COLLEGE FOOTBALL REVIEW : Injuries Tarnish Silver Anniversary Football Season for Cal Lutheran

It seems like a long time ago that Cal Lutheran wide receiver Joe Fuca, buoyed by two early season blowouts, predicted the Kingsmen would not lose a football game in 1986.

“We’ll be unbeaten,” Fuca said, waggling his finger in the air moments after CLU beat Sonoma State the second week of the season. He said it with a laugh, but just as he couldn’t have known or appreciated the preposterousness of what he had said, he couldn’t foresee what the Kingsmen were in for.

He found out, though, in a powerful and painful hurry. The next week against Cal State Hayward, quarterback Tom Bonds, who was at the center of so much positive thinking, was left squirming on the turf after he sprained his knee and was forced out of that game and two others, and hampered for even longer.

Bonds’ knee started a chain reaction of injuries that left the Kingsmen scrambling and basically in a load of trouble. They responded by dropping seven straight games, a school record.

Fuca would in the future leave the predicting and prophesying to Madam Marie.

It comes as no surprise that a review of Cal Lutheran’s 25th anniversary season whips up more cringing and crying than sentimental reminiscing. Coach Bob Shoup lost more games this season, eight, than he ever had in any of his 24 previous years at the school. He lost as many this year as he did from 1965 to 1971.

At one point, some of the Kingsmen wondered if they’d ever win again. Without Bonds, they were hopeless and after his return they still lost to Santa Clara, 33-9, and to Portland State, 28-7.

On the desperation meter, CLU was reaching new lows.

Just when it looked the darkest, the lights went completely out. Among others, the Kingsmen lost the heart of their defense in linebacker Terry Rowe, who was out for the year with torn ligaments in his knee and who quit school and openly wondered if he would ever play football again, and defensive tackle Mike Miller, who dislocated his shoulder.

Strangely, it was in these dire days that the Kingsmen started ringing up moral victories--losses in which they should have been wiped out, but which they almost won. CLU lost at Cal State Sacramento in the final minutes, 18-17, and at Southern Utah State in the final seconds, 34-31.

Finally, against Azusa Pacific, Cal Lutheran did the unimaginable. It won.

In two weeks, quarterback Tom Bonds completed 53 of 89 passes for 782 yards and 8 touchdowns. And the Kingsmen even found a running game in the short form of Cary Grant, who became the first CLU back in two years to rush for more than 100 yards in a game. He gained 130 against the Cougars. What’s more, Grant caught 20 passes in two games for 313 yards and four touchdowns.

With optimism bright, the Kingsmen thought they saw the light at the end of their stadium tunnel, but the light turned out to be an oncoming locomotive. CLU lost its last game against St. Mary’s, 49-35, even though Bonds broke NAIA and NCAA Division II records for completions (44) and a Western Football Conference record for passing yards (434). A usually reliable defense was unable to stop the Gaels, and the Kingsmen wound up 3-8.

The loss dumped CLU back where it had been most of the year and Shoup, who had experienced a range of adversity in 25 years as coach, had never been through a season like this.

“It was frustrating,” Shoup said. “At different points during the season, we thought we had a good team, but the injuries hurt us. It was disappointing to finish with a loss. But we’ll lick our wounds and lay down for a while and be back next year.

“There have been moments in past years when we’ve had long roads, but we’ve done what it takes to get where we have to be. We’re not that far away.”

For now, the Kingsmen are at least an off-season away and what the road beyond holds in store, nobody, except maybe Madam Marie, knows for sure.