Young Paden's career as a scientist: How a D in biology won a conference football title

I wasn't the best in athletics when I was kid, but I was even worse in my scholastics. Being a starter on the defensive line in football meant my GPA was always in question during football season. We called it "report". If your grades weren't good enough you were put on report and required to spend time after school in some sort of fashion to bring up your GPA. This usually meant some sort of extra study or report. I usually saw it as a mere technicality.

My grades in biology had slipped dangerously low and was "reported" to the coach. This was late in the season and our big rival, the 'Bombers' were neck and neck with us in conference. We had a shot at the conference trophy and coach was more than a little interested in keeping his starting defensive line. A conference with the coach and biology teacher produced a few choices of extra work from which I could pick to get my grades to an acceptable level.

I chose a written study report on some mundane subject I can't even remember. But I was required to miss the last hour of practice every day to sit in the library and pour over reference material; usually thumbing through National Geographic magazines hoping to catch a photo of some topless female native half a world away. But I was under the wire on this one and started looking up stuff on what-ever-it-was that I was suppose to be writing about.

An old (and I mean old) book on early twentieth century apothecary and home remedies caught my eye because it had a glossy picture section in the middle (a rarity in those medieval days). As I flipped through the book I found a chapter in the back that appealed to my inner impish ways about home-made sneezing and itching powder. The sneezing powder had ingredients that sounded like they would cost money. But I read that itching powder could be made by merely grind to powder the feathery ends of dried maple seeds (we called them whirlys). And since the entire length of the south fence of the football field was maple trees, this seemed like something I wanted to remember...I eventually completed my report on the life cycle of single celled paramecium (or what ever it was) and was taken off report to return to the rigors of coach and the practice field.

Our team, the Pirates, and our nemesis the Bombers both won our next game. It was set in stone; we would play the Bombers for the conference title. This particular year it would be played on our home turf. We all wanted a win really bad. Nobody wanted to listen to coach scream and yell if we lost.

After practice one afternoon, only a few days before the game, we were all talking in the locker room about what we could do to give us an edge. Our go-to end and receiver, Skinny Darrel (# 81) spouted off we needed to put something in the Bomber's water coolers to make them sick. Somebody else mentioned putting pepper in their shorts. Somebody else asked what would that would do. Somebody else said it would make them itch. Somebody else said no it wouldn't and how in the world would you get it in their shorts anyway. The conversation died...except young Paden continued it on in his own mind as we all walked outside...an I saw all the maple trees with their vibrant colors...and seed pods dancing in the wind. I filled my pockets full of the seed pods and went home to test what I had read in that old book. I used an old coffee cup from a diner as a pestle and the handle of a screwdriver as a mortar and pounded the feathers into a fine powder. To be honest I was a little skeptical, but when I stuck my nose into the cup and whiffed the powder my nose itched horribly and my eyes watered shut. Next I took a pinch and tossed it down the front of my t-shirt...holy crap! At first it just kind of felt a little scratchy. After I tried to brush it off with my hand it started feeling like I was getting stung by piss ants. It got so bad I had to jump in the tub to rinse off. This stuff worked and I needed a plan!

The Conference Title game was a bigger than usual affair. We always got to use the shiny helmets and newer jerseys. No expense was spared. Another thing that had happened the last few years was some "goodie baskets" were given to both teams by the guy that owned Pat's, a hamburger joint across the street from the school that made millions. Last year the baskets included, among other things, a bunch of clean white towels, Lifebuoy soap, and a dozen or so containers of baby powder.

Keeping my cards close to my chest I found out the Pep Club would once again present the baskets to the teams in an impromptu ceremony as we all filed to our separate locker rooms prior to the game to suit up. I shared my plan with a few of my team mates. We needed to get some of the itching powder into some of the baby powder containers that were to be given to the other team. We were stumped.

Skinny Darrel made the astute observation that the year before we had all made fun of each other for using the baby powder and smelling "like a girl". Steve Dennis suggested we 'salt' a container of just plain talc and get it smuggled into their basket. His reasoning was the players, like us, would want to use the unscented powder before using any of the foo-foo stuff. That was brilliant. On a side note Steve eventually wound up as an FBI agent..he always had a good head.

Barbie (really) Rhoads was Steve's steady girlfriend AND the Secretary of the Pep Club. Being one of the officers to perform their little presentation ceremony she would most assuredly be able to plant the tainted powder in the Bomber's basket. Also the fact that she and Steve had experienced a "reproductive false alarm" for a few weeks a month or so earlier insured her confidence. We all knew she had thought she was pregnant and she knew we knew. We could single handedly destroy her reputation if we wanted (which we didn't)..but it was good ammo for negotiating.

I and a couple of other guys got busy with the clandestine manufacturing. Someone came up with a real mortar and pestle and in one evening had a pint jar almost full of the stuff. Just making it made us all itch all over. A large container of unscented talc from the Rexall store was obtained and delivered to Barb for them to mix. When the jar was returned there was only about a half a cup missing. Barb explained it made the powder too dark. Some of us wondered if there was enough in the powder to work...but we had done our work and just needed a little luck to pull it off. On game night most of us were all already in the locker room when the baskets got handed out. Steve came in the locker room with ours and gave the thumbs up to the three or four of us that knew what was going on. We just needed to wait to see what would transpire.

I remember we got the ball first and didn't score. I was sitting on the bench waiting for someone on the other team to start scratching, but it never happened. We had to punt and then they had the ball. I pulled my helmet tight and lined up (#76 - left tackle). The three or four of us that were in on the deal were pretty sure it wasn't going to work. Then the third down their center jumped spasmodically before the snap and got an off-sides call. I noticed when they ran back to a huddle he was taking off his cleats and adjusting his socks. None of us had ever thought of them using the powder in their socks, but it seemed to work. And by the time they had to punt we noticed their QB with his hand up under his jersey, digging away as he left the field. It seemed to be working and us few guilty members just looked at each other and grinned.

The Bombers were really probably a better team than us. We scored some and so did they the first half, but we could see some isolated itching in their ranks. They had quit a few off-sides calls on offense and defense. We were just hoping that they didn't catch on during half.

The second half was better than the first. Middle of the third quarter we saw their coach looking at a player's back on the sidelines under his jersey. We were whispering among ourselves we would probably be expelled from school if found out. We just played football. By the fourth quarter we were a couple of touchdowns ahead and pretty much had it in the bag. Probably a third of their players, offense and defense, were scratching and twisting as they tried miserably to win the game. They didn't. Pirates took conference and Bombers most assuredly took two showers each. We found out later their coach had suspected something and sequestered most of the towels and powder. Apparently most of the containers were empty and with the Pep Club girls' intuition about not "over dosing" the powder, we all kept our secret.

Coach had asked a number of us if we knew anything...but all he got was a lot of blank stares, some cricket sounds and a few "no sir, coach"....;)