J.C. Louderback was widely known for ‘Fifth Down Game.’ But he was so much more
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- He was the referee and crew chief of record in Mizzou's 1990 Fifth Down game.
- He was inducted into six Halls of Fame as an Arkansas City math teacher and tennis coach.
- Obituaries and tributes described him as humble, principled, compassionate, and dedicated.
In the wake of J.C. Louderback’s death on May 7, the most essential measures of the man could be found in his obituary and accompanying online Tribute Wall.
Not merely in terms of the six Halls of Fame in which the longtime Arkansas City, Kansas, math teacher and tennis coach has been inducted.
Not so much in what he achieved as who he was.
Per the obit, a humble man who married the high school sweetheart (he’d met in fourth grade), cherished friendships and dedicated himself to family, students and community.
Per the tributes, like Rags Smith describing him as “good, decent, compassionate …” And Marty Gilliland calling him a man who “meant so much to so many. He touched all of our lives in a special way. Coach was a man of principles, humbleness, courage and integrity … All qualities we should aspire to.”
All qualities, too, that revealed themselves most in the aftermath of a miserable twist in his life as the referee and crew chief of record in Mizzou’s infamous “Fifth Down Game” loss to Colorado in 1990.
He might be widely known for that.
But he’s best known for so much more.
We’ll come back to what went awry that day … and how Louderback’s lapse was just one of many factors in a bizarre turn that helped enable Colorado’s national-title run and left MU feeling cursed.
But this isn’t so much about one of the worst moments in a man’s life as it is about still defining yourself most by your decency.
‘A good learning tool’
When Louderback and a split crew that never before had worked together were suspended the next day for a week by the Big Eight Conference, the news release came with an unusual flourish:
A blunt statement by Louderback, who never pleaded the fifth and even embraced its implications: “We are human, we erred, and we feel terrible in regards to the circumstances at the end of the game.”
If that accountability sounded like a small thing, it wasn’t. All the more so by the increasingly prevailing contemporary standards of deflect and deny.
But that was just the start of how Louderback came to own it … and in the process demonstrated his abiding dignity and grace.
We’ve all done things we regret, of course, but doing that so irrevocably, publicly and enduringly is something few have to face.
Or at least that few face in an exemplary way.
Louderback, though, never made excuses or referred to others who might have prevented it from happening.
It was his crew, he’d tell you, and therefore his responsibility.
That was what he taught, after all. You don’t alibi or hide, he’d tell his students, players and three children.
Because he thought it was important to be available, he spoke with all the reporters who called, dozens or more. He took calls from angry fans … at least until the point they turned obscene or hostile.
He tolerated ESPN coming to school and joking about the calculus teacher who couldn’t count to five. He spoke to his students about every detail of the episode, and he indulged the school paper with an interview about what he called a “national incident” because he reckoned it would be “a good learning tool.”
‘5’ Forever
When I visited Louderback in Ark City on the 10th anniversary of the Fifth Down Game, we spoke about why he thought it was important to handle it that way.
“I learned a long time ago, there’s times you’re going to do it right, and there’s times you won’t,” he said. “And I taught our kids that if it doesn’t go right, it’s not all over.
“Keep going. If you give up, then it’s over.”
While he never exactly learned to laugh about it, he appreciated that the friends who teased him were trying to make him feel better.
When he retired from officiating in 1999, among the parting gifts from his Conference USA crew was a doctored poster rendered to read, “Count Any 4 Downs, Get Fifth Free.” Colleague Ted Ruta signed it, “Thank you for the greatest 4 (5) years in officiating history. ‘5’ Forever.”
Closer to home, poker nights often meant someone dealing Louderback an extra card just to see if he’d notice.
“What are your good friends for?” Mike Dobson, a former teaching colleague of Louderback’s, told me then with a laugh. “He never could count.”
As I was saying goodbye the day I visited, Louderback stood by his refrigerator and pointed to a picture of “all four” grandchildren on a slide.
Alas, I felt the need to note five were pictured.
“It’s sort of gotten to the point,” he said, with a laugh, “where I’m afraid to say the number 5 anymore.”
One in a thousand
By his estimate, Louderback officiated some 1,000 games between 1957 and 1999, starting with junior high and “B” team games.
The extra money helped bolster the $4,350 he was making teaching math and being an assistant football coach, 7th grade basketball coach and the varsity, junior high and junior college tennis coach.
(An aside: When Louderback last fall was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, tennis loomed large. He started the Arkansas City Tennis Association, where, the U.S. Tennis Association wrote, he could be found resurfacing courts, fixing nets, stringing rackets and picking weeds. All three of J.C. and Donna Louderback’s children won state tennis championships and Jay later coached the Notre Dame women’s team for nearly 30 years. Daughter Jan told me in 2000 that her father as a coach sometimes upset her by not being more partial on her behalf.)
None of the thousand-ish football games Louderback worked as an official, of course, has endured like the one on Oct. 6, 1990, in Columbia — where Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was then an MU assistant and Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was a Colorado running back.
On that 2000 day in their house, Donna Louderback pushed the video of the game into a VCR so he could retrace it more specifically … even though it remained rather etched in his mind.
Sitting on the floor with his back against a couch, Louderback fast-forwarded to 36 seconds left, with Colorado trailing 31-27 and driving.
On second and 4 at the Missouri 12, quarterback Charles Johnson connected to receiver Jon Boman — who might well have scored if he hadn’t slipped, as so many did that day on MU’s ghastly Omniturf.
“Look at this, look. You see that? Isn’t that something?” said Louderback, surely wishing fate had settled the game there. “I do not believe it.”
Instead, it was first and goal for the Buffs at the MU 3-yard line as Johnson spiked the ball to stop the clock — taking advantage of a rule new that year that seemed to add to the confusion to come.
Then Bieniemy ran 2 yards, and Colorado called its last timeout.
Most conscious of reminding Colorado that was its last timeout, Louderback didn’t signal for the down marker to be advanced or double-check to see if it had been.
If only ...
So the down marker stayed on second down when it should have turned to third — something that others could have helped solve.
Mizzou, for instance, could have called timeout to clarify what was going on.
The head linesman normally carries out the task of assuring the down marker is flipped. But Louderback declined to comment on that and simply said, “I’m the crew chief, so it comes back to me.”
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the game, the linesman, Ron Demaree, said Louderback became scapegoated because he was the only one on the crew who was allowed to speak with the media about it.
“It was all of our fault, especially mine,” Demaree said.
Demaree, who said he’d dealt with depression for nearly a year afterward, managed a chuckle and added, “If an oil spill happens, you want one representative to talk.”
Leading the Mizzou sideline chain gang, Rich Montgomery was authorized to advance the down marker only at the signal of the linesman.
But at times, he said in 2010, he has reminded an official to cue him — which helps explain why he became lightheaded, pulled over and threw up as he was listening to a replay of the chaotic final sequence while driving home to Blue Springs.
On what really was third down, Bieniemy was stuffed again at the 1 to create the true fourth down.
At which point Johnson, operating as if it had been third down, spiked the ball again to stop the clock.
Fifth and goal
On fifth down, Johnson twisted in the scrum toward the end zone, and Demaree signaled touchdown though photographic evidence suggests he may not have been in.
So 12th-ranked Colorado claimed a 33-31 win amid mayhem.
As Louderback was running off the field, he was told by several people, including MU coach Bob Stull, that there had been a fifth down. He couldn’t process that in real-time, though.
As he was dodging angry fans, though, he figured it must have been over the touchdown call, and he initially dismissed the possibility when asked by a pool reporter afterward. But as he drove the seven hours back to Ark City, between Wichita and Oklahoma City, the possibility increasingly gnawed at him.
When he arrived home around 2:30 a.m., Donna had the tape ready for him.
“And there it was,” he said, “bigger than life.”
Just like the way he came to handle it … and who he really was.
“The kindest man …” Peg Connor wrote on his tribute page. “Rest in peace, legend.”