In The Name of The Father, The Son and Knute Rockne…    

Even in the Sixties, football was serious business.  On Friday nights, the stands were filled with fathers whose scions were out there on the gridirons of America, getting the crap kicked out of them, just so daddy could vicariously score the touchdown that he never accomplished when he was in high school.  This, of course, is because good ol' Dad spent his leisure time in chess club rather than the football field. 

But, I loved football.  After my first football practice, about the third grade as I recall, I remember thinking, ‘Hey… this is great!  I get to beat the hell out of that butt-hook, Gary Bishop, and not get kicked out of school!’   If fact, there were several kidsin junior high school I tried to get to come out for football,  for precisely that reason!  As it turned out, none would accommodate me and I ended up getting kicked out of school, anyway.  But, that wasn’t until basketball season, and I sucked at basketball, so it didn’t matter.  Basketball and soccer are games for losers... who ever decided that there ought to be a sport that involved anything other than physically assaulting the other team?

I always liked to fight.  I don’t know why, I just did.  All you psychologists out there, eat your hearts out, I made it all the way to manhood (arguably) without ever once polishing the leather on your couch.  I owe it all to football.  Coach Clyde Custler was the only shrink any of us ever needed.  The man took motivation training from the Marquis de Sade, his pre-game speeches inspired by Mein Kampf and Knute Rockne. 

Of course, in the Sixties, everyone’s favorite football team was the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.  Never mind the fact that most of the guys on the team were either of Italian or Polish descent. In God’s eyes, all football players are Irish. 

I’d heard all the stories regarding the exploits and heroics of Johnny Lujack, Paul Hornung and all the rest.  And before Coach Custler stepped onto a bench and began his pre-game inspirational speech, exhorting us to become mad dogs of hatred as we stormed out of the locker room shouting and cursing, we received the inspiration of one Father Armand Dresser.

Father Dresser, our team spiritual advisor, was the pastor at Our Lady of Victory Parish.  His nose was as red as a ripe maraschino cherry.  Almost every kid on the team had served as an altar boy at one time or another, so we tended to think of him in terms other than inspirational, unless you include our absolute wonder in the fact that he could drink as much wine as he did and still stay upright. In fact, there wasn’t a single one of us who hadn’t taken his turn unloading the liquor truck as it pulled up to the back of the rectory.  In hindsight, I’m sure the Bishop would have liked to know about that, too, but it’s all water under the bridge at this point.  Honestly, a couple of liters of altar wine per day is probably necessary to keep a man sedated enough to listen to the confessions of a faithful flock.  How many adulterous affairs is a man capable of keeping quiet about before he runs screaming into the streets?

Also, while I’m on the subject, I want to know something.  If he couldn’t see us when we were in the confessionals, why did he always know our name as he handed down our penance?  Every Saturday, as I awaited my turn to go in, I’d sit and think up ‘sins’ that would be right on the edge of the mortal/venial threshold, just to see if I could ‘push the envelope’ and receive something other than five Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers.  Once I managed an “Examine your conscience”, too.  As I recall, that one involved looking in neighbor’s windows.  I felt like I was finally starting to make some progress down that road to Hell.

As was his custom on Game Day, Father Dresser always wore his black floor-length tunic that made him look and walk like a penguin.  Of course, his uniform wouldn’t have been complete without that little black hat.  Coach Custler called him “Dress”… “Come on up here, Dress, and give us our Lord’s blessing…we’d hate to leave any of those assholes crippled for life!” 

Then, we’d mill about while a couple of assistant coaches helped “Dress” onto a bench.  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us pray…”   Then, he’d commence his litany of the saints, progression of Beatitudes and adoration of Mary, all in Latin, of course, stopping only to catch his breath or burp.  We’d all look at each other out of the corners of our eyes, shake our heads and grin, patiently waiting for Jim Worthington (our huge All-Conference right tackle) to fart and crack up the whole team!   Some of the guys took bets on whether he’d fall off the bench from a combination of inebriation and vertigo from keeping his eyes closed that long. 

I remember getting a letter from my mother years later, while I was in the Marines, telling me that Father Dresser had left the parish.  Evidently, the Bishop had sent him on special assignment to a monastery somewhere, the purpose of his mission to ‘examine his conscience’.  It seems that Father Dresser might have more appropriately been called Father Cross-Dresser, but that’s a story for another time.

Bob Church © 2007