Which Sports did you play in High School?

 As a young boy I knew I was going to play football.  My older brother, Tracy played football and was very good at it.  It was the one thing in life that really seemed to make my Mom and Dad proud of us.  I am sure Freud would have something to say about this… At an early age I would play out in the yard with a football, throwing it and then chasing it down like it was a fumble and recover it.  Friday nights we would all go to town to watch Tracy play football.  As I grew older, I knew I would play football and had hoped early on to play for “The Ohio State.” I also wrestled and ran track but did those to stay in shape for football.  After my Freshmen year playing for the Port Clinton, (Ohio) Redskins, population around 6k,  my family moved to Snyder, Oklahoma home of the Cyclones. (1971)  (population 12 hundred).  What a change… my brother Terry and I played for them, he played offensive linemen and I played linebacker and fullback.  Football was big in Snyder and we were immediately popular.  Again, my parents really got into it and we very active in the community.  On one Friday when I was at school and were to have a game that night, a funeral wreath arrived at our school from the team we were to play that night, Tipton Tigers, our rival.  It really got the team fired up and we won the game…come to find out my Mom had sent it! My Dad was the guy firing the shot gun after we scored, very happy time in my life.  So I was semi-successful playing football and was lucky enough to get a full ride scholarship to Cameron College, now Cameron University, Aggies.  I played all four years and was a starter after my freshmen year.  Football allowed me to go to college, my parents could not afford it and I would not have let them try.  In looking back, when I started college it was so I could continue to play football but slowly changed to getting an education.  My parents were not as involved when I played college ball and moved to Colorado to chase their own dreams.  They moved to Colorado and lived on a ranch in the back country.  Mom cooked and Dad trapped, some of the happiest times of their lives….

Going to Cameron University and playing football on a full ride scholarship College seems to be a big deal for a while.  Other people in high school had partial rides but I was the only one with a full ride.  (everything paid for) For the first year or two I was all in and football had all my attention and I attended my classes and completed my studies so I could play football.  In my second year we were watching films from the game the night before.  Coach Lavender was my coach and during the filming he said, “Bunning if you would get your God Damn nose out of your school books and into the play books you would not make mistakes like that!” I was floored, it was clear to me from that point forward that my coach did not care about me or my future.  So from that point forward football was important for a very different reason, it was a stepping stone to an education.