1969 Peach Bowl Team to Reunite This Weekend

September 29, 2019 11:59 AM | Football, Blog

By: John Antonik

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It's been 50 years since West Virginia defeated ACC champion South Carolina in the 1969 Peach Bowl, and many of the surviving members of that exceptional Mountaineer team will reunite in Morgantown this weekend.

Among those planning to attend are the team's two coordinators, Richard Bell and Bobby Bowden, according to reunion organizer Mickey Plumley.

In all, Plumley said 36 players, coaches and staff members associated with that team, including Sen. Joe Manchin, are expected to be on campus to celebrate the second 10-win football team in school history this weekend.

Manchin would have been a senior quarterback on that squad but an injury forced him to give up his football career prematurely.

Several players and assistant coaches associated with that team, including coach Jim Carlen, are deceased.

Defensive end Dale Farley passed away last spring and other deceased members include Jim Braxton, tight end Jim Smith, running back Pete Wood, quarterback Bernie Galiffa, offensive guard Walt Todorowski, defensive back Jack Hammond, wide receiver Wayne Porter, kicker Bob Pastin, defensive tackle Fred McMillan, middle guard B.C. Williams, split end Lew Schooles and assistant coaches Jack Fligg, Marshall Taylor and Hayden Buckley.

Team reunions have occurred a number of times in the past, but Plumley says this one is going to be special.

"Those were pretty loosely organized compared to this one," he said. "We're doing a lot of stuff."

Mickey Plumley

All of those associated with that team will then be recognized in the south end zone during a timeout in the first quarter of Saturday's game against the Longhorns. 
 
Plumley, from Mt. Hope, was the starting strongside tackle for the Mountaineers and he credits the late Carlen for setting West Virginia football down the path to the success it enjoyed in the 1980s and beyond when Don Nehlen took over the program. 
 
It was the plain-speaking and opinionated Carlen from Georgia Tech who really got West Virginia football fans and supporters thinking big. 
 
But to his players, most of them were just simply fearful of him. 
 
"I was scared of him, too," Plumley recalled with a chuckle. "I was recruited out of Mt. Hope High School in southern West Virginia by (former coach) Gene Corum. I was the last guy Corum recruited before they fired him, and the story going around Mt. Hope was I was the reason he got fired." 
 
Carlen brought a southern style of football to West Virginia that emphasized speed and quickness. 
 
He wanted small, agile linemen and he eventually weeded out all of the big, slower players that he had inherited. That was also Carlen's initial plan for Plumley, who was one of the team's biggest recruits standing 6-feet-4 inches and weighing 235 pounds. 
 
"I remember once I got on campus, coach Carlen called me into his office and right out of the chute he said, 'I don't like players your style. I come from the Southeastern Conference, and I like quick, small linemen who run a 4.5 40 and can get down in a four-point stance. I don't think you are ever going to work out here, but I'm going to honor your scholarship anyway,'" Plumley recalled. 
 
That conversation upset Plumley and made him more determined than ever to show Carlen that he was good enough to play in his system despite being too big at 235 pounds, if that can be believed today. 
 
Plumley ended up becoming a three-year starter, blocking for one of the best backfields in school history in 1969 that featured future NFL players Braxton and Bob Gresham, and another in Eddie Williams who played in the Canadian League. 
 
Wood, yet another tremendous runner Carlen recruited from Bluefield, was just a sophomore backup that season. 
 
<img alt="25878" class="sidearm-story-image-align-right" height="500" src="/common/controls/image_handler.aspx?thumb_id=15&image_path=/images/2019/9/28/Mike_Sherwood.jpg" style="display:inline-block; margin:5px; padding:5px; float:right" width="336" />The quarterback was Bellaire, Ohio's Mike Sherwood, one of the leading passers in college football in 1968 as a sophomore who was asked to make the switch to an option attack in 1969 to take advantage of West Virginia's impressive stable of runners. 
 
Orchestrating it all brilliantly was young offensive coordinator Bobby Bowden, who the players on that team viewed as a father figure or a big brother. While Carlen was looked upon as the disciplinarian and drill instructor, Bowden was their confidante and consoler. 
 
Carlen and Bowden probably unknowingly played the good cop-bad cop role in the players' eyes. 
 
"Coach Bowden really showed a personal interest in you and was always very understanding of any problems you might have," Plumley said. 
 
But Bowden was no pushover, and when he lost his temper, his players walked on eggshells. Plumley recalls a time Bowden lost it while watching the film of the Kentucky game on a Sunday afternoon following a 7-6 Mountaineer victory over the Wildcats in Lexington. 
 
The team used to go to church in the morning and then reassemble at the Mountainlair later to watch the game film, the defensive players watching in one room with Bell and the offensive players watching in another room with Bowden. 
 
Whenever Bowden saw a bad play, he would run it over and over again on the projector, pointing out their mistakes with ruthless precision. He did this to Plumley after watching his big offensive lineman completely whiff his block on a sweep that resulted in Gresham being tackled for a big loss. 
 
"Plumley," Bowden began, "you're embarrassing yourself not only physically but mentally out there! When you go out there to make a block, son, you keep your eyes on the belt buckle of that defensive player and you don't leave your feet until the last instant when you have to and you make sure you get your right shoulder on the inside of his right shoulder so you can take him to the outside. 
 
"I never want to see you miss that block again by putting your head down, do you got it?" 
 
"Yes coach," Plumley replied. 
 
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EIjeIYN86Vw" width="560"></iframe> 
 
A little later, the same play again showed up on film and once more Plumley missed his block, causing Gresham to get tackled for another big loss. 
 
Bowden stopped the projector and glared directly at Plumley, 'Dadgum it, Plumley, I just told you not to block that way and you missed him again!" 
 
"I know, coach, but it happened yesterday," Plumley said, to which Bowden flashed a wide grin when he realized his mistake. 
 
Another time, following the Penn State loss (West Virginia's only defeat that season), Bowden was so upset with the way his offense played that he turned off the projector and stormed out of the room and right into a closet, which locked from the outside. 
 
Soon the players heard a light tapping on the door that grew louder. Eventually, one of the guys got up out of his seat and walked over to unlock the door to let Bowden out. 
 
Everyone was laughing, Bowden laughing the hardest of them all. 
 
"I'm so glad coach Bowden is coming back for this," Plumley said. "He's 89 years old, and he's driving up from Florida just to be here with us." 
 
<img alt="25880" class="sidearm-story-image-align-right" height="323" src="/common/controls/image_handler.aspx?thumb_id=12&image_path=/images/2019/9/28/Jim_Carlen_Peach_Bowl.jpg" style="display:inline-block; margin:5px; padding:5px; float:right" width="455" />Plumley said he's been involved with the WVU Varsity Club for years and returns to Morgantown frequently, but many of the players coming back this weekend haven't been back on campus since leaving WVU. 
 
One of them is starting defensive end Bob Starford, who Plumley tracked down in West Texas. 
 
Plumley is now semi-retired and living in Atlanta following a successful 20-year career with AT&T and another 15 years working as a telecommunications consultant. 
 
He said he tried the retired life for a couple of years, but when he began watching daytime television that's when he decided to find something else to do and so he found a job working part-time for State Farm in the evenings in customer service. 
 
Plumley has survived a couple of health scares recently, including a bout with cancer five years ago, but he's still going strong. 
 
As is the memory of that wonderful West Virginia football team that Jim Carlen produced 50 years ago in 1969.