Terre Haute South's undefeated football season: Fifty years ago? Really?

Sep. 22—What were you doing in 1973?

If you snapped, "I wasn't even born yet," that's good. The Tribune-Star wants as many young readers as possible.

Still, don't turn the page or click to the next story right away. You might learn something here.

So if you were a teenager or young adult in '73, you probably listened to Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Ole Oak Tree" or Pink Floyd's "Money."

"Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," sung by the still-popular Elton John, came out that year. (Sir Elton didn't come out until 1976.)

You might have worn bell-bottom pants, hip-huggers and/or tie dye T-shirts. You likely grew your hair long, perhaps in an afro.

You probably watched "Hawaii Five-O" on your black and white television.

Book 'em, Dano.

Lyndon B. Johnson and Bruce Lee were among the celebrities who died that year. On the opposite end of the life cycle, it's hard to believe Peyton Manning was three years away from being born.

Speaking of sports, you surely remember Secretariat running away with the Belmont Stakes to wrap up the Triple Crown of horse racing.

If you were living your best life in Terre Haute, you probably cruised the 'Bash, drank at the Ballyhoo (only if you were 21+), shopped at the new Meis store at Honey Creek Square and visited Headstone Friends for your "hippie-related" needs.

You'd probably never heard of Larry Bird ... yet.

Democrat Bill Brighton had become the city's mayor in 1972 and its new high schools, Terre Haute South and Terre Haute North, were beginning the third year of their existence in the late summer of '73.

Now we're getting to the point of this story, because that was when South's only undefeated football season took place.

Yes, those Braves — coached by the late Bobby Clements — finished 10-0!

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A 6-foot-5 frontliner in basketball and an offensive tackle/defensive end on the gridiron, George McDavid was preparing for his senior year in the summer of 1973. Not surprisingly, like any senior, he wanted that football season to be special.

"I think we all knew we were going to be pretty good," recalled McDavid, who went on after high school to play rugby, become a partner in an international law firm and move to Philadelphia. "But we had seen some other pretty good South football teams falter, so we were determined to not let that happen to us. For me personally, I wanted to win a spot in the starting lineup and then not let my team and teammates down."

Greg Heine, another senior, started at center and played in plenty of goal-line situations on the defensive line that season.

"I hadn't even practiced [at those defensive positions]," admitted Heine, a Rose-Hulman graduate, now 67, retired from the engineering profession and living in St. Joseph, Mich. "But I relied on my teammates to tell me what to do."

Overall, Heine continued, expectations for the Braves were fairly high ... within their locker room.

"There were some doubts from outsiders as to whether or not we could endure the tough schedule," he pointed out. "There were also concerns about our lack of size up front. I recall within our tight-knit team, we had the confidence and knew we had a chance to really shine. I also remember talking to coach Clements before the season started and told him I thought we could go undefeated. He put me in my place and told me to focus on [Evansville] Memorial first [in the season opener]. Wise words because they were tough ... and huge."

Ted Shanks, also 67, carries fond memories from starting at safety for the '73 Braves. Retired as part owner of Lidster Auto Service and living in Terre Haute, Shanks recalls "having a strong core of guys who worked hard in the offseason" with the '73 Braves.

"We felt that there was a chance we could be very good," he added. "Our goal was to make the [IHSAA] playoffs, and to do that, the feeling was we would have to win all our games. It was the first year for playoffs [in Indiana] and only four teams from AAA [the highest class] would qualify."

Another 1974 graduate, Jim Payne, started at cornerback for Clements' crew. He's now 66 and retired from Buzzi Unicem USA, a global cement manufacturer.

"Many of our team members were on the undefeated Sarah Scott [Junior High] ninth-grade team of 1970, so expectations were high," Payne pointed out. "I heard through the grapevine that coach Clements couldn't wait until we were seniors. Add the best players from Woodrow Wilson and Honey Creek [junior high schools] and the pieces fell into place."

Unlike the previously mentioned players from that team, Bill Oliver was not a starter. A junior in the fall of 1973, the 66-year-old retired Terre Haute resident and Indiana State graduate said he filled in at offensive guard and "a little inside linebacker on defense," adding that many members of South's second team got into games because of lopsided scores.

"Preseason expectations, as I remember, were not all that good because there was so much talent and desire from all team members, practices seemed to be fairly even," Oliver said. "The coaches, I think, were puzzled by this and not sure what to expect."

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South opened that eventful campaign with five consecutive shutouts — 6-0 over Evansville Memorial, 21-0 over Albion, Ill., 14-0 over Lafayette Jeff, 26-0 over Perry Meridian and 30-0 over Evansville North — before an opponent scored. Even then, the Braves won their sixth game 24-14 over Vincennes Lincoln.

"We went to Evansville to play Evansville Memorial that first game," Shanks recently told the Tribune-Star. "They were favored to win the [Southern Indiana Athletic] conference [SIAC]. We won a hard-fought game 6-0. It was a very hot night, as I recall. Bob Carter took a perfectly blocked screen pass about 70 yards for the only score. I think after that, our confidence was high that we could have a special season."

"Probably my favorite memory of the season was the 30-0 victory over Evansville North," Payne said. "We practiced poorly all week, and on the day before the game, coach Clements came into the locker room and said, 'You guys are gonna get beat tomorrow night.' Apparently we heard what he said. You could hear a pin drop in the locker room before the game. Needless to say, we annihilated them. We had 347 yards of total offense. Evansville North had 84 total yards and only 8 on the ground."

Convincing decisions over Clinton (26-0), Terre Haute Schulte (39-8) and West Vigo (35-0) set the stage for a grand homecoming finale Nov. 2 at Memorial Stadium against — you guessed it — Terre Haute North. The Patriots, 5-4 through their first nine contests, also would be celebrating their homecoming.

Both squads carried momentum into this matchup. The week before, while South was blanking West Vigo, North was winning at Evansville North 19-14.

"As the last game approached, we expected to win," McDavid said. "We knew it would not be a walkover, but a scrap. We respected North, but we were not going to lose to them."

With queens Robin Williams (South) and Anne Mattingly (North) reigning over the festivities, coach Gene Shike's Patriots grabbed the first lead on a 27-yard touchdown run by tailback Monte McDonald in the second quarter. Although the Braves managed to block the extra-point kick, they didn't expect to find themselves trailing 6-0.

By the end of the first half, Clements' squad had seized a 13-6 advantage by scoring on a 17-yard screen pass from Matt Stoehr to burly fullback Bob Selge, who overcame a slight injury from a bicycle accident one day before the game, and a 31-yard hookup between Stoehr and Carter, a speedy tailback.

That turned out to be the final score, thanks in large part to two second-half interceptions by South junior linebacker Chuck Blackwell. Also worth noting, North kept sending McDonald on runs in the second half, but the Braves eventually slowed him down.

"They were proud, played very hard and never gave up," McDavid said of the '73 Patriots. "But they came up short. Afterward, we tipped our hats to them. But we won because we were better."

"The South-North game was intense as they always are," Oliver mentioned. "Just seeing the size of the crowd was impressive. We were confident going into the game. An amazing ending to an undefeated season."

"We played the game at night at Memorial Stadium on AstroTurf and I thought the field looked huge," Payne explained. "In the first quarter, North threw a short pass to the receiver I was covering and I was able to close the gap and tackle him after a 6-yard gain. That's when I realized the field was the normal size."

"We did not play our best but were able to win 13-6," Shanks reflected. "I think we were disappointed when we came to realize that we wouldn't make the playoffs despite winning all our games. North was the last game. We lost out [on making the playoffs] because of playing two AA teams and one single-A team."

According to statistics compiled by the late Terre Haute Star sports reporter Carl Jones, McDonald finished that night with 109 yards rushing on 19 attempts. On the other hand, North's defense held South to an uncharacteristic 61 yards on the ground on 38 carries.

In 2023, Heine acknowledges that nerves may have played a role in the closeness of the final score against North 50 years ago.

"We sat around all day just waiting for gametime," he assessed. "We were all a mess and just wanted to play. A big disappointment was losing George McDavid [to an injury] in that game. George was a big presence on the field for us. Finally, relief came when it was over and the realization hit that we had accomplished something that would not be easily repeated."

"I had an injury in the first half of the North game," McDavid confessed. "Bernie Romoser came in [as a substitute] and played great. Nobody on the team was at all surprised by his performance because he was as hard-nosed as you get."

The seven-point triumph enabled South to reclaim the Liberty Bell — now known as the Victory Bell — and clinch the SIAC and Vigo County championships. But because one of the Braves' opponents — Schulte — had a low enrollment figure, they did not receive an IHSAA playoff bid under its old-school format at the time.

"The disappointment was we didn't qualify for the playoffs," Mark Stoehr, a junior linebacker, back-up running back/wide receiver and Matt Stoehr's brother on that South squad, emphasized during a 2008 interview with the Tribune-Star. "We thought we could beat any team in the state with our defense.

"But it was still a special year. It was a great team."

Indeed, McDavid said the '73 Braves contained "lots of all-county and all-conference players" with himself and Carter being named to multiple all-state teams.

"Bob Carter was as fast as the wind and a great player," McDavid added about his fellow senior from the 1973-74 school year.

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Now that 50 years have passed since that historic season, every player interviewed for this story was asked to name anyone from the team who passed away since then. Among those mentioned were Jeff Brown, John Kassis, Mike Hendrix, Barry Patterson, Jeff McCammon, Bruce Pickens and Bob Arnold, although the living players stressed they may have inadvertently omitted others.

Clements, who retired from coaching at South in 1984, died in December 2008 after a long struggle with Parkinson's Disease. He was 68. South's football field is named after him.

"He was just a top-notch person," Shike, who later retired as North's coach, said in a Tribune-Star interview right after Clements died in 2008.

"Coach Clements was always straight with us and had a lot of regard for the less-talented but hard-working players," Shanks assessed this past week, "although we had lots of talent."

Others from the South '73 crew offered high praise for Clements and his staff of knowledgeable assistants.

"Coach Clements was the best," Oliver maintained. "Great coach and all-around great guy. I had the highest respect for him. Offensive-line coach Dan McGrath was great as well. Dan expected perfection and integrity. He taught me so much, both on and off the field. He also insisted that the offensive line complete our wind sprints before the faster backs and ends [in practice]. He made us do extra if we didn't finish before them."

"The coaching staff was very good," McDavid stressed. "Bob Clements was a good leader and was straightforward in your dealings with him. We all liked him.

"Dan McGrath was my O-line coach. He was very good and worked very hard. He taught me proper blocking techniques that are so critical for a tackle. He is the person to whom I owe my thanks for whatever football success I achieved. He was intense and very competitive and an excellent coach."

"Our coaching staff was the greatest," Heine chimed in. "They coached discipline and pushed us to our limits, which made us better people in the long run. Coach Clements was even-tempered most of the time, but he could unleash some fury if it was needed. Dan McGrath always worked us harder than the other players. With McGrath riding the blocking sled and yelling at us to drive, we'd try to push that blocking sled into the pit beside the practice field with him on it. That was motivation. [Assistant coaches Norm] Trench, [Paul] Kelley and [Jim] McCammon provided great support too."

Payne gave his coaches credit while providing the funniest comment about what they had to work with that season.

"We were just a bunch of dumb kids and they were like our parents," he said. "They must have thought we were goofy, and they were right."

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Players, coaches, trainers, student-managers and fans of the 1973 South football team aren't likely to let much of that season slip from their minds, regardless of how successful they became in other aspects of life during the past 50 years.

"It was fun to be a part of a great season and some excitement definitely built during each school week and cumulatively through the season," McDavid said. "We loved it. It was just so enjoyable being a part of a great team. I have never forgotten the sense of camaraderie and joy that being part of that team brought."

"My memories are of a fantastic experience and the bonding of my teammates," Oliver proclaimed. "This was the highlight of my high school experiences."

"It was a great season to experience," Heine concluded, "and will stay with me forever."