ALLENDALE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Back in the summer of 1969, Allendale High School leaders were getting ready to launch their new athletic program with kids who had never played the sports to which they were about to commit many hours.
Ken Pierce eventually became a well-known, successful coach for boys’ basketball and cross country. But first he was an assistant football coach, the first year the school had a team. He recalls that the players were farm boys who didn’t know anything about the game.
“We didn’t have weight-training programs like they do now. But the kids were big, strong kids because they threw bales of hay all the time,” he said.
He and football coaches from that first year until now all got together for breakfast at Murphy’s Restaurant in Allendale ahead of the first game of the season.
They remember a time when they kicked extra points over the tree line because they didn’t have goal posts. It was a time when there were no stadium lights, so they played their games on Saturdays in the daylight. In those first few years, it was also a time for losing.
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