West Side Story: The Greatest High School Football Game Ever Played?

Talk about your Friday Night Lights. It was 45 years ago that arguably the greatest high school football game of all time in America was played and the greatest high school rivalry was born. And no, the game wasn't played in Texas. Or California. It was played in Central Iowa. 

The game in 1977 between the Valley Tigers and the Dowling Maroons, both of West Des Moines, Iowa, was nothing less than epic. It created a high school rivalry that USA TODAY and others have called one of the greatest of all time. OK, I'm admittedly biased. I was a senior at Valley that year. But judge for yourself. If you're not familiar with the game, or the rivalry, sit back and enjoy the story.

It was the fall of 1977. Yes, 45 years ago. The Bee Gees topped the charts again. President Jimmy Carter was trying again, and failing again, to cut inflation. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner would soon fire another manager. And Dowling's football team was expected to boast yet another perfect record in the Metropolitan Conference in Des Moines.

An absolutely dominant program in the disco decade, Dowling had never lost a conference game, winning an unbelievable 64 straight against Des Moines opponents since the Metro was established in 1968 (the conference changed and expanded to the Central Iowa Metropolitan League - CIML - in 1991).

But the seniors at Valley - Dowling's burgeoning rival - were undaunted. They felt this was the year they would finally defeat the mighty Maroons. They talked about it and prepared for it all summer, and on an electric late-September weekend, they set out to prove it.

While most games don't live up to the hype, this one surpassed it. For drama, significance and pure emotion, the Valley-Dowling clash of 1977, which was played out before standing-room-only crowds over two consecutive nights because of lightning and heavy rain, was arguably the greatest high school football game ever played.

Lee Crawford, Valley's head coach at the time, told me that it was easily the most exciting game of which he'd ever been a part. "I coached a lot of games in my 35-year career, but I was never involved in one quite like that one, before or since," said Crawford. "It had a lot of meaning for the school and the community. It was big. No, it was huge."

Galvanizing the city's west side, the game, which kicked off the intense rivalry that still exists between the two west-side schools, was the first of many big games for Crawford-coached teams at Valley, which had been a good-but-not-great team in the conference for so long. But even more significantly, it represented the end of Dowling's football invincibility in the city.

For Steve Flood, Valley's senior center that year and a bwest friend of mine since we were in kindergarten, beating Dowling meant everything. "I must have seen 10 Valley-Dowling games growing up, and every year they would crush us," Flood said. "We worked hard all summer preparing for our senior season, but the truth is there was one game most of us were looking toward."

The game was billed as a battle between the city's two flashiest quarterbacks, Valley's Richie Safren, also a good friend to this day, and Dowling's Rory Vacco. They were two cocky and talented senior and leaders. "It was a huge game. Richie and I both went on a cable TV talk show to talk about the game," said Vacco, who was the backup quarterback at the beginning of that season to then-junior Bob Hanson, who went on to basketball stardom at the University of Iowa and the Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls.

When Hanson broke his collarbone, Vacco moved into the starting spot. Hanson, who by then already set his sights on a basketball scholarship, never played football again.

"I would have started that year either way, at quarterback or receiver, but it was too bad Bobby got hurt because a lot of people wonder to this day what would have happened if he would have played in the Valley game," Vacco said modestly. "I was faster, but Hanson was a better passer, and we had the talent to run both types of offenses."

As kickoff approached, there was an abundance of confidence and nervousness in both locker rooms. 

"We were relaxed and nervous at the same time, but man were we pumped up," said Ken Wilson, a hard-hitting special-teamer for the Tigers that year who also remains a close friend to this day. "We had a sense of purpose, and nothing was going to stop us. We just had the feeling this time was going to be different."

To no one's surprise, the game quickly developed into a defensive struggle. The only scoring in the first half came late in the first quarter when Valley's Steve Lindgren hit a 45-yard field goal - the longest, and sweetest, of his career. "I grew up in the shadow of the (Valley) stadium on Sixth Street (in West Des Moines). I spent hours there by myself kicking field goals, hoping someday we'd beat Dowling," Lindgren said. "Just being a part of that game was the biggest thrill of my life to that point."

By halftime, everyone knew they were witnessing something historic. But with the skies getting darker, they also knew the game was in real danger of being stopped. Sure enough, just before the players were to return to the field, the rain and lightning came, and the athletic directors from both schools agreed to postpone the affair. Feelings among the players were mixed over who would benefit most from the 23-hour delay.

"We thought it was an act of God," Rick Henson, Valley's senior wide receiver, said. "But considering that Dowling was a Catholic school and our quarterback was Jewish, we weren't sure which god was behind it."

Most of the Dowling players wanted to get back on the field as quickly as possible to prove they were still unbeatable. "When we went into the locker room, we were behind but we still felt that physically we were beating them up," said Dowling's Vacco. But when the game was postponed, Vacco noted, "It changed everything. We prided ourselves on conditioning. Valley had six or seven guys that played both ways [offense and defense]; we didn't have any. We felt we could have worn them down in the second half."

That night, few players or coaches on either team got much sleep. "It was the longest halftime of my career," said Crawford, who on Saturday afternoon reviewed the game films and made a few adjustments to the blocking scheme that helped free up his freelancing quarterback. "They (Dowling) were stunting and containing Richie (Safren) on the outside," he explained. "We changed the blocking set-up a bit to free him up."

Dowling's starting defensive tackle and team captain, Frank Harty once told me that the changes Crawford made took him right out of the game: "Nothing against [Dowling Coach Jim] Jorgensen, but Lee [Crawford] absolutely out-coached him in that game."

After reviewing the films and putting his players through a light workout, Crawford went home to rest up. As he lay on the couch, he says he received an omen: "I was watching the Oklahoma-Ohio State game on TV, and Oklahoma, which ran the wishbone then like we did, upset the Buckeyes. When that game ended I jumped off the couch and said, 'We're gonna win this thing!'"

By game time Saturday, the bleachers were bulging and the sidelines were 10-deep with fans. No official count was made because tickets were sold the previous night and this night the gates were left wide open. But estimates ran as high as 10,000, including high school football coaches, players, and fans from as far away as Grinnel and Oskaloosa.

The first score of the second half came with just over a minute gone in the third period when Valley's Safren pitched the ball to senior wide receiver Henson, a city track champ who sprinted 50 yards to the end zone. "Richie's pitch was behind me and low, but I turned around and grabbed it, and all I could see was green grass," Henson said. "I ran past the Dowling bench on the way to the end zone and just said 'see ya'."

Dowling coach Jorgensen later complained that Safren was down before he gave up the ball to Henson. "It was a blown call," he told the Des Moines Register after viewing the film. "He [Safren] was sitting down when he made the pitch."

A little over six minutes after Henson scored, Safren took it in himself from the 16, putting the game virtually out of reach. When the clock ran out, the scoreboard read "Valley 17, Dowling 8." Dowling's dynasty was finally over, and the Valley faithful went wild. Chanting "we're number one," thousands of fans flooded the field like so many Jim Valvanos looking for a player to hug. Police protected the goal posts, but the celebration was unstoppable. 

"It was total euphoria," recalled Crawford.

Said Valley's Flood, "As I walked very slowly back to the locker room, I just kept looking up at the scoreboard. It took a few days for it to really sink in that we had won."

By midnight, most of West Des Moines - it seemed - was celebrating at the house of Sam Bernabe, a Valley senior at the time and longtime owner of the Iowa Cubs Triple AAA baseball team. The party at Bernabe's home became the mother of all high school parties. "It went beyond anyone's expectations," Bernabe said. "The police tried to contain it to just our house, but it got to the point where it took up several neighbors' yards and the street. But the police cooperated 100 percent; they were great. Everyone had a good time."

There were, however, some ugly aftershocks to this game. In an unfortunate act, a Valley player and some friends spray-painted "VHS #1" on signs around the Dowling campus. Then, in an ugly retaliation, a few Dowling players spray-painted racist comments - and, inexplicably, their jersey numbers -  on the Valley building, and broke a number of the school's windows. Players on both sides were disciplined; the Dowling players were kicked off the team.

Dowling's Frank Harty, who was not involved in the vandalism incident, apologized before Valley's student council. "For me, the loss on the field was terrible but what happened afterward was worse," Harty told me. "There was no excuse for that, and I know to this day the guys involved regret it. My dad went to Dowling and my kids will go to Dowling. It's something we're all still ashamed of."

But today, most players on both sides agree that, for the most part, this was a healthy rivalry whose passions remained on the field. Dowling's Vacco told me, "For most of the guys, I don't think there ever were any hard feelings. It was a huge game, a great rivalry then and now, but it was just a football game."

John Hayes, who was in his first year as Dowling's athletic director in '77, told me once that the game forever changed the face of Des Moines high school football. "It used to be Roosevelt, but Valley became our number one rival after this game," said Hayes, who noted that while both teams "played their hearts out, it's as if the adrenaline was all gone for us by the second night. Richie (Safren) really hurt us with the option."

However, Hayes added, "I always like to remind people that it took Valley two days to beat us."

Jeff Morris, the Maroons' place-kicker and starting offensive guard who missed a 31-yard field goal as time ran out in the first half, put the game in perspective: "It was a tough loss, but it wasn't the end of the world. Valley has beaten Dowling enough times since that it doesn't mean as much to them. But the parents still remember the game."

Valley went on to win its first Metro championship that year - the first team other than Dowling to win one - before falling to Sioux City Heelan in a sub-freezing away game in the first round of the state playoffs. 

But no one remembers much about the bitter-cold Heelan loss. It's the Dowling win that will be remembered forever. Because it transcended football.

The men and women who attended Valley High School 45 years ago will tell you that this one football game created a unique bond at the school that went beyond the football field and lasted the rest of that year, especially among the seniors. The chant "17-8" echoed in the hallways, classrooms, and locker rooms for months.

"The win seemed to bring the whole school together," said Mike Stauffer, a starting offensive tackle on that Valley team, and my best friend then and still. "It's hard to explain, but everyone just got along after that - the way a high school should be. It was a magic year."

Mike is right. It was a magic year. All because of that game. That epic game.