I wrote last week about the end of football season and how I got into this line of work.

It got me to thinking about some football games past.

The Pass

I'll likely never forget the 1993 third-round, Pilot Point vs Kerens, playoff game in H.E.B. Stadium in the mid-cities of the DFW metroplex.

This was a referee call affecting the outcome of a game ... it was a classic example.

It was fourth down ... Pilot Point had the ball ... at somewhere around the Kerens 30- yard line with less than a minute to go and down 12-7.

The Pilot Point quarterback faded back to pass ... and had to dance around, evade the rush and search downfield for a receiver.

He wound up and threw.

Me? I'm the Kerens sideline at about the 10 with a nice, unobstructed view at about a 45- degree angle to the opposite side of the field ... no players, no officials in the way.

The quarterback's pass went to a receiver in the far one-third of the end zone. Well, it ended up in the receiver's hands in the end zone. But, to my dying day, I'll continue to swear that the pass skipped off the ground a good two feet in front of the receiver before it ended up in his stomach.

The referee behind the back of the end zone - with what had to be an obstructed view - signaled touchdown.

An official with much the same angle of sight that I had - unobstructed - had to have seen the ball bounce just like I did. But, as he ran in toward the end of the play in the end zone, he made no move to contradict the call of the other official.

Pilot Point moved on to the Regional finals.

The ball bounced, I swear to you, and possession should have went over on downs to Kerens with the ability to kneel, run out the clock and win the game.

I guess it just happens.

Even Split

Sometimes, a sportswriter will remember a game not only for the exciting finish, but for how he wrote the story about it.

You can laugh at me for this one.

It was a Class 1A game between Wortham and Bremond, held in Wortham's stone fence-encircled field on a night where it had been raining so long and so steadily that the fence turned the field into a bowl full of mud. Players on each sideline of the crowned field were standing in water up to mid-calf.

Bremond scored late, like with 30-something seconds on the clock, adding on a 2-point conversion to take a one point lead.

Kicking off, it was one of those high "pop up" kicks designed for no runback. Problem is, the Bremond coverage team didn't snap to the fact that the Wortham return man had signaled for a fair catch.

After he got clobbered, the ensuing penalty put Wortham on the Bremond 45, to the best of my recollection.

A couple of pass plays later,ortham was setup for a 38- yard field goal and an improbable win.

Of course, the kicker (who was also the star quarterback) nailed the kick as the siren on the scoreboard sounded, denoting the running out of the clock, and the crowd was going nuts in the stands.

How'd I start the article about the game? Here's where you can laugh at me if you want, for this one.

It went something like, "Wortham took a thrilling, comefrom behind win over the Bremond Tigers as Michael Betts kicked a 38-yard field goal that split the uprights as evenly as a single mother dividing the last food in the house between her two starving babies."

Now is that bad or what?