| Wednesday, September 10, 1975 - Bremerton Sun | |
Golden Age Timer by Dan Wearer Sun Sports Editor |
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| AMERICA was basking in the peace and prosperity of post World War I when Fran Kelly became the timer for Bremerton high school football games. World War II was 15 years away when Kelly, then a 20-year-old with an insatiable appetite for football, volunteered to work the local prep games. Calvin Coolidge was President, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champ, Babe Ruth was a year away from 60 home runs and the Model A was ye to be invented. Bremerton football was played on a field where the current school district administrative office building stands, on Burwell and Montgomery. Fran Kelly, amazingly, has witnessed nearly every Bremerton high school football game for the past 50 years. He was a veteran before Olympic College was born. A half century of football tradition has passed before the 70-year-old retired mechanic and businessman, who still plays a respectable game of golf at Kitsap Golf and Country Club. His youth was spent in another age, when politics, people and football differed from today. “At first I kept time on the field, behind the players,” Kelly recalled. “Then the timer was moved to the sidelines. It has just been the last few years that I’ve been up in the pressbox.” As a 120-pound Union High end who was graduated in 1924, Kelly remembers his football team as “only medium.” But he has seen the best of Bremerton parade before him over the decades. Who is the best football player Bremerton has produced? “I would say it’s a tossup between Steve Bramwell and Don
Heinrich,” he ventured, both of whom went on to star at the University
of Washington. |
The players today are bigger and better, he said, than in the days when a Bremerton schedule included Port Townsend, Bellingham, Yakima, Everett and Port Angeles. But his person favorites include standouts from six decades: Harold Kemp, the Brott brothers, Arley Clark, Gale Wade, Henrich, Bramwell, Bill Alexander, Ollie Olson, Chuck Jones, Ted Tappe and Madden are at the top of the list. What’s Madden’s first name? he was asked. “Gosh, I can’t remember,” Fran admitted. Fifty years is a long time to keep track of the highlights.” Kelly’s favorite coach “probably would have to be Dwight Scheyer. He had some coaching staff, with Chuck Semancik and Norm Richardson as assistants,” he said. That was in the late 1940s. Kelly’s old schedule was not for the weak. “I used to work at the high school game on Friday night, go over to see the University play on Saturday and come back to work at the Olympic College game,” Kelly remembered. He doesn’t see the Huskies much anymore but he continues to time games at Bremerton Memorial Stadium. What has been the most significant rules change over the years? “When a player went out of bounds,” Kelly recalled, reaching into the past, “the ball was put back in bounds one yard in from the sideline.” IN THOSE DAYS it was a little difficult to run the narrow side of the field. Over the seasons Kelly provided other service to the Bremerton footballers. He hauled equipment in his own pickup to away games, driving to Yakima and points in between. And with all those years behind him he seldom sits in judgment. He doesn’t second-guess the coaches, most of whom have fathers, or maybe grandfathers, who played in Kelly’s day. “Well,” he amended. “I don’t second guess ‘em too often.” A “Fran Kelly Appreciation Night” was scheduled Saturday night at Memorial Stadium but that has been postponed until the second or third Olympic College game of the season. Kelly has watched every OC game. Every one. THAT kind of support is worth a night of appreciation. |