By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The outcome of a football game can hinge on an inch or two. Yet, using some of the most rudimentary tools in sports, the guys on the sideline usually manage to get it right so the outcome is decided by the athletes on the field. Bob Suelter has spent 36 years on the sideline as part of the Great Bend High School chain gang. He recently shared some of his memories with Steve Webster on 1590 KVGB/95.5 FM's "Pages in Time" program. Suelter said one easy observation is how much the game has changed in the last several decades.
"A lot of their coaching methods have changed so much in the last 20 years," he said. "They're teaching kids a completely different game. It's not so much knock somebody down and keep knocking him down anymore. It's hold your spot, move him over here, use this technique and that technique."
The GBHS chain gang works the visitor's sideline, which has been the host to many great programs and coaches over the years. Western Athletic Conference foes Liberal and Dodge City each made big runs. Few programs in state history were as dominant as Gary Cornelsen's Liberal teams in the 1990s, which won four state championships between 1992 and 1997.
"He was a legend, but I didn't know what he looked like," Suelter recalls. "We got on the sideline, and I'm looking around, thinking where in the world is Gary Cornelsen? The guy I picked out was the bus driver. We were playing pretty well that year, and they had a big play. The called timeout and everybody gathered around Gary Cornelson, and it was the guy I thought was the bus driver."
The real Liberal bus driver, a large and boisterous man, also made his presence known. He was telling sideline workers about his run with another team's cannon and a subsequent ruptured eardrum. He was planning on filing a lawsuit.
"Great Bend scored and shot off their cannon," Suelter said. "He says, 'Well there goes another $100,000 in my lawsuit.'"
The top-ranked Panthers play Salina Central in tonight's Class 5A sub-state (semifinal) game. The Mustangs have rebounded from some lean years, but were once just as mighty as Liberal with six Class 5A titles between 1993 and 2005, all under legendary coach Marvin Diener.
Central former-standout running back Jake Sharp rushed for more than 6,500 yards before moving on to a decorated career at the University of Kansas. Suelter said Diener could get after his kids but knew when to show off a tender side. That was on display when Sharp was still an underclassman.
"He put the Sharp kid at running back, and the Sharp kid had a heck of a game," Suelter said. "He really played hard. I'm standing there, and Sharp comes running off the field. Diener told him to cover over, and he says, 'I just want to thank you.' It kind of made me tearful. Diener says, 'I want to thank you. You went in there and did everything I asked you to do, and from now on you're my starting running back.' I thought that kid was floating on air, and so was I."
In more than 30 years of sideline work, Suelter has seen some of the worst and best of GBHS football. He recalls the years when the Panthers scheduled a certain Wichita school. Most years, it was the best chance for either team to win a game that season. Great Bend had turned the page and was beating the Wichita school one year when Suelter gained another memorable moment.
"We were just running all over them, and the lights went out," he said. "They stopped the game, and this kid behind me says, 'Dang, we can't even beat a team that don't have lights.'"
Liberal, Dodge City, and Garden City, with coaches like Cornelsen, Dick Masters, and Dave Meadows, used to run the WAC. In recent seasons, the power has shifted to the smaller schools in Great Bend and Hays.
"They were incredibly good, and we'd get spanked, but you'd see some players you knew were going to go to KU or K-State, or be playing on Saturday somewhere," Suelter said. "Now, we have those players."