100 Years of Raider Football, John McFARLAND

MCFARLAND, DRAKE, KNAPP, AUSTIN, MOSIER, JOHNSON, PAYNE, WILSON, BUCK, MORRIS, FERBER, RUSK, ILLTIS, THOMPSON, ROE

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 10/3/2012 at 13:52:01

Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, September 25, 2003

100 Years of Raider Football

McFarland part of first undefeated squad
by H. Alan Smith

For John McFARLAND, there were many football high points, from playing for the first undefeated football team in Mount Ayr history to being one of the first players to go on to play four years of college football.

McFARLAND was actually listed on the football roster for five years, beginning as an eighth graders in 1927 - two years after Floy DRAKE graduated.

He played in the first years of the Harry KNAPP coaching era, a 13-year period in which KNAPP became what is now the third winningest coach in Mount Ayr history.

In McFARLAND'S time in high school, the team went 9-1 in his junior year and then were undefeated his senior year in 1931 -- the first of what have been a total of 12 undefeated seasons over the past 100 years.

For much of McFARLAND'S career he played end until quarterback Arvil AUSTIN broke his leg in practice his junior year and he was moved to the backfield.

His senior year he played quarterback for the team, and earned all southwest-Iowa honors as a junior and honorable mention honors his senior year.

Eugene MOSIER is another player still alive from that 1931 undefeated team and both hope to be able to ride in the parade Saturday.

Now 91, McFARLAND has many memories of his football career.

"When I was a freshman and sophomore, he had a lot of ties," McFARLAND remembers. In fact, his freshman year the team went 1-4-3, which they improved to 4-4-3 his sophomore year.

"My junior year, we went 10-1 with our only loss coming at the hands of Osceola," McFARLAND remembered.

That led up to the senior season.

His senior season, the team put together a 9-0 run. They downed Afton 46-0 in the opener, handled Clearfield 26-6, got past Greenfield 27-0, downed Bedford 6-0 and rolled past Lamoni 33-0.

That brought the Raiders to a rematch with Osceola, the team that had spoiled their season the year earlier.

Coach KNAPP'S father died and he went back to Redfield for the funeral so superintendent W. F. JOHNSON filled in as coach for the game.

Really captain Ray PAYNE was in charge of the team. But in a day when substitutions were few and far between anyway, there wasn't a lot of strategy in terms of moving players in and out from the sideline.

In the Osceola game the previous year, which the Raiders lost 19-0 after quarterback Arvil AUSTIN had gotten his leg broken the previous week, and this year the Raiders were out for some revenge.

PAYNE kept the first team in for the whole game as the Raiders scored more and more points. The final outcome was a 54-0 victory for the Raiders.

The rest of the season included a 20-6 win over Lenox, a 39-0 victory over Leon, a 2-0 squeaker past Corydon and a 6-0 win over Albany, MO.

"Football was altogether different back then," McFARLAND noted. "You played both ways and you didn't substitute as much when you couldn't go back in until the next quarter if you came out," he said.

There were no school buses. Coaches lined up cars from the community to get players to the game. And just like a few years earlier, equipment wasn't the best.

"We had helmets most of the time, but we played people who never wore helmets," McFARLAND said. Of course, the helmets worn there were not nearly as protective as the ones today.

By the early 1930s there were 30 to 40 players out for the team and "pretty good" crowds came to the games, still standing along the sidelines or sitting in cars to watch the games on the make-shift fields.

Offenses still weren't very diverse. "We had an off tackle play, a play around the end, a reserve and a few passes," he remembers.

There wasn't a good drop kicker when he played, so the team went for two points instead of trying to kick extra-points.

"After I got out of school we had some drop kickers come along, but we didn't have one when I played," he said.

Other members of the team McFARLAND'S senior year were left guard Lawrence WILSON, left tackle Howard BUCK, left end Allen ALLYN, left end Floyd FERBER, left halfback Linda MORRIS, quarterback John McFARLAND, center Ray PAYNE, right guard Forest RUSK, right tackle Donald ILLTIS, right end Elmo ROE, right halfback Howard THOMPSON and fullback Eugene MOISER. All but WILSON, FERBER, RUSK, ILLTIS and THOMPSON were seniors that year.

"We just didn't have the size of player they do today," McFARLAND says. "No one on our squad came close to the weighing 200 pounds." Howard BUCK, who went on to wrestle at Iowa State University, weighing in at 180 pounds or so as the largest player on the field.

When the Raiders were on defense, they had a six-man front and Roy PAYNE was sort of a rover backer. "He would line up where the thought the play would be going and he often was in the right place for a tackle or to block a punt."

McFARLAND'S football career didn't end with that championship season for Mount Ayr high school.

He, Elmo ROE and Ray PAYNE went on to Simpson College in Indianola in 1932, though McFARLAND was the only one who played four years for Simpson>

McFARLAND had success in college ball, playing for four years like he had in Mount Ayr. In 1933 Simpson won the Iowa conference title. "I still have a little silver football medal I was given for that," he said.

While at Simpson he played half-back most of the time, but did some quarterbacking as well.

One of his biggest memories of his college career was in a game with Iowa State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Iowa.

The coach called a play, sending in a substitute, and McFARLAND moved out as a wing back.

He was sent down field on a pass, which he caught for a 40-yard touchdown which won the game. He even kicked the extra point afterward. (He kicked in college but never had in high school.)

He remembers that the 1933 Simpson team was written up with a big spread in one of the Des Moines daily papers by sports writer Jack NORTH.

He wrote that Notre Dame had its Four Horsemen backfield while Simpson College had its pony backfield.

McFARLAND weighed between 145 and 150 during his career and two of the other backs in the championship backfield were under 150 pounds as well. Only the fullback topped the scales at 170 pounds or so.

After graduating from Simpson, McFARLAND went on to teach and coach for five years before he joined the Navy in 1942. One of his teams there had an undefeated season as well.

When he came back from the war in 1946, he changed careers, leaving football behind. He went into the implement dealer business with his father-in-law and brother-in-law, Keith and Bob FISHER, a business he was in until 1981.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2012

Photographs courtesy of Mount Ayr Record-News

100 Years of Raider Football
 

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