Those of us with long memories and, more important, access to the record books realize just how halcyon are these days of Eudora High football.
Time was when Eudora High was the sinkhole of Douglas County prep football. Lawrence High always had state championship-caliber teams and so, for the most part, did Baldwin High. The poor Cardinals were football fodder year after year after year.
“We took some lumps,” Dave Durkin, Eudora High’s athletic director, conceded.
How bad was it?
Eudora High has won 41 football games in the last five seasons. That’s more than the Cardinals won in the previous 24 years combined.
Since 1970, Eudora High football teams have posted five winless seasons and seven one-win seasons. From 1974 to 1998, guess how many winning seasons Eudora had. One. That was in 1988 and the Cardinals’ record was 5-4. Coincidentally, the coach of that EHS team was Don Durkin, Dave’s brother, and the father of Chris Durkin, a sophomore linebacker on this year’s winningest team in school history.
Not even the late Don Laws, namesake of Eudora’s football facility, was able to fashion a winning record with the Cardinals. In eight years as head coach, Laws had an overall record of 26-47. And 19 of those 26 victories came in his first three years.
Laws’ oldest son Mark was a talented running back on his dad’s best Eudora team, the 1972 club that finished 8-2, losing twice to Wellsville in the last three weeks ” the last time in the playoffs which, in those days, were determined by a points system.
“They beat us the second time in the Mud Bowl,” said Laws, now the track coach at Ottawa High. “We had to play the game at Haskell because our old field didn’t have enough seating. It poured down rain and that field had no grass.”
Still, the 1972 Cardinals, who featured a running game that showcased Laws, quarterback Dennis Folks and fullback Don Durkin ” yes, THAT Don Durkin ” had won eight games, and no Eudora High team would win as many as eight again until the 2000 team climbed to the dizzying heights of 9-2.
Don Laws finally gave up the ghost after the 1978 season.
“He just decided it was time to let somebody else do it,” Mark Laws said. “At the time the other teams just had better athletes. It wasn’t easy. It was hard. But they did the best they could.”
The late ’70s were bad, the ’80s weren’t much better and the ’90s : well, they were really bad. From 1990 to 1995, Eudora had four 0-fer seasons. In 1992, the Cardinals added ignominy to agony when they had to forfeit a game when a bank of lights went out.
“We were getting beat pretty bad anyway,” Dave Durkin said.
Yep, 1992 was winless. So was 1994, the year of the Merle Venable experiment. Venable, an old-school type coach, had been fabulously successful at Baldwin High in the ’70s and early ’80s, so Eudora hired Venable hoping the tough-guy approach was the answer. Venable lasted four games. The Cardinals went 0-9.
Marty Kobza came in the next year and tacked on another 0-9, then posted a 3-6 record in 1996 and a 2-7 mark in 1997 before moving upstairs. Today Kobza is Eudora’s superintendent of schools.
The next coach was Aaron Barnett, Eudora’s 10th in three decades. In his first year, the Cardinals went 6-3. That was a feat impressive enough to earn Barnett J-W area coach of the year honors.
Another 6-3 season followed, then the Cardinals went into the firmament with back-to-back 9-2 records before Barnett moved on to Washburn Rural.
Now first-year coach Gregg Webb has guided the Cardinals to the best season in school history, win or lose tonight in the Class 4A state semifinals against Fort Scott.
Don’t stop the world. Eudora folks, with good reason, don’t want to get off.
Those of us with long memories and, more important, access to the record books realize just how halcyon are these days of Eudora High football.
Time was when Eudora High was the sinkhole of Douglas County prep football. Lawrence High always had state championship-caliber teams and so, for the most part, did Baldwin High. The poor Cardinals were football fodder year after year after year.
“We took some lumps,” Dave Durkin, Eudora High’s athletic director, conceded.
How bad was it?
Eudora High has won 41 football games in the last five seasons. That’s more than the Cardinals won in the previous 24 years combined.
Since 1970, Eudora High football teams have posted five winless seasons and seven one-win seasons. From 1974 to 1998, guess how many winning seasons Eudora had. One. That was in 1988 and the Cardinals’ record was 5-4. Coincidentally, the coach of that EHS team was Don Durkin, Dave’s brother, and the father of Chris Durkin, a sophomore linebacker on this year’s winningest team in school history.
Not even the late Don Laws, namesake of Eudora’s football facility, was able to fashion a winning record with the Cardinals. In eight years as head coach, Laws had an overall record of 26-47. And 19 of those 26 victories came in his first three years.
Laws’ oldest son Mark was a talented running back on his dad’s best Eudora team, the 1972 club that finished 8-2, losing twice to Wellsville in the last three weeks ” the last time in the playoffs which, in those days, were determined by a points system.
“They beat us the second time in the Mud Bowl,” said Laws, now the track coach at Ottawa High. “We had to play the game at Haskell because our old field didn’t have enough seating. It poured down rain and that field had no grass.”
Still, the 1972 Cardinals, who featured a running game that showcased Laws, quarterback Dennis Folks and fullback Don Durkin ” yes, THAT Don Durkin ” had won eight games, and no Eudora High team would win as many as eight again until the 2000 team climbed to the dizzying heights of 9-2.
Don Laws finally gave up the ghost after the 1978 season.
“He just decided it was time to let somebody else do it,” Mark Laws said. “At the time the other teams just had better athletes. It wasn’t easy. It was hard. But they did the best they could.”
The late ’70s were bad, the ’80s weren’t much better and the ’90s : well, they were really bad. From 1990 to 1995, Eudora had four 0-fer seasons. In 1992, the Cardinals added ignominy to agony when they had to forfeit a game when a bank of lights went out.
“We were getting beat pretty bad anyway,” Dave Durkin said.
Yep, 1992 was winless. So was 1994, the year of the Merle Venable experiment. Venable, an old-school type coach, had been fabulously successful at Baldwin High in the ’70s and early ’80s, so Eudora hired Venable hoping the tough-guy approach was the answer. Venable lasted four games. The Cardinals went 0-9.
Marty Kobza came in the next year and tacked on another 0-9, then posted a 3-6 record in 1996 and a 2-7 mark in 1997 before moving upstairs. Today Kobza is Eudora’s superintendent of schools.
The next coach was Aaron Barnett, Eudora’s 10th in three decades. In his first year, the Cardinals went 6-3. That was a feat impressive enough to earn Barnett J-W area coach of the year honors.
Another 6-3 season followed, then the Cardinals went into the firmament with back-to-back 9-2 records before Barnett moved on to Washburn Rural.
Now first-year coach Gregg Webb has guided the Cardinals to the best season in school history, win or lose tonight in the Class 4A state semifinals against Fort Scott.
Don’t stop the world. Eudora folks, with good reason, don’t want to get off.
Those of us with long memories and, more important, access to the record books realize just how halcyon are these days of Eudora High football.
Time was when Eudora High was the sinkhole of Douglas County prep football. Lawrence High always had state championship-caliber teams and so, for the most part, did Baldwin High. The poor Cardinals were football fodder year after year after year.
“We took some lumps,” Dave Durkin, Eudora High’s athletic director, conceded.
How bad was it?
Eudora High has won 41 football games in the last five seasons. That’s more than the Cardinals won in the previous 24 years combined.
Since 1970, Eudora High football teams have posted five winless seasons and seven one-win seasons. From 1974 to 1998, guess how many winning seasons Eudora had. One. That was in 1988 and the Cardinals’ record was 5-4. Coincidentally, the coach of that EHS team was Don Durkin, Dave’s brother, and the father of Chris Durkin, a sophomore linebacker on this year’s winningest team in school history.
Not even the late Don Laws, namesake of Eudora’s football facility, was able to fashion a winning record with the Cardinals. In eight years as head coach, Laws had an overall record of 26-47. And 19 of those 26 victories came in his first three years.
Laws’ oldest son Mark was a talented running back on his dad’s best Eudora team, the 1972 club that finished 8-2, losing twice to Wellsville in the last three weeks ” the last time in the playoffs which, in those days, were determined by a points system.
“They beat us the second time in the Mud Bowl,” said Laws, now the track coach at Ottawa High. “We had to play the game at Haskell because our old field didn’t have enough seating. It poured down rain and that field had no grass.”
Still, the 1972 Cardinals, who featured a running game that showcased Laws, quarterback Dennis Folks and fullback Don Durkin ” yes, THAT Don Durkin ” had won eight games, and no Eudora High team would win as many as eight again until the 2000 team climbed to the dizzying heights of 9-2.
Don Laws finally gave up the ghost after the 1978 season.
“He just decided it was time to let somebody else do it,” Mark Laws said. “At the time the other teams just had better athletes. It wasn’t easy. It was hard. But they did the best they could.”
The late ’70s were bad, the ’80s weren’t much better and the ’90s : well, they were really bad. From 1990 to 1995, Eudora had four 0-fer seasons. In 1992, the Cardinals added ignominy to agony when they had to forfeit a game when a bank of lights went out.
“We were getting beat pretty bad anyway,” Dave Durkin said.
Yep, 1992 was winless. So was 1994, the year of the Merle Venable experiment. Venable, an old-school type coach, had been fabulously successful at Baldwin High in the ’70s and early ’80s, so Eudora hired Venable hoping the tough-guy approach was the answer. Venable lasted four games. The Cardinals went 0-9.
Marty Kobza came in the next year and tacked on another 0-9, then posted a 3-6 record in 1996 and a 2-7 mark in 1997 before moving upstairs. Today Kobza is Eudora’s superintendent of schools.
The next coach was Aaron Barnett, Eudora’s 10th in three decades. In his first year, the Cardinals went 6-3. That was a feat impressive enough to earn Barnett J-W area coach of the year honors.
Another 6-3 season followed, then the Cardinals went into the firmament with back-to-back 9-2 records before Barnett moved on to Washburn Rural.
Now first-year coach Gregg Webb has guided the Cardinals to the best season in school history, win or lose tonight in the Class 4A state semifinals against Fort Scott.
Don’t stop the world. Eudora folks, with good reason, don’t want to get off.
