Above the Bar

Roger Orrell was outstanding in both track and football. He set Florida high school shot put records, and he was a member of the 1961 Seabreeze High School championship football team that won the state Class A title. Roger went to college on a track scholarship at Abilene Christian College. He had a natural Paul Bunyan strength that was just uncommon. An example of this strength was evidenced in a media shoot that featured Coach Simmons, the track coach, and Roger.

Coach Simmons was positioned in a common metal chain. Roger was beside him standing. I don’t know who looked up to each other the most (coach to athlete or vice versa), but I get the feeling that the Daytona Beach News Journal photographer read between the lines and envisioned Roger believing that coach was as much a part of his success as he was. That belief needed to be graphically represented, so the photographer asked Coach Simmons, if Roger had the strength to lift both chair and him aloft. Without asking Roger if he could do it, coach says, “No problem.”

Now that’s belief coupled with faith. I can just feel the adrenaline surging in Roger’s body at the stating of this confidence by coach. Roger reached down and grabbed the occupied chair and brought it aloft. Then, he dropped the other arm, so it appeared as through coach was suspended in mid-air by a one-armed pedestal. After shooting a roll of film, the photographer suggested that Roger put coach down while he reloaded. Coach replied, “No need for that.” Then, Roger continued to hold coach aloft through a second roll of film.

The photograph made the local paper but should have been run nationally–it was that impressive. This is the displayed strength I often faced in competing against my friend Roger. Fortunately, we mostly competed in sports involving hand-eye coordination more than anything else. Oh, the camaraderie we so enjoyed.

Roger made the 1968 Olympic team but didn’t participate due to an injury. No matter, Roger is much more than a track and field hero to me. His Christian background was a major influence in my coming to Christ. Yeah, at times in his youth he didn’t execute it so well, but he certainly made up for his youthful shortcomings as an adult Christian.

PS: The goal posts, football field markings, and the exaggerated, middle-ground shot put have been added into my painting (using the initial News Journal photograph as a starting image) for deeper meaning that I will now expand upon.

You understand that the standard shot put exercise is to place a shot putter about 25 feet from the horizontal crossbar of a football goalpost. Using a 12 pound high school shot (Simmons required Roger to use a 16 pound college shot), the putter was to blast, like a cannonball, the shot over the crossbar from that specified distanced away.

Now, I can tell you with great certainty, that even through Coach Simmons weighs only about 160 pounds soaking wet, he is without a doubt exponentially heavier that a 16 pound shot. Yet, if coach were to have commanded Roger to heave him over the crossbar, chair and all, I wouldn’t bet against it–would you?

Coach Simmons’s whistle was almost as legendary as Coach Hogan’s “flying” clipboard. Apparently, Coach Simmons wasn’t getting through to this young Seabreeze High School quarterback at the level he so desired. So, Coach Simmons wrapped his whistle rope up a couple of times around his hand and administered a couple of whistle whacks to the football helmet of the QB to wake him up. Oh, it did the job all right, but the stunned QB (Steve Seibert), couldn’t hear a word the coach said for the next fifteen minutes because of the bell tower ringing in his ears. Sometimes you, unknowingly, giveth and taketh away simultaneously–right, Coach Simmons?

Orrell had two favorite words for people. The first was maggot. That was his term of endearment. The one he used, if you merited his favor. The other was peckerwood. Whenever he directed that word towards me, it meant that I had just gotten the better of him in some physical game competition. Other than that, if Roger addressed you with that word, you’d better beware, because he was giving you fair warning that he was about to unleash his wrath upon you–physically! And at 6’4’’ tall, weighing 235 pounds and zero fat content, plus a Kentucky farmer’s boy upbringing, you really didn’t want to enrage, and certainly not engage such a specimen as he. And fortunately (for me?), we never fought.

(In a New Smyrna beach fight, Roger hit a guy so hard he knocked him clean underneath an automobile so that only his feet stuck out! Now that tops any shallow grave burial I’ve ever heard of, how about you?

With good reason, a lone Roger was all the security needed to check basketball spectators in and out of the gymnasium during basketball season.

(This painting is to be delivered to the high school this fall and is to be placed in the school’s media center).