Flicklives

Last Summary Update: 11-08-2026

Freshman Football
Airdate: Wednesday - December 5, 1962

WOR Show
Original Airing

audio

(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)

First Spoken Line After Theme Ends

See I'm sitting here reading this story about 18,000 robins. . .

Show Description

[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]   
  Freshman Football, Robins drunk on fermented berries, facts of life, Old Santa fired for giving away toys, Freshman Football- Wildcats      
  

[ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]   
  Shepherd opens with a news item about 18,000 robins in San Francisco that got drunk on fermented berries and staggered around hiccuping - hardly the sweet red-breasted birds people imagine. He frames the night's theme as "the facts of life": hard realities that most people encounter only late (or never), while others learn them early and thereafter treat disaster as normal rather than abnormal.

Supporting anecdotes include a Buffalo woman robbed of jewelry, silver, a grandfather clock, and a watch; she is most devastated by the loss of 2-1/2 books of trading stamps she had pasted in herself. A BBC-style story follows about an 82-year-old Santa Claus (Wally Bates) in a Nottingham store who is fired for giving away extra toys; at that age he finally learns that "Christmas is Christmas, business is business." Digressions touch on short-wave BBC broadcasts heard in remote places, a comic commercial for "Milady's Potato Pancakes" on an Everest expedition, and a plug for *Show* magazine.

The main story is Shepherd's own early lesson in the facts of life as a freshman high-school football player in Indiana. After dominating a tiny grade-school team, he receives a formal invitation to report for high-school football a month and a half before school starts. He and a few grade-school teammates arrive at a gym full of sixty or seventy kids and meet the legendary head coach and the stocky, near-sighted freshman coach Mr. Byers (a former University of Chicago All-American lineman built like a fireplug).

They are issued last year's varsity purple-and-white uniforms, endure weeks of brutal calisthenics ("rocking chair," bicycle drills) under the Midwestern sun, learn T-formation plays on the blackboard, and split into A and B teams for practice. They feel invincible - bronzed, lean, and machine-like - while watching the real varsity (including future All-Americans) practice at the other end of the field. Their undefeated high-school tradition and the coach's pep talk reinforce the sense that success is inevitable.

On the day of the first game they ride a bus marked "Go Frosh" to face George Rogers Clark. After a confident warm-up they kick off. Within forty-five seconds the other team has scored; by the end of the first half the score is 47- 6; the final is 67 - 17. Shepherd, playing right tackle, is repeatedly run over by a towering opponent. The monologue ends mid-memory of the rout, the sudden, brutal collision with reality that only later revealed itself as a permanent lesson: disaster, not success, is the normal condition of life.

WOR ID

Time	Station ID (All times approximate)
12:56	Speaking of unshakable, this is WOR AM and FM New York. . .

Commercials (All times approximate)

Time	Sponsor	Notes
13:09	Maladies Cheese Blintzes and Potato Pancakes
14:16	Show Magazine

Music (All times approximate)

Time	Music Title	Notes
03:33	I'm Just Wild About Harry
08:43	Unknown - Violin classical
40:56	Ballet Mecanique

Engineers, Staff, and Guests in Booth

Time	Engineer, Staff or Guest
13:02	Ted Mallie

Instruments and Special Effects Played During the Show

Instruments Played

None

Airdate History ' - Original' date is earliest known broadcast)

This Show

		Date	Title
		December 5, 1962	Freshman Football	Original Airing

More Ways To Hear or Buy It

NONE

The Best Source for Quality Jean Shepherd Audio

Sorry, Not Available

"Imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're no longer a memory - Does it seem possible to you?
You better believe it's possible, not only possible but certainty." - Jean Shepherd - October 7, 1971