Paul Messner, the beast of the gridiron, circa 1965. (Photo from Messner family archives)
Santa and daughters (clockwise from lower left) Christi, Barbi and Aimee.
Jump back to opening day from football season for a moment.
Coupeville was on the road, facing off with arch-rival South Whidbey down Langley way, and Jordan Ford, heir to a proud athletic tradition from both sides of his family, made an explosive debut as a Wolf.
Recovering a fumble, he took it to the house for a touchdown that, momentarily, put CHS ahead and turned the tide of the game.
While the play was called back, thanks to a Wolf blocker getting nailed with a penalty flag for an illegal hit, it was a signal that Ford, whose family had moved back to Whidbey for his senior year, would be a bright spot for Coupeville.
And he was, racking up fumble recoveries and sacks on defense, while doubling as one of Wolf quarterback Gabe Eck’s top targets.
In the stands that night, proudly watching his grandson play, was Coupeville’s answer to Santa Claus, the fun-lovin’ force of life known as Paul Messner.
The question is, how many others in the stands knew that the guy with the white beard and the mile-wide grin was once one of the best to ever stride the gridiron for the Wolves?
How many know about his senior year, when, exactly 50 years before his grandson’s heroics, Messner put together one of the most impressive campaigns in school history?
Santa was a Superman, and the 1965 season, which started in glory and ended in pain, is one of the great long-lost legends in Wolf sports history.
Pull up a chair and let me tell you about a different time, a time when legends walked the land.
Or, in Messner’s case, when they slammed head-long into the line, scattering would-be tacklers and tearing off huge chunks of yardage like a man possessed.
How scary was he? Other teams refused to play the Wolves after dark on their home field.
Well, OK, that may have been because the CHS football stadium didn’t have lights at the time … but, we’re sticking with the legend. Sounds better.
The ’65 Wolves were thin in numbers, but coach Terry Paoletti had a 5-foot-11, 180-pound battering ram in Messner and he used him often behind a line that included guys like Dick Bogardus, Fred Salmon, Jim Henry and my future landlord, Jack Sell.
Jim Faris operated under center, while Bill Losey joined Messner at halfback.
The spotlight quickly landed on Messner, a two-year letterman entering the season, who was tabbed as the team’s captain.
He erupted for 185 yards on 15 carries, while also snagging 13 tackles in Coupeville’s opening game, a narrow 22-12 loss at Darrington.
Newspaper accounts at the time talk about the Wolves struggling a bit to adapt to the “high altitude of the mountain town,” but that hardly slowed the two-way beast of Cow Town.
Bringing his game back down to the lowlands, Messner went on a rampage the next week, savaging Chimacum for 208 yards on 19 carries. He also accumulated 17 tackles as Coupeville throttled the Cowboys 21-6.
With Messner rolling, the Wolves ripped off two more wins the next two weeks, rising to #7 in the state polls.
Coupeville beat La Conner 12-0 (Messner rolled up 223 yards) and nipped Granite Falls 13-7 (Messner tallied 154 yards rushing and took a kickoff back 90 yards for a touchdown) and, at 3-1, was atop the Northwest B League standings.
The win over Granite Falls, which featured a Tiger, Dan Maik, being ejected for “non-official roughing” of Wolf Terry Hesselgesser, was probably the most thrilling of the season.
Unfortunately, with Hesselgesser going to the sidelines with an injury, it also signaled the beginning of the end for a CHS team that barely had enough bodies BEFORE injuries wreaked havoc on the roster.
In the moment, however, the win was epic, with Coupeville rallying from behind at home, in the daylight, with a mixture of trickery and grit.
Facing a punt at midfield, the Wolves pulled off a fake, with their kicker, Henry, — who was the Clay Reilly of the time, with a 67-yard punt to his credit — hitting Sell on a 25-yard pass.
Messner took it from there, carrying the ball three straight times, with the final coming on a bull-rush up the gut for the go-ahead score.
Even then, Coupeville needed a miracle at the end to escape.
Granite Falls drove to the Wolf three-yard line with four seconds to go, before Bogardus crashed through the line on the final play, hauling down the ball-carrier to end the game.
As the Wolves celebrated, however, the specter of the injuries to come hung heavy.
According to an on-the-scene report by Whidbey News-Times legend Wallie Funk, CHS student Jim Keith, a sideline volunteer, took a lineman’s pole to the noggin mid-game.
His head bleeding from the wound inflicted by the metal pole, Keith passed out. His mom, having rushed to the field, promptly fainted as well.
Keith’s dad grabbed his son and headed for the doctor’s office. Unfortunately, the doctor had been called and was en route to the stadium, and the two cars passed before anyone realized what was going on.
Everyone came out of the situation fairly dandy (the wound was bloody but superficial), but maybe it should have been a sign.
Halfway through the season, Messner had nearly 800 rushing yards, the Seattle papers were starting to pay attention and then … disaster.
Game five was a match-up against the Oak Harbor JV, and things took a nasty turn early when Messner went down with a kidney injury less than five minutes in.
Bogardus was the next to go, and the injuries mounted in the second half, a time when Oak Harbor, clinging to a 6-0 lead, apparently ran in varsity players to save face.
By the time the Wildcat “JV” had pulled off a 26-6 win, the season was effectively done for the Wolves.
Coupeville cancelled a scheduled game against the Snohomish JV, then, racked by injuries, fell to Chimacum and Darrington, finishing a game behind the Loggers for the league title.
Messner had 770 yards before the injury and gutted out 41 more in the scant time he was able to play afterwards, forever leaving Wolf fans to wonder “what if?”
Still, while the second half pain put a bit of a damper on the season, ’65 remains a landmark year in Wolf football history.
Ten seniors — Messner, Bogardus, Sell, Faris, Salmon, Gary Bass, Mike Thompson, Steve Wilson, Lee Milheim and Tom Kroon — went on a final run, that, even now, 50 years later, looms large.
It was a time of legends, two-way warriors led by a good-natured beast who would grow up to become Santa Claus.
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