Article on John Havlicek and Bobby Douglas
By Dave Bloomquist.

Although they lived only a half-mile from each other, they lived their lives at different ends of the spectrum. Once grew up in a modest home and the other one grew up in a shanty with no modern conveniences. They were as different as night and day except for one common bond, a grass field with white lines and numbers.

When you think of Havlicek or “Hondo” basketball immediately come to m mind. He was all-state at Bridgeport High School. All-American at Ohio State, a 13 time all-star with the Boston Celtics and a member of the NBA Hall of Fame. What you may not know is how many colleges recruited him for skills on the football field, Pitt, WVU, Miami, Florida, Florida State, Purdue, all the major football powers of the time wanted “Hondo”, but none as passionately as the Ohio State Buckeyes and legendary coach, Woody Hayes.

Hayes fell in love with the 6-5, 210 pounder’s quick feet and dynamic arm, one so rare that most quarterbacks in the NFL today would be hard pressed to match in terms of velocity and distance. “I was working our with the basketball team one time and we were walking through Ohio Stadium when I noticed a football lying on the ground,” says Havlicek in an interview from his home on Martha’s Vineyard. “So I picked it up and threw it to a teammate 80 yards away.” And to think he was an end his first two years at Bridgeport.

That changed the day former coach Gene Remenar saw Havlicek throw. The coach made the prodigal son a quarterback his junior year of 1956 and “Big John” didn’t disappoint. With a mediocre supporting cast competing against larger powerhouses like Martins Ferry and St. Clairsville, Havlicek led the Bulldogs to a 9-8-1 record over two s4asons. “He was just an awesome athlete,” says Art Hehr, a 150 pound guard “we had the utmost confidence in him. “Belmont County Commissioner Gordie Longshaw recalls the image of “Hondo” in the pocket. “He would stay in the pocket and take hit after hit but wouldn’t go down. John had huge hands and would use them like a lineman to just push defenders off him.

Havlicek says he never reached his full potential as a football player, but to anyone who saw him in the Bulldogs 19-14 upset win of Martins Ferry in 1956, that assessment is debatable. It was Bridgeport’s first win over the Purple Riders in the game’s 37 year history and Havlicek scored all 19 points. “We put in the single wing for that game and they were unprepared for it,” says Havlicek. “And I would run and pass out of it. That was the first time the game was ever played at Bridgeport and the crowd was so big they had to import stands to Perkins Field. After the win old men were crying and the fans even tore down the goalposts. It was just incredible. Beating Martins Ferry was the first big highlight of my athletic career and one of the top sports memories of my life.” Many of his friends, 50 years later, remember the scene vividly.

“The town went crazy when we beat Martins Ferry,” says Joe Niekro, a childhood friend who went on to win 221 games in the Major Leagues. “John was the toast of the town. He was such a smart quarterback and good passer. What a lot of people don’t read remember is he played both ways back then also.”

Art Hehr says, “The next day they gave us the day off from school. We had a parade with fire trucks and everything. We even got free haircuts at Bob Coyne’s Barbershop.” Havlicek passed 13 times for 200 yards that day to the likes of Dave Ledinvka, Buckey Shidell, Bill Laipple and Bob Nowakowski. The day the Bulldogs beat the Riders in 1956 elevated John Havlicek to cult status in Bridgeport, and it burned an indelible image in the mind of a freshman standing on the sidelines. That name –Bobby Douglas.

When you think Bobby Douglas wrestling immediately comes to mind. The 1961 Bridgeport graduate was the first black state champion in Ohio and NAIA National Champion at West Liberty State College, a two-time Olympic Wrestler, eight-time Olympic Wrestling coach, first black Division 1 wrestling coach and former coach at Iowa State University. What you might not realize is Douglas was also an all-state football player who displayed blazing speed at tailback and 140 pounds of sheer dynamite as a hitter in the secondary. “He was all out buddy,” says Ken Janiszewski, a former teammate of Douglas’ on the baseball team. “He would whack you with everything he had and this got him knocked out a couple times. I saw one game where Bobby got knocked out cold twice on punt returns because he would never signal for a fair catch and people would just nail him.” Weighing in at 140 pounds his senior year of 1961, Douglas was named captain of George Kovalick’s Bulldogs. Offensively, “Fluke” as he was known by everyone, would use his speed to crank out long runs and his tenacity to try and put you in the cemetery, not the hospital. “He would try to break you in half,” says Denny Bowman, a star in his own right on that 61 team. “He was a hitter who never backed down from a helmet on helmet collision.”

The Bulldogs went 8-1-1 in Douglas’ senior year, the biggest win coming against a much larger St. Clairsville team. In an interview from his home in Iowa, Douglas talks about the game as if it’s 1961 all over again, the intensity of his voice deepening when talking of the first play from scrimmage. “That first play was Belly 28. I cut it inside and then went right up the middle. I juked Tommy Starks and I was gone!” “Fluke” would finish the game with over 200 all purpose yards. On the season, the 5-6 stick of dynamite would rush for over 1,000 yards and intercept 6 passes from his safety position, earning All-State honors along the way. Teammates say his speed, which was just as lethal left or right as it was straight ahead and his toughness were unequaled around the valley. “High school football for me was a great experience,” says Douglas. “We worked hard, suffered and cried together. We developed a camaraderie that’s indescribable. In wrestling you’re more centered on yourself, but football was about trust and teamwork, and that’s something to be admired.”

Douglas’ and Havlicek’s gridiron careers didn’t end at the high school level. Douglas followed George Kovalick to West Liberty State College where Bobby was a jack-of-all-trades offensively for two seasons before concentrating solely on wrestling. Havlicek meanwhile never played at Ohio State much to the chagrin of Woody Hayes who once told reporters the best quarter back in the Big Ten is playing basketball. Obviously the Cleveland Browns believed Hayes, because they drafted Havlicek and gave him a Chevy convertible as a signing bonus. He would end up making it all the way to the final cut with the Browns, even though he hadn’t played organized football for nearly five years.

So while their accomplishments in other sports may have overshadowed their gridiron careers, they did not diminish the memories. Memories of two athletes so different yet so alike once they stepped on green grass with the white stripes at Perkins Field. They were men amongst boys on that field and both agree the lessons learned playing high school football helped each attain a level of success in their chosen professions rarely seen in the history of sport.