By JOE MURCHISON
Courtesy of Joanna Thompson
Winning an Olympic medal is a life-changing event, but on a somewhat smaller scale, so is winning a high school state championship. Just ask members of the 1987 Laurel High School football team.
Eighteen players and three coaches from that team gathered in Laurel on Aug. 3 to bask in memories of camaraderie and shared sacrifice that became a highlight of their lives. While most still live in Maryland, two came all the way from Missouri and Colorado.
In a text thread after the reunion, Keith Reeley shared what the event meant to many of them. “I’d like to thank all the coaches and the guys for a lifetime of great memories and a lifetime of friends made,” Reeley, then a lineman and now a tractor-trailer driver living in Easton, said. “It was one of the best times of my life.”
The reunion grew out of a conversation John Thompson and Steven Haversack had at their 35th high school reunion last year. Thompson, owner of a Laurel electrical company, suggested to Haversack, an analyst at the National Archives, that they needed to bring the football team back together.
Now in their 50s, members of the group gathered first at Laurel High to see the new football field and be greeted by present head football coach Devonne Powell and some of his players. Powell told the alumni how attending their games as a kid inspired him.
The group then spent the rest of the afternoon sharing memories and talking about their lives at the Dive Bar & Grille at Savage Mill. Many had not seen each other since high school.
Haversack had prepared an extensive PowerPoint presentation with information about each player and coach on the team, then and now. Mark Thomas, who worked in sports journalism after college, created a booklet with memories of each game. The group even watched a Laurel TV video of their state championship game.
They also observed a minute of silence in memory of four teammates who had died.
Head coach Chuck Hickes was featured in a Q&A session. He recalled in a later interview that in fall 1987 he was only in his third year of coaching after two losing seasons, but that adversity had built resolve and cohesiveness in the squad. “Most of those guys had been together for three years,” he said. “They bought into it,” he continued, noting the demanding practices, weight training and “running the hill” below the field.
The players adopted their own code of toughness, which included throwing players in a trash can if they talked to a girl during a preseason practice. (It happened.)
Back then, Laurel High had just been reassigned out of the athletic division of the state’s largest schools, due to a drop in enrollment. So the team was suddenly playing against schools of a smaller size, which was an advantage.
Still, Thomas noted that Laurel’s team was small, with only 28 players. But they had potent weapons on both sides of the ball, he said. On offense, three running backs — Kevin Bailey, Danny Johnson and Mark Winkey — were such talented sprinters that they helped the Laurel High track team win a state championship that same year.
On defense, the line had some size, like 320-lb. Randy “Cave” Harris, who now works for a security and bodyguard company. Harris, in an interview, also gave credit to the defensive backfield. “Our linebackers” — Kevin Bailey, Greg Leffler and Stephen Simpson — “were vicious,” he said. The defense allowed only 61 points in 13 games, an average of less than five points per game.
Laurel started the season with a 22-7 victory over Sherwood, one of the better teams in the state and boasting Richie Anderson, who went on to play for the NFL. But after Anderson scored on the first play with a 95-yard run, Laurel’s defense shut him down, and Laurel’s running backs and quarterback Kevin Dukes took over. (Dukes is now a state patrolman.)
Laurel played poorly in its second game to Surrattsville, losing 7-6. The two teams got into a brawl afterward — which was a prominent memory for some at the reunion. Coach Hickes remarked that Laurel might not have won their state championship but for that loss, which sparked a lot of motivation. It would be the last game Laurel lost that year.
The team rolled through the rest of the regular season in mostly dominant fashion and beat DuVal in its final game, 10-0, for the Prince George’s County championship. Playoff victories over Thomas Stone ( Charles County), 30-14, and Overlea (Baltimore County), 14-6, set up the state title game against Linganore of Frederick County
A large crowd of Laurel supporters showed up at the University of Maryland’s Byrd Stadium for the title game, despite cold and rainy conditions. Haversack recalled that Linganore was the top-seeded team, filled with “big farm boys.”
On its first possession, Linganore marched the length of the field and seemed poised to score. But Laurel’s Leffler intercepted a pass in the end zone. Leffler had an injured arm that he couldn’t raise above his shoulder due to a motorcycle accident — his playing despite injury exemplified Laurel’s toughness.
With the field muddy and slick, neither team could score through the first three quarters. But in the fourth quarter, Dukes rolled to his right, luring the defense with him, then threw back across the field to Danny Johnson, who wove his way deep into Linganore territory. Bailey ran the ball in for a touchdown, and later scored a second, as insurance, with another run. Final score: 14-0. Laurel High, state champions.
“It’s hard to capture that kind of moment again,” Johnson said in an interview. He went on to play varsity football at The Citadel, attend law school and be elected a district attorney in Columbia, S.C. He recalled that his family was going through some tough times when he was young, but “my memories of high school are so great, so joyous. I loved playing with those guys.”
“We weren’t the biggest team out there,” Johnson added.“Everybody mattered. Everybody had to carry their weight. … It changed all of us and had an indelible mark on all of us.”
