Advertisement

Seurer Happy to Look Back to 1979 at Edison : Football: Ex-quarterback, now a fireman in Kansas, says championship season was a ‘dream situation.’

Share
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Frank Seurer hasn’t thrown a pass in a couple years, unless you count that four-on-four flag football league he played in for the Lenexa (Kan.) fire department. Seurer doesn’t.

Other than that, Seurer, one of the most celebrated quarterbacks to come out of Orange County, has remained inactive. No more football for a guy who took his career from Edison High School to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Today, Seurer, 31, is a fireman in Lenexa. He lives in Olathe, a suburb of Kansas City, with his wife, Amy, and his 2 1/2-year old daughter, Kylia. The only football in his life comes via the television.

Advertisement

But looking back is never hard.

Seurer was the quarterback for what many think is the best backfield in Orange County over the last 25 years. He, along with tailback Kerwin Bell, fullback Mark Churchwood and tight end Mark Boyer, devastated opponents during the 1979 season.

“It was like a dream situation,” Seurer said. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I loved the school, it was in a great area and the football was the icing on the cake. Everything was positive.”

Everything is still positive for Seurer.

He has built a new life since being released by the Chiefs after the 1987 season. Oh, sure, there were some withdrawals and a little clinging to the past.

Seurer even played for the Orange County Dolphins, a semi-pro team, in 1990. But by then, his priorities had changed.

His wife was pregnant and he decided California wasn’t the place to be. He also took an interest in fire fighting through Churchwood, who has been a fireman in Long Beach for nearly a decade.

“I saw how much Mark enjoyed it,” Seurer said. “I decided that making as much money as possible wasn’t the key to happiness. I wanted to do something that I enjoyed and maybe help people.”

Advertisement

Seurer attended the fireman’s academy at Rancho Santiago and then took his family back to Kansas. He had met Amy when she was a cheerleader for the Chiefs.

So far, his job in Lenexa has been uneventful; there have been few fires. It has, however, been a tad embarrassing.

On his first call, Seurer watched a fellow fireman climb into the gear and mimicked his every move. But something didn’t seem quite right.

“We get to the fire and it was on the second story,” Seurer said. “I started climbing the stairs, but my pants kept falling down. I had forgotten to put my suspenders on. I heard about that for a while.”

All was forgotten, though, when Seurer led the Lenexa team to the division championship in their flag football league. For Seurer, it brought back memories.

There have been few teams that dominated the way Edison did in 1979. The Chargers beat Redlands, 55-0, in the Southern Section Big Five Conference championship game. It is the largest margin of victory in the history of the section’s 11-man championship games.

Advertisement

Seurer passed for 2,063 yards and 23 touchdowns that year and threw four touchdown passes in the title game. Bell gained 2,268 yards rushing, then a county record, and scored 26 touchdowns. Boyer caught 49 passes, nine for touchdowns.

And Churchwood just hit people.

“That poor guy, he never got any recognition,” Seurer said. “But if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if we would have been as good. He was the lead blocker for Kerwin and protected me on pass plays. He may have been the most important of us all.”

Churchwood was the only member of the group not to get a football scholarship.

Bell went to Kansas. He gained 1,114 yards, a Big Eight freshman record, and was named the conference’s newcomer of the year. Things went downhill quickly. He suffered a knee injury in the third game of his sophomore season and had academic problems.

Bell gained less than 900 yards his final three seasons at Kansas. He had tryouts with the L.A. Express and the Rams. His last job was with a health club in Dallas, but he recently left it.

Boyer was more successful. He went to USC and was a ninth-round draft pick of the Indianapolis Colts in 1985. He spent eight seasons with the Colts and New York Jets. His best season was 1990, when he caught 40 passes for the Jets.

He is married and has three children.

“Mark went further than any of us,” Seurer said. “But I knew he was going to make it. He had great hands and could block.”

Advertisement

Seurer’s own career went almost as far.

He started four seasons at Kansas and threw for 6,410 yards. In 1983, he set a conference record with 2,789 yards passing. His biggest game came in a 26-20 victory over USC as a senior. Seurer threw for 386 yards and two touchdowns in that game and was named Sports Illustrated’s player of the week.

Seurer spent two seasons with the Express, mainly backing up Steve Young, and two more with the Chiefs.

His first NFL game experience was as a wide receiver because the Chiefs were short at the position due to injuries.

“I never got off the line of scrimmage,” Seurer said. “I gained a whole new respect for receivers that day.”

Seurer was the Chiefs’ No. 1 quarterback coming out of mini-camp in 1987, but he missed all of training camp and half the season after suffering a dislocated hip and torn knee ligaments in a car accident.

He started three games and threw for 340 yards. The Chiefs released him after the season and he left the game behind.

Advertisement

“I still miss it a little,” Seurer said. “But there are a lot of similarities in being a fireman. There’s the same feeling of camaraderie and you get that same adrenaline rush when the alarm goes off.”

Still . . .

“Every now and then, I’ll get together with one of the guys,” Seurer said. “Like Kerwin was just up here for Kansas’ homecoming game. We got to talking about the times we had. It’s really amazing the success we had. It makes looking back fun.”

Advertisement