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60th Season At Home Field Brings Back Football Memories

Ed. Note:  Umatilla High School’s football team is playing its 60th season at its current football field, a long time but only a portion of the history associated with the football program.  We thank Skip Babb for leading readers on a walk through the history of Umatilla’s football facilities, and including some highlights of successful seasons gone by.
By Skip Babb
    "There will come a day when there are no more jerseys to wash, no more equipment to buy, no more practices to drive to or Friday night game to attend.
    “There will come a day when your weekends are wide open, when your spot on the bleachers is filled by another.
    “You will miss all the running, the reminding, the dirty jerseys, the analgesic balm smell after those Friday night lights.
    “You’ll miss the season you’re in right now.”
    - Ailen Manzano, Blogger
    Small-town high school football is a game played in cycles.  You're up, then you're down.  Wait 'till next year.  You have two, maybe three good years, and then there's the rebuild, and the losing.  Parents follow their children on Thursday.  Friday nights during those cycles to the old ball field, cheer them on as they participate on the field as players or managers or cheerleaders or in the marching band.  Then they all move on.  The cycle of players and parents fill the void.
    So when the current high school was built in 1963, they needed a ball field.  Howard Babb of Umatilla went to the bank and signed for a loan to get the project off the ground, so to speak.  Jack Allen was a co-signer.  The field was built.  We kicked off against Clermont for the first game on the new field.  We won four touchdowns to three against the favored Clermont Highlanders.
    I have been lucky in my lifetime to be a part of four of those high school football cycles.  I knew a lot about my Dad's cycle at Umatilla in the late 1930's as my grandfather kept a detailed scrapbook of his last two seasons culminating in Howard playing in the state high school all-star game at Florida Field in Gainesville.  Dad played tight end and his older brother played guard and tackle.  Bill was a guard, and Herbert 'Cuz' Babb was a tackle.  A BIG tackle. Herbert 'Cuz' Babb would later serve as a Lake County Commissioner.  His son, Charlie, would later be a Umatilla quarterback.
    One of the newspaper's preseason articles of that time reports that Umatilla had a splendid team with 23 reporting for practice.  No injuries reported except for a few scratches.  "Munson Tibbals reporting a bloody nose". Munson would own and run Tibbals Drug Store in Umatilla's downtown for many, many, years. 
    As I was sitting in the stands for the start of this year’s 2024 season, it dawned on me that we’ve been playing on this field on the current campus of Umatilla High School for sixty (60) years.  Now known as John Westervelt Field, we played our first games here during the football season of 1964.  1964-2024 = sixty years.  I was a junior in high school and Tom Comer was the head coach.  John Westervelt was the offensive line coach.  We were 7-3-1 that year and played in a bowl game in Inverness against Father Lopez of Daytona Beach.  This was before the playoff system was created.  1964 and 1965 were the top of the cycle for me and the fighting Bulldogs were 0-10 in 1962.  Just 1-9 in 1963.  But, the downward cycle changed, we were on top again.  I was a junior in high school when Tom Comer came to town to be Umatilla’s new head football coach.  John Westervelt was the math teacher and was the line coach.
    The 1965 team was 6-3-1, but lost to Eustis for the second year in a row with the identical score of 7-6.  I know because I was the holder on the extra point try in 1964 and the kicker in 1965.  Both blocked for the loss BOTH years. The kicking team was blamed for the heartbreaking loss in both years.  Gene Wilder and coach Comer's son, Jeff, who was also the team's kicker.
    I had my third cycle of Umatilla High School football upon returning to town after college, law school, and the Army.  The late 1970's was an upward cycles I joined Tom Comer's coaching staff which included Buck Collins and Reggie Forbes.  We were good.  There was no doubt about it.  But for some still-regretted late-game mistakes, we were close to being a state championship team. 
    Traveling to Fort Meade near the Lake Okeechobee area for a playoff game, we were on the two-yard line when time expired sending us on the long bus ride home knowing how close we were to winning and advancing.  Some of the athletes on that team in that cycle were Robert Donaldson, Ricky Reeves, Vernon Hutto, David Ellis, G.M. Stephens, Brian Cadwell, Eugene Wilder.  Many of these players continued to play in college. 
    There have been three different Umatilla High School football fields.  The earliest field was between the former Baptist church and the former elementary between Smith Street and Orange Lane.  That was across the street from where the high school was located at the time on the main highway.
    My dad’s teams played their games there on that field.  They also carried their leather, non-face mask helmets folded in their back pockets when they weren’t wearing them. 
    Some of those players on the early teams played instruments in the marching band during halftimes and would suit up again with their shoulder pads after the half.  At one time, men's adult fast-pitch softball games were played there.  Also, the renowned and popular Halloween festival was celebrated on that field.
    That field continued to be used as our practice field in the early 1960's when we played our games across from the Golden Gem juice plant. I remember helping manually line the field during physical ed. class for games on Friday night.  I remember the cheerleaders using a sheet to solicit fans to throw their money to them to help defray the cost of Ray Guenther's knee injury.  Evidently, before the insurance companies were used for that expense.  That field was also used by the baseball team in the spring.
    The last cycle I was involved in was in Eustis as my sons played there when we relocated in the late 1970's.  I had given up my playing and coaching and was the videographer, filming every game for those teams in the late 1970's.  The recording of the games had come a long way by then.  When we first played at what is now Westervelt field in those mid-1960s, the filming was done by a camera that was produced reel.  Bob Klingbeil would climb a ladder up a telephone pole to a tree stand platform built for filming purposes.  On more than one occasion, Bob would lose his balance and give us a few minutes of the nighttime sky.  Bob's son would later be a Umatilla quarterback.  The tape would be sent by car to Orlando after the game and processed for us to review on Sunday afternoons to prepare for next week's game.
    So enjoy your 60th season at the 'new' field, Bulldogs!  There's been a lot of groundwork put in to make this all possible for you.  And remember, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. 
    We do this every year for a reason.  Youngsters can grow up in a football atmosphere.  You learn things you can’t learn anywhere else…. about yourself, about others, about sportsmanship, about life.  Enjoy it ‘cause you just can’t go back.