The 1964-65 football seasons represented the most successful two-year stretch in Austin Peay history. Going a combined 16-2-1, including a victory over Eastern Kentucky due to a Colonels' forfeit, the Governors were led by 10 future Austin Peay Athletics Hall of Famers such as John Ogles, Ed Bunio, Tim Chilcutt, Carlton Flatt and Bill Dupes, the longest-tenured and most successful coach in program history. Those Governor teams were as talent-laden as any group that has taken the field before or since.

Fifty years removed from their halcyon days, the players remember stories and events like it was yesterday. Sadly, some of the best stories many of these former standouts told me began with, "Now, you can't print this, but I have to tell you about this one time…" But what remains I put here.

The Coach

Bill Dupes took over for Art Van Tone in 1963 and within a year had produced a winner. A tough, charismatic leader, Dupes unearthed talent from all over the country and brought it to Clarksville, crafting a team in his image—hard-nosed, well-disciplined and above all, obsessed with winning.

Carlton Flatt (quarterback): "When he came in, we had about 100 people out for spring practice and by the time practice ended we were down to 31. He made it difficult in a good way—he separated people who didn't want to play football."

Ed Bunio (lineman): "When Coach Dupes came in, he cleaned house. There may not have been 30 guys left. It just changed the attitude."

Tommy Dobbs (guard): "We had a lot of dedicated guys. It was survival of the fittest there for a long stretch."

Ronnie Parson (wide receiver): "He was a player's coach. He was very supportive of his guys and he was the kind of guy you'd run through a brick wall for."

John Ogles (fullback): "Coach Dupes recruited me. I remember going to spring practice and watching it, how tough that practice was. I think it was a lot harder than I had previously been used to. But I think his goal was to find out who really wanted to play football. The group that was left when I came in as a freshman were really tough guys."

Billy Joe Jeans (end): "Coach Dupes wanted to win and wanted to prove himself. He put emphasis on doing the right thing at the right time."

Flatt: "When I was a junior, Murray State beat us 14-7 and it was a game that I felt good about, that we almost beat them. I thought, 'He (Dupes) is going to be praising us tonight,' and he really got after us in the locker room afterward. He wasn't interested in playing well; he got our attention after that game. We couldn't just play okay; we had to play well enough to win the football game."

Dobbs: 'He could get you inspired. You'd feel like a rocket on a pad down at Cape Kennedy. He was demanding, but we had great respect for him and enjoyed playing for him."

The Turnaround

Before Dupes' arrival, the Govs had won just five games in the previous four seasons and managed just one victory in 1963. But in 1964, the Governors saw a complete revival of the program, with transfers such as Ronnie Parson and Andy Toombs becoming eligible and helping spearhead an 8-1-1 mark that earned Dupes Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year honors in Austin Peay's second season in the OVC.

Bunio: "Parson and Toombs and those guys used to scrimmage us (in 1963) and almost beat us; they probably did and I just don't remember, but I know they gave us a tussle all the time when we practiced. We had basically the same backs in '63 as we did in '64, but when a lot of those linemen became eligible, it really changed everything."

Parson: "We had a bunch of guys that transferred in and he brought in some really good players. In that year before '64, they (the players) thought practice was harder than the games because we beat them to death that year we weren't eligible."

Dobbs: "In '63, we got better each game even if the score didn't indicate it."

Ogles: "We started getting better my freshman year, but we just couldn't finish games." 

Flatt: "We played EKU the first game of the 1964 season and they were pretty good and we beat them 26-0. That was a game that built confidence."

Jeans: "We won the first OVC game that Austin Peay ever won."

Missed Chances

The Govs tied Western Kentucky 6-6 and lost a week later to Morehead State, 14-13, in 1964 and then went more than a calendar year without losing—excluding the forfeit win against EKU, in a game the Colonels originally won by less than a touchdown, to open the 1965 season. With so many close calls, Austin Peay was just a few breaks away from running the table for two seasons.

Ogles: "We were good enough to have gone undefeated. I've seen enough football teams and games and seen undefeated teams—my sons played on undefeated teams in high school—and as good as they were, the only reason they went undefeated is because they got every break. To go undefeated requires just the earth, moon and stars aligning perfectly. I can't remember a specific event in any of those games, but we could have gone undefeated."

Bunio: "We were just a play or two from being unbeaten. We shouldn't have lost or tied any of those games. But you know, it's tough; in all my time playing and coaching in college, I think I was with one undefeated team and it's really tough to do that. Sometimes the ball just doesn't bounce your way, but sometimes it does and you win a game maybe you shouldn't have. I feel that we should've been undefeated in both '64 and '65, but that's just the way it goes."

Burgeoning Rivals

Before 1964, Austin Peay had never beaten Middle Tennessee and hadn't been too close on many occasions—the average margin of victory for Middle Tennessee in those first 18 contests was three touchdowns. But then that changed, when Parson kicked a late field goal to propel Austin Peay to a 9-7 victory in 1964.

Flatt: "To me, Middle Tennessee was the game. Coach Dupes used to tell us that Coach (Charles) Murphy at Middle would tell his players, 'If you mess up and keep messing up, we're going to send you to Austin Peay.'"

Claude Clements (end): "Middle Tennessee was the big rival. Tennessee Tech was a big rival, but not like Middle."

Dobbs: "Middle Tennessee was the big one we liked to tangle with. They were top of the line back then and we had great success there for a few years."

Flatt: "In the past, when we played poorly, we ran the risk of throwing the towel. For us to beat Middle Tennessee like we did, that was a big, big, big win."

The next season, the tilt between the Govs and Raiders was one of the most highly-anticipated contests in the area, and it lived up to its billing.

Clements: "We had Middle Tennessee down late, and we had them pinned down inside their own five with a minute to go in the game, and Teddy Morris, their quarterback, was a real scrambler and he marched them right down the field and beat us."

Parson: "I'll never forget playing Middle at our place; we were behind at halftime, 17-0 if I remember correctly. We were sitting in the locker room expecting to get our butts chewed out, and he (Coach Dupes) kicked the door in and chewed us up one side and down the other.

By the fourth quarter we were ahead 20-17 and late in the game I punted the ball down inside the one-yard line. They went 99 yards and scored and beat us 24-20. I believe it was billed the Small College Game of the Year that year."

Ogles: "My senior year (1966), we played MTSU in Murfreesboro and we were the first televised OVC game on WSMV."

Fort Campbell

This era coincided with the last time Fort Campbell fielded a football team, and the Govs played a team from the local base during Thanksgiving weekend in an annual event known as the Charity Bowl. Those regimental all-stars were largely comprised of former college standouts and in some cases went on to professional careers.

Bunio: "Oh yeah it was a big game. A lot of those guys came from big schools and some of them played pro ball. It was a fun game we all looked forward to, because it was around Thanksgiving and a lot of people came to it."

Flatt: "It was a big deal. I used to go watch them play sometimes. They'd play Staubach and Navy and most every guy they had was some kind of major football player. They had Ernie Wheelright, who played for the Giants after he got out. It was a big game."

Jeans: "Fort Campbell had (6-3, 240-pound running back) Ernie Wheelright and he was tougher than nails."

Dobbs: "My first time against Fort Campbell was kind of scary; they were experienced guys, tough guys, professional guys. They had Ernie Wheelright, and coach's advice to stopping him was, 'Grab him around one leg and hang on for help.'

Ogles: "To me, the Fort Campbell games weren't important. I think we would've been much happier playing another college team—they were a semipro organization at the time. But we beat them my sophomore year, and then Vietnam kicked into high gear and the suspended playing football at the base—in fact, my junior year I think we only played nine games because we couldn't find anybody else to take that spot. But I think it may have been important to the community; as I recall, we had a pretty good crowd when we played."

Clements: "It was a great experience. They had a hell of an Army team. When they had the football team, if you played for it you got out of some duty, so all the guys that played in the Big 10 or SEC—big-time players—were on the team. Ernie Wheelright would just dry-walk you, they had a couple of All-Americans from Army in Al Vanderbush and Bill Carpenter."

Parson: "We hated playing them and Coach Dupes hated playing them. They were men and they were tough."

Clements and Dillard

In this time of separating the men from the boys, two men—Tommy Dillard and Claude Clements—stood out.

Ogles: "Claude and Tommy were both men. Most of us were still teenage boys. Tommy was physically tough and physically intimidating – he would almost scare you. But it was a healthy respect. Claude was just a natural leader. He relished the role and accepted it and did well with it."

Jeans: "Tommy Dillard was good ballplayer and a tough old boy. I won't ever forget Dillard."

Parson: "Claude Clements is my closest friend on those teams. They were the leaders at that time—Dillard was so tough and had a never-say-die attitude and Claude was the same way."

Dobbs: "I had great respect for Tommy and Claude. I don't think I ever met a guy as mean as Tommy Dillard. He was a tough guy who backed it up and meant what he said and said what he meant."

Clements: "We had a great deal of influence in the locker room. When we recruited Dillard, Coach Dupes came to me and said, 'We're recruiting a hell of a guy and we're going to go get him. I want you to room with him.' And he was tough. Tommy was a no-nonsense guy and I think we had the respect of the players."

Those were the days

I tried to end each conversation with one question: What's different about the game in 2015 compared to the mid-1960s? Here were some of the answers:

Flatt: "Back then, pretty much everybody played both ways. I couldn't say, 'Oh, the defense is screwing up or the offense is screwing up,' because I was part of the defense and part of the offense."

Ogles: "We didn't train in the offseason – I sold books door to door in the summer."

Jeans: "When I was 17 years old, I played alongside an old boy who was 24. I remember the first day I was up there, for the spring game. We drove up to the Little Red Barn and Calvin Walters and Ed Bunio were standing out there and they looked like they had on their shoulder pads; Bunio was in a t-shirt and Calvin was wearing overalls. Those guys were men."

Dobbs: "Guys are bigger these days. People hear that I played guard back in the day and say, 'Wow, you must've shrunk and lost a lot of weight.' But we did different things then; I was a pulling guard, and we had to lead the play. You had to run like a back or he'd run up your backside."

Final Thoughts

Fifty years later, what did the principals involved remember most about those days?

Parson: "We felt like we could compete with just about anybody. Our biggest thing at that time is that we would've loved to have played Vanderbilt, we felt like we could compete with them and play with them at that time."

Clements: "We had an experience that a lot of people don't get to enjoy, and we still think a lot of one another and still play golf with one another. But we're also still competitive and still want to win."

Flatt: "I give thanks to Dupes and his coaching staff for giving us the ability to win and giving us the belief that we could win. Most of us had that losing attitude and Coach Dupes changed that to a winning attitude."

Jeans: "The kids were there for a purpose; they weren't there to have fun and raise hell, they were there to play football and get an education. Those coaches taught us about life."

Parson: "Coach Dupes wanted all his players to get an education and take young boys and turn them into men. If you'll look at those players on his teams from that era, every one of them was successful in football and at life after football; those qualities he instilled in us transferred over off the field."

Dobbs: "I made a lot of good friends and met a lot of people. It was a good time in my life. If I had planned it, I don't think I could've done better than what I did."