In thinking of what we could do to make this website more "tangible" to the fan, I came up with the following idea:

Allow people to tell us their perspective via memories of life on and around the field that is at the center of West Branch.

And, thus, the idea know as Oliphant Street Stories was born.

In our first installment, we received a letter from Jon Miller.

Mr. Miller is the founder and former publisher of HawkeyeNation.com as well as owner of PropaneBuzz.com .

His family moved to WB before Jon's second grade year and remained there through the halfway point of his junior year. His family moved to Central Illinois where he finished high school and went on to graduate from Southern Illinois University with a degree in Mass Communications.

Jon was named a captain for the 1988 West Branch team before his family knew of their move. The 1988 team would go on to be the first team in the history of the program to qualify for the postseason.

He is the son of Dave and Lu, and the older brother of Jason and Mindy.

He keeps his eye and finger to the pulse of all that is Bear Football. It is in his blood.

Quite honestly, he is responsible for the naming of this commentary/column.

--------------

If YOU would like to tell your Oliphant Street Story, please send an email to contact@westbranchfootball.com

--------------

A big smile came across my face when I learned that Oliphant Street Field would be renamed Butch Pedersen Field. That acre of grass at the center of The Little Rose Bowl is a special place for those of us from West Branch.

The renaming of the field is most deserving, as Pedersen is truly a giant in the history of the community and has impacted the lives of thousands of former and current West Branch Students. As I thought about Pedersen’s reach and impact, I also thought of the ‘impact’ The Little Rose Bowl had on me and the memories I can so easily recall from my childhood in that Rockwellian small town.

The Little Rose Bowl was a playground for my brother (Jason Miller) and me. Our father Dave would take us up to the field to kick field goals during our grade school years. Dad kicked some in high school and one of his claims to fame during his ‘dad years’ was that he kicked a 40-yarder through the uprights, left-footed, at The Little Rose Bowl when he was in his mid-thirties.

While we were playing around the field on fall Saturdays, we could still see the painted lines from the game that had been played the night before. My brother and I ran passing routes and dad would throw us TD passes in the north end zone and we’d celebrate as if we had done something...of course in our imaginations, we had just scored a touchdown for the Bears and Marv Cook had thrown us that pass.

Speaking of Cook, he was also a regular visitor to the field when we were there, working on his kicking skills. For my brother and me, Cook was a larger-than-life giant. Standing 6-4, he was quite literally a giant to us, as I am five years younger than Marv and Jason seven years behind. It was pretty special to us at the time to be able to rub shoulders with Marv like that.

As the years went on, we’d encounter other Bears on the field during our Saturday morning sojourns; Bob Peak stands out in my memory. We also brought along more friends with us to the field, typically the Stout Brothers (Rich and Scott) who lived two doors down from us. They were a part of our family as we were a part of theirs, which is one of the aspects of my childhood that I remember most fondly; West Branch truly was a village where we were our ‘brothers keeper’, and the bonds of family extended well beyond blood ties.

When winter came and The Little Rose Bowl was covered with snow, we still played there, as the east side of the embankment offered a steep pitch with a natural divot midway down the field. We lived two blocks away and would walk down the street to get the Stout’s and then carry our sledding accoutrements to the field. We’d build a ramp of snow and spend hours flying off of that thing, landing hard and wearing away the snow to where we were landing on terra firma before all was said and done. My now 47-year-old back probably still bears some of those scars from youth.

At the end of our grade school years, we would have a Track and Field Day at The Little Rose Bowl. I was just going through some old shoe boxes recently, which is where I keep some of the treasures from my youth, and I still have ribbons from those events. I remember one year, likely in 1981 or 1982, when some Iowa football players were there as special guests and they held the finish line string for some events; Mark Bortz is a name that comes to mind as being there.

Friday nights were for The Bears, but us ‘bear cubs’ would be getting in our reps in the open area behind the south end zone playing Pepsi Cup football while the real game was going on. You’d take one or two of the paper Pepsi cups, pack them with grass, then smoosh in a few more cups, find some tape and ‘presto!’; you had your own makeshift football and the games would begin. Things could get testy and physical down there on the edge of the lights, as we typically would play games against similarly aged kids from the opposing fanbase.

There was a time, shortly after the high school was built in 1983, when there was talk of moving games from The Little Rose Bowl out to the high school. Thankfully, that talk ended.

The Little Rose Bowl also offered protection from the elements...I recall a particularly rainy affair against Solon in the mid-1980’s and watching the game from inside a vehicle...having to wipe off the windows as our collective breathing and body temps were fogging up the windows.

I can’t tell you how many pairs of jeans I probably ruined, or at the least, the number of laundry challenges I created for my parents from sliding down the sides of The Little Rose Bowl over and over during the games.

I remember playing our junior high football games at The Little Rose Bowl, and holding many of our practices there, and I remember being in awe of that early on...because I had grown up watching the Big Bears play there, and now I was getting my first chance. I could walk to most any point on that field and remember a play that had unfolded...a Willie Ramsey run for a score, a Mark Heid touchdown grab from Marv Cook, or a Ray Fountain tackle where we wondered if the opponent could walk off the field under his own power...hallowed ground.

Years later, as I had grown and become a Bear in my own right, I vividly recall ‘The Walk’ up Oliphant Street and the waits inside the Bus Barn...the anxiety and anticipation building, that anxiety and anticipation being too much for Randy Sexton to take, so he would have his weekly puke in the trash can moment...don’t mistake that anxiety for fear, however; my teammates were truly a bunch of ‘crazed dogs’.

I was voted one of three tri-captains prior to the start of my senior year, which would have been the 1988 football season. That was West Branch’s first year to qualify for the playoffs, but my family had moved to Illinois prior to the season.

I have never spent time thinking about what I missed, because we were so fortunate to move to another great small town where I made lifelong friends.

That said, The Little Rose Bowl and West Branch never stopped being a home, and I find that most of my memories of that town revolve around time spent at that field...and while I have fond memories of the games that took place on the field on Friday nights, my favorite memories are of playing and competing with family and friends on and around that field when no one else was around but us.

The Little Rose Bowl is one of the most feared places to play in all of the state because of the tradition of excellence that has been West Branch Bear Football.

But for me, and recalling things through the eye of a child’s mind...it was the best playground a kid could ever have.