at a local church. Usually, it was typically salad, chased with barbecue or spaghetti. The sponsors tended to be generous doling out portions.
Other weeknights were for more intimate meals. Players broke up by position and were invited into coach’s homes. Karen Atchison, offensive coordinator Chuck Atchison’s wife, fixed spaghetti on Tuesday nights for lineman. Head coach Rafe Watkins hosted the linebackers, where his wife Karen would prepare sizzling plates of tacos. When they weren’t at a coach’s house, players ate regularly at the newly opened Subway on Waterloo road.
Even meals could get competitive. Jon Farrow may have been several inches shorter than his four teammates on the offensive line, but a dining table heaped with spaghetti and meatballs could be a proving ground. He could eat with the best of them.
Webb thinks attendance was mandatory, but said the crowds frequenting coaches’ dining rooms would’ve been the same if it wasn’t.
“It would be easier to count the times we weren’t together,” Webb said.
Watkins even had players over for Thanksgiving — a surprise that was broken to him and his wife while the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was underway.
“I bet we had 15 kids come by and just walk in and say, ‘Hey, what are we eating coach?’ I said come on in,” Watkins said.
Like his assistant coaches, Watkins’ front door, situated on Harrison Street in the heart of where about 75% of his players lived, was always open.
Perhaps nothing topped the weekly shenanigans at defensive line coach Scott Mick’s house. The Thursday night before games, Mick would fire up his PlayStation2 — with its cord-constrained controllers and grainy graphics that led the gaming world — and pop the latest Tiger Woods PGA Tour disc in.
Kyle Smith and De-Marko Jones were often at Mick’s house. When the gaming was over, usually Mick won, Mick would burn CD’s with music his players liked.
“He’d make us each our own mix CD, just for that game,” Smith said. “That was back when mix CD’s were big and he had a fancy computer.”
They would listen together, getting hyped for the upcoming game. If Mick didn’t know a song, they would scour the internet. He sometimes would have players text in lists and make the CD’s ahead of time.
“Hewouldcomethrough with those mixes,” Smith said. “I probably still have some in my CD wallet, I guarantee it.”
Players grew close to coaches and their families. Sometimes, the line between players and kids blurred. No conversation was out of bounds. They would debate the merits of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in one breath, then switch to the importance of checking oil in your car and the right way to treat girls.
For some players, Watkins and the assistants were the conversation partners when they didn’t — or couldn’t — talk to dad.
Smith said Watkins has even bailed a couple players out of jail in his career. Players know Watkins will be disappointed in them, but he is still the first person to call.
“Coach Watkins, coach Atchison, coach Mick, those guys always had us,” Webb said. “We were always at their houses. Going in at odd times of the night. You got problems? Go to a coach’s house. Struggling with some grades? Go to a coach’s house. If you’re bored or hungry, go to coach’s house.”
It wasn’t just coaches who helped in a pinch.
When Webb’s daughter, Keeyara, was born in February of 2002, Karen Watkins would occasionally take the infant to daycare while Webb was in school or at practice.
Those bonds, forged through intentionally making connections, made things such as dropping a pass or fumbling more manageable. Watkins yelled little while coaching, but no player trotting back to the sideline wanted to even tempt their young coach.
The final regular season game against Carl Albert was unlike anything the Blue Jays had encountered. They were rolling, not having lost since Jones had the determined look on his face while trotting off the field five weeks earlier.
A play — featuring doses of luck and skill that the portions of which are still debated when the Blue Jays see each other years later — would keep Guthrie undefeated heading into the playoffs.
With the game tied at 19, Guthrie got the ball first in overtime, starting at the 10-yard line. The Blue Jay offense sputtered, mustering only three points on a Russel Rush 28-yard kick.
Rafe Watkins knew it was likely not enough. When Carl Albert’s J.R. Moore ran the ball for nine yards on their first play, drawing within one yard of ending Guthrie’s winning streak, Watkins’ gut feeling grew stronger.
Webb, whom The Guthrie News Leader reported was playing through a bout of food poisoning after a chili cheese burrito ravaged his afternoon, was feeling ill. Watkins didn’t feel any better.
“They’re sitting there with three more downs because I guarantee you (Carl Albert coach) Gary Rose would have gone for it on 4th and 1,” Watkins said. “To say I was nervous would have been an understatement.”
Then, fact and Guthrie legend become inter