Presented by

Week 5
Bill
KEARNS

1962-1965

Where are living now?
Columbus, in the Knolls neighborhood at Olentangy & Henderson, across the river from Whetstone Park.  I either walk or ride my bike over the footbridge into the Park at least 5 times a week, summer or winter.

Did you play collegiately?
I walked on at Ohio State in the fall of 1965.  This was when freshmen were not eligible to play varsity.  My freshman coach was Tiger Ellison. Billy Long was the freshman quarterback.  The OSU frosh had two scrimmage games, a home game with Indiana that I played in a little bit and an away game that I didn’t get to go to.  I played offensive tackle, and there were two future All American tackles in that class, Dave Foley and Rufus Mayes, so I didn’t see a lot of hope that I’d get to play much if I stuck it out.  Instead, I went out for track.  At DeSales, I held both the school and CCL records in the shot put and discus.  They were not very impressive by today’s standards, but they were the records then.  At Ohio State I focused on the shot put, made the traveling squad halfway through my sophomore year, and earned Varsity “O” letters my junior and senior years.  I was always the number 2 shot putter, as Dave Foley (the same guy mentioned earlier) was the #1 guy.  He held the Ohio High School shot put record at the time.  I still keep in touch with some of my OSU track teammates.  I got invited to the unveiling of the Jesse Owens statue at the Jesse Owens track stadium a few years back.  That was nice.

What are you doing now?
I’m a semi-retired engineer.  I work part time for a firm that manufactures equipment for the food industry.  I was Vice President of Engineering before I retired in 2016.  The part time work has worked out well for me.  I travel a few times a year for work.  It always seems like the Texas jobs are in the summer and the Canadian jobs are in the winter.  At home we do some gardening, picking tomatoes and beans right now.  My wife and I do some traveling besides visiting kids, but nothing fancy.

Married?  Children?
I met my wife Marilyn at a bar on High Street in 1969.  She’s from the Akron area, was attending Capital University.  We got married in 1971. We have three grown daughters.  Molly is married and has two kids, Will (10) and Ellie (8).  They live in New Jersey.  Molly is a fashion designer for Macy’s in New York City.  Her husband is a computer programmer.  Bonny lives in Phoenix.  She is a paralegal at a fancy law firm.  She has a nice condo.  We go and visit for a couple weeks in the winter.  Kara, our youngest, lives in Upper Arlington.  She works for a Pharma outfit remotely. 

What is the fondest memory from your playing career at DeSales?
Winning the CCL championship in 1964.  It was an 8-8 tie with Watterson, but our defense swears Watterson didn’t cross the goal line for the 2 point conversion!  Still arguing about it!  On the bus after the game, we were all downcast, since we hadn’t beaten Watterson.  Coach Sharrock said, “Listen, you couldn’t have done any better.  So why so glum?  You’re champs!”  That started the celebration, that was great.

What made playing for DeSales so special?
The fact that it was a new school and I played on the first 3 teams DeSales ever had made it a different experience than most kids have.  We were setting precedents, traditions.  Here’s something the new guys will never experience: one day, after practice, a semi truck pulled into the DeSales parking lot, which was almost all gravel then.  It was the bleacher seats for the gym.  Father Berendt came out and asked the footballers for volunteers to help unload the truck.  About 6 of us did.  I distinctly remember Fr. Berendt asking the driver what the load weighed, and the driver replied it was 30,000 pounds.  I suppose it took us 6 guys about two hours to carry the whole 30,000 pounds of boards and steel frames into the gym.  The truck driver borrowed someone’s car (maybe Fr. Berendt’s ’63 Chevy?) and went to a fast food hamburger joint (there were no McDonald’s nearby then, so it was the whirling satellite or something like that), and brought back an enormous order for us guys, maybe 8 or 10 burgers each.  Then he gave us five bucks apiece, which was a LOT back then.  And another time, after practice, we got asked to help with unboxing the desks.  The original desks came in big cardboard boxes.  Maybe someone had to do some assembly, I don’t know about that, we weren’t involved, but there were hundreds of big cardboard boxes that needed to be flattened out and taken to the incinerator.  (Do you know that DeSales had (maybe still does) an incinerator?)  We flattened out the boxes and carried them to the incinerator, which was in the boiler room near the chapel.  The janitor or someone fed them into the incinerator.  Today they’d recycle the cardboard.

What was your best game?
The one I remember most (it’s been a long time!) is the Brookhaven game that we won 24-0.  The game was a lot closer than the score.  We punched it in, our defense stopped them.  The Brookhaven guy that was across the line from me was named Mike Wogan and he was a really tough opponent, I was sore for days.  I wonder where he is now?

What was it like playing for Coach Sharrock?
Coach Sharrock was like another father.  He was both my football and track coach.  I feel like he played a big role in molding me into the person I am.  He’s the one who TOLD me I was going to throw the shot and discus and not play baseball like I had intended.  I’m really glad I listened to him.  Incidentally, I received the “Coach Sharrock Award” for 1964-65 that he used to sponsor.  I keep it on my bookshelf yet.

Do you still follow DeSales, if yes, how closely? 
Moderately closely.  I used to always go to the DeSales-Watterson games, haven’t been since Covid.  I listen to your broadcasts on PouringPurple a good portion of the games.  I did go to the two state championship football games in the ‘90s.