Along with celebrating the Chicago Bears’ 20th anniversary of Super Bowl victory, there is another great football event to celebrate. In January of 1986, the fifth grade class of Hope Lutheran School in Chicago (64th and Washtenaw) participated in the Hope Lutheran School Super Bowl.
Participants were divided into teams of three. 5th Grade teacher, Keith Martin, drafted each team and served as permanent quarterback for all teams. Scheduling was developed by Mr. Martin. Games were played during recess on famed Washentaw Avenue. Wooden horses were placed on the street to prevent speeding cars from pancaking the recessing participants.
It was one of the greatest football events ever conceived. Much drama ensued during game play. One such event stands out. Matt, the Terror, Maldre used his Wille-Gault-like speed to dazzle and befuddle defenders. He liked to run close to parked cars to make his footwork appear even faster. Terror Maldre once said, “I like to run next to parked cars because it makes me look like I’m outrunning the cars”. Classmates argued that Terror Maldre used this technique to catch channels of windstream. However, the danger of this technique became all too real one day when Terror Maldre caught the sidetrim of car on his belt loop. His blazing speed tore off the car part like a knife through butter. All stood in shock and awe. Commissioner Martin ordered Maldre to carry the car part to the house of carowner and apologize for the event. Maldre carried through the order with great courage.
Terror Maldre’s courage inspired his team of three to go on and win the Hope Lutheran School Super Bowl with great fanfare. This championship team was a great underdog for Terror Maldre’s teammate, Erik Maldre, had suffered a thigh injury in a playoff game. Erik, the Human Plow, Maldre was running down field full speed in attempts to make a long distance catch. He had his eye on the ball like any good receiver, but failed to notice the car he was about to run into full steam. Human Plow Maldre managed to play through the injury in the Super Bowl to help his team to victory.
Actually the star of the team was Rudy Naranjo. He wasn’t mentioned in this story cuz he didn’t run into any cars like his teammates. He was the MVP of the team.
Happy 20th anniversary to the 1986 Hope Lutheran School Super Bowl Champs!
actually, it was a piece of the car trim that i tore off the car with my great speed. You know those long horizontal metal pieces there were on cars in the 80s? I ripped off a four foot long piece of trim. And it wasn’t my belt loop. The trim actually punctured a hole in my pants. Only such blazing speed could allow this to occur.
I don’t remember you running into a car though. How did you run into a car if it was parked on the street? That seems rather silly.
It’s pretty obvious that these boys can’t drive!
oh man i thought there would be a picture of you guys actually playing, or with your superbowl trouphy… but that picture is real cute.
Congrats on your fleeting moment of fame. That SuperBowl title seems to have been hard-earned. And you played without the luxury of helmets, pads, and multi-million dollar contracts. Just the pure love of the game…
Oh, i should say that photo is a compiliation of scans from the yearbook. That actual layout is not specifically how it appeared. That’s from the 5th grade page, and I cut out our photos in photoshop and reput them together into this image. So the scans are directly from the yearbook.
mr. martin was such a crazy fun teacher. moose thanks for sharing the story!!!
great addition spud with the photo. do you remember who the photographer was?
moi – i was on yearbook staff that year. ha, ha, ha. i forgot about it until now.
I saw I didn’t believe and yet all the people blamed me for those drawing on the communion cards. Thanks to you I had to sit and erase quite few cards. Then again it was so much fun being the bad one.
Having much difficult with this computer. Superbowl at Hope would have love to have seen that. I do remember playing Football in the streets at Hope. Unfortunately I had the worst case of butter fingers at that time.
Sounded like you all had fun. Then again you two always looked like you were having fun, and Rudy was pretty cool.
Well if you can remember me I just wanted to say Hi. I am at the Internet cafe so I have to go or risk paying a ton of money. Glad to see you are still into art. Hope you have fun. I only check my e-mail once a month. Love for the Cubs, now for The Tigers of Osaka. I hope that they will win a championship in my lifetime. See you ghost later. Art should be disturbing. Wish I could post a few of min but my home computer has more virsus then a lady of the night.… Read more »