The Best Story I Heard Fassel Share!
Sadly, my friend and teammate, Jim Fassel recently passed away. He had attended Anaheim High School and I had attended Troy High were we each had developed the early stages of our football skills. We first met as we became teammates on the Fullerton Junior College (FJC) football team.
Jim’s wife Kitty, was one of my good friends as she also attended Troy. As our social groups from the different high schools became more and more intermixed, our friendship grew. I have memories of trips to the beach and just hanging around campus between classes telling corny jokes and otherwise entertaining each other.
As it turns out, over the years, Jim became a pretty adept “story teller”. As I recall some of his stories, one in particular contained pretty powerfull “life lessens”. I would like to share one of those stories now.
Our first football season at FJC was 1967. Jim and I joined a team that was in the middle of an extended “undefeated streak” which eventually reached 47 games, before losing one game by one point in ‘68. Our ‘67 team did their part by going undefeated.
In 1967, for the first time ever, The State of California conducted a post season playoff for the California State Championship for Junior College Football. We traveled north to play Bakersfield (ranked #1 in The Nation) in the semi-final game. We won that game 14-13 and earned the right to play American River in the newly constructed Anaheim Stadium for the first California State Championship.
The first half of Jim’s story starts in Bakersfield. It was after the game. You can imagine the excitement as we congratulated each other as our fans who had made the longer than normal trip to support their team joined us in the middle of the field to celebrate our upset victory!
As things began to settle down, and the crowd began to somewhat dissipate, Jim recalls that he was near Coach Sherbeck when the State Officials approached to extend the official invitation for our team to play American River (the winners of the northern bracket) in Anaheim Stadium for The State Championship!
Everything was “peaches & cream” until the State Officials came to the part where they informed coach Sherbeck that “oh, by the way, we noticed that you had well over 90 players suited up for today’s game. For The Championship game, you will only be allowed to dress 60 players”.
Jim assures us that “They got the Coach’s attention”!
“The Hell You Say!”
“You can just as well give the trophy to American River right now! We won’t be participating in that game with less than our full team!”
Coach Sherbeck didn’t “beat around the bush” and it didn’t take him any time to weigh the “pro’s and con’s” of the question in front of him. Every member of that team had invested in our shared outcome and The Coach wasn’t willing to leave anyone behind!
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Fast forward over 30 years to 2001 when Jim has a similar story to share related to The Super Bowl Game he was preparing to Coach in his capacity as the head coach for the New York Giants.
Jim explains that he was excited to share this incredible experience with his lifetime friend and mentor, Coach Sherbeck. So, the first call he made was to invite The Coach to attend the game as his guest with all expenses paid!
The coach attended every press conference (Jim always introduced The Coach), Team meetings, Practice, Team meals, and etc. He had a security person with him all of the time.
You can only image the feelings Coach Sherbeck had as he was able to attend as a V.I.P., watching the teams go through their pre-game rituals knowing that one of his “understudies” was about to coach a Super Bowl team!
R.I.P. Jim, and thanks for sharing these stories…
Once a Hornet, always a Hornet!
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