March 28, 2024

Newton’s 1966 CIC champions remember

Glory Days — 1966

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Fifty years ago, Newton High’s Cardinals faced Marshalltown’s Bobcats in a crucial Central Iowa Conference football showdown at Marshalltown. On the line was at least a share of the CIC title.

“Marshalltown was our arch-rival and were the conference favorite that year,” Newton 1966 quarterback Tom Lightner said. “We weren’t supposed to win that game at their place. We were a group of well-coached football players, who went about our business.”

Their business secured a 32-13 victory over the Bobcats to improve to 6-1 with one CIC game remaining. The Cardinals captured the 1966 CIC championship in front of their fans at H.A. Lynn Stadium with a 13-0 victory over the Ames Little Cyclones to go 5-0 in conference play.

“The big key to our success in 1966 was we had a lot of guys who played really hard, and we were good ‘team’ guys,” Newton 1966 fullback Dave Clement said. “We didn’t care who carried the ball, scored the touchdowns or caught the passes. We wanted to see the team be successful.”

Newton 1966 Cardinal football team finished with a 7-1 record, ranked 13th in the state. There were no playoffs and only one football poll for all schools.

On Friday night, the 1966 CIC championship football team will be honored at Newton’s homecoming game at H.A. Lynn Stadium. The recognition will be between the freshman game, which starts at 4:45 p.m., and the varsity game, which has a 7:30 p.m. kickoff time.

“During the Marshalltown game, in which a Des Moines Register sports columnist predicted an easy Marshalltown win, Clement ran roughshod over the Bobcats,” 1966 Newton player John Stiles said. “After one bruising run to score, a Marshalltown player said to Dave, ‘nice run, country boy.’ Dave replied, ‘look at the scoreboard city slicker.’”

The current Cardinals play Marshalltown to open Class 4A District 4 action. Newton is 4-0.

“Wonderful,” Newton 1966 left halfback Steve Vermillion said. “I just found out about this a month ago. I’m sorry I can’t be there. It’s a nice thing to be honored this way as a team.”

Newton came off a 3-4-1 season in 1965. The Cardinals returned seven lettermen from that team. They opened the 1966 season with three straight road games, winning 20-7 at Ottumwa, 13-0 at Boone and 34-13 at Grinnell.

In the home opener, Newton defeated Oskaloosa 21-6. The Cardinals’ only loss of the season was 14-0 to Des Moines Roosevelt.

Homecoming 1966 was eventful for Newton. As the parade was lined up Friday afternoon, a tornado was sighted. The 1967 Newtonia yearbook has a photo of the tornado, which touched down but did no damage.

The homecoming game was played at H.A. Lynn Stadium in wet, muddy conditions, but the Cardinals prevailed, 13-6, over Des Moines Tech. Next came the Marshalltown game back on the road, and the Ames game at home.

Newton’s head coach in 1966 was Paul Turner and his assistant coach was Dudley Norris. Clement said Norris had been the head coach at Grinnell before taking the Newton position.

Current Cardinal assistant coach Tom Weeks was the 1966 team manager. Lightner and right halfback John Kruger, who live in Arizona and California, respectively, plan to be on hand for the reunion.

“My playing days came to an end when Dave Clement met me head on during a loose ball drill,” Weeks said. “The coaches felt my 90-pounds of power could be best utilized on the sideline.”

Weeks said he had the only injury suffered by the team in the homecoming game against Tech, and he was the student manager. He said although he was way too little, he wanted to play so bad he spent his free time during practice kicking field goals.

“I worked hard at it, but Coach Turner refused to let me dress. However, he did allow me to hold placekicks during warm ups as he did not want our holder involved during pregame,” Weeks said. “For some reason, I got distracted and the center snap hit the ends of my fingers breaking a couple of them and my hand. Evan Walker’s great-grandfather, Dr. Jesse Walker, was our team doctor. As I went over to show him my hand, he took one look at it and said it’s jammed. He pulled on my fingers, and I fainted dead away. That got laughs from the crowd and the team.”

Weeks said Coach Turner emphasized in his press conference with radio and newspaper Weeks was the only casualty of the game.

Clement, who is a retired coach, teacher and athletic director at Ottumwa, will not attend because of special plans to travel to Rutgers University, Piscataway, N.J., to watch the Scarlet Knight’s Big Ten football opener against Iowa. Rutgers’ head coach, Chris Ash, is a former Ottumwa High football player.

“We’ve had these plans for some time,” Clement said. “The 1966 season was one of great memories because of our toughness and togetherness as a team. Our roster was mostly seniors. One or two juniors started in the 22 positions and most of us played both ways.”

Clement was a 6-foot, 190-pound fullback and linebacker for the Cardinals. Lightner was the 5-foot-9-inch, 155-pound quarterback and defensive back.

“Against Roosevelt, I was playing right safety and Denny Bewyer was the left safety. Roosevelt was recruiting players by then, and they had a player by the name of Toby Houston, who was exceptionally fast,” Vermillion said. “He got around our right end and was running toward the goal. Denny and I did perfect jumping tackles and this running back stop at before the goal line, we smashed into each other, fell apart and he walked into the end zone.”,

Clement, who went on to be a three-year starter as linebacker for the University of Iowa, said the Cardinals had a good offensive line with Jack Ferguson as the center. He said the only regret he had about the 1966 season is Rod Simpson, who was a starting running back, injured his knee in the preseason scrimmage and missed the whole season.

“Paul Turner had a great career coaching at Newton. When he added Dudley Norris to his coaching staff that year, it made a difference,” Clement said. “He was our line coach.”

Lightner said the Newton starting lineup on both sides of the ball in 1966 were seniors except for junior guard Steve Rhodes. He said the Cardinals were not very deep in any position as most of the players played on both sides of the football.

“We were primarily a running team offensively, but we’d throw the ball and mix it up. We had Dave Clement to run up the middle then Steven and John were fast,” Lightner said. “Very few of us played much varsity as juniors. We were backups who moved up when it was our turn.”

Lightner said the Marshalltown game was the game they needed to win and wanted to win for the CIC championship. He said Vermillion was assigned to shadow Marshalltown’s good running back Calvin Spencer.

“We kept Calvin Spencer bottled up pretty well and took control of the game early, if I remember right,” Lightner said.

Krueger said he and his Newton classmates still get together and talk about specific plays from football games, which took place 50 years ago. He said he and his wife Kay have many great friends from the NHS class of 1967, who they keep in contact with.

“1966 — what a great year to be a Newton Cardinal,” Krueger said.

Vermillion, who is an eye surgeon in Florida, said he was small and fast in those days.

“I just followed my big tackles through the line, sprint for yards and every once in awhile I break a long run,” Vermillion said. “I had very good hands, and I remember catching some one-handed passed in the end zone in games against Marshalltown and Grinnell.”

Individual honors came to several members of the 1966 team at the end of the season. Clement earned all-state honors. Clement, Gene Steenhoek, Mike Grosvenor and Steve Snook were first-tem CIC selections while eight other Cardinal players received conference honors as second-team or honorable mention.

“The teamwork was key for us. You really got a feeling what it was like to work together and accomplish something bigger than yourself,” Vermillion said. “Coach Turner was in charge, but I’d say Dudley Norris our assistant coach was the glue for the team. He had a way with words.”

“I want you boys to grab grass and eat dirt for 48 minutes,” was one of Coach Norris’ sayings according to Vermillion. Or, “You don’t know the difference between pain and injury,” he’d say if a player came off with a little injury, Vermillion said.

Vermillion said he had to give credit to Tom Weeks as a part of the cohesiveness of the team.

“Tom taught me how to play football and basketball when I was 8. He brought a lot of us to the sport of football when we were young. He’d organize teams and games,” Vermillion said.

Lightner, who recently retired after a 43-year career as a financial adviser, said most of the Newton football players played two or three sports in high school. He said he went on to the University of Iowa to play golf, earning a varsity letter three years.

“Golf was my best sport. We were multi-sport athletes and good students. I’ve got a lot of fond memories. We were a tight-knit group of guys, who just got the job done,” Lightner said.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
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or jsheets@newtondailynews.com