Fred Huff on SIU Sports
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Hopefully my former classmates, those that are still around, are experiencing similar problems when it comes to remembering names, facts and figures.
To compensate, we're spending more and more time at various libraries and earlier this week enjoyed our first trip to the archives section of the renovated Morris Library on SIU's campus.
What a facility, but that's another story.
Seeing on tv SIU's newest running sensation -- Deji Karim -- startle Western Illinois by breaking a 92-yard touchdown run on the first play of last week's 30-10 win and later reading that it was a new Saluki record, the wheels started to turn.
In the back of our mind, the figure "95" came into play. Sure enough . . . in our history book on SIU's athletics we found that a Harold Call ran for a 95-yard TD against Eastern Michigan in 1950.
Understanding how easily typographical errors sometime occur and realizing this may be a slightly serious claim, we opted for reviewing the situation prior to challenging.
We visited Morris Library.
Sure enough, Call, a young, explosive running back from Pana with the descriptive nickname of "The Pana Powderkeg", ran for 95 yards and six points in SIU's 44-13 win over the visiting Michigan team.
Hang on though.
There's more.
Call's record-setting run, just like Karim's, came on SIU's first play of the game from scrimmage.
The story, written by a "Don Duffy", told how the Salukis, then still known as the "Maroons", took over after mishandling the opening kickoff and returning it only to the five.
Duffy's story told how the Maroons broke their huddle quickly and fanned out across the entire width of the field.
Call took a direct snap and was hardly touched as he went the entire distance to the end zone for a touchdown . . . 95 yards.
Like Karim, Call also scored again in the game and finished with 248 yards in just 10 carries before being nailed and suffering a broken ankle on his last carry.
Although only a sophomore, he never played another down for SIU. Thankfully the resemblance to Karim's feat ended earlier.
There's still more and meaningful info that we were totally unaware of and is now interesting in that McAndrew Stadium is in its final season.
The game, played Nov. 10, 1950, was the first night game ever held in McAndrew.
Calling attention to Call's record run in no way is being offered as criticism to SIU's claim that Karim's run last week was the longest in Saluki history.
If that was the case, we'd be pointing a finger at ourself for not having left more precise records when we departed as sports information director in 2001.
The keeping of statistics, particularly in football, is far more sophisticated today than in the late 1900s and certainly more so than in the early or mid-1990s when Call did his thing.
We can recall receiving a notice from the NCAA that official game statistics must include "tackles" in the following season.
Our immediate thought was something like, "They've got to be kidding . . . we're doing well with our two-person staff and a manual typewriter to record rushing and passing yardage and a play-by-play of the game." Yet, it happened.
Along this same line of thinking, we were interested in an area sports columnist's mild complaint just a week or so ago that there are no such things as "official stats" at high school games.
It's true.
Few, if any, area schools produce "official game stats" which would actually be the responsibility of the home team if the Illinois High School Association ever required it for all regular-season games as it does for state playoff games.
It's difficult. It means knowing the rules of keeping official statistics.
It requires effort and dedication. It should be a requirement. The x-number of yards a team, or individual, rushes for at home should be based on the same interpretation as those at a road game.
What then, however, would sports writers -- or readers -- have to complain about?