Posted by Frank Allison

 

Call From Brian Urlacher

It happen during my junior year at Deming High School. We had just made the playoffs, and had to play against Artesia, New Mexico in the first round. Artesia was the number one team in the state of New Mexico in class 4A. It would be the start of a rivalry for the next four years to come, because our head coach used to coach at Artesia for twenty years.

The game was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. We left Deming, Friday afternoon and had to get to to Artesia at a certain time to practice at their practice field. We were suppose to practice in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, but Artesia let us use their field instead. We got to the Bulldog Bowl, and we were all amazed how big the stadium was. I had always heard about it, but I never thought I would play in that stadium.

We checked into the motel, and the coaches said that we had a team meeting. They told us to put our stuff away in the room and come down and go to the conference room where we would have our team meeting. Coach Chambers was talking to us, but I don’t really remember what he told us. Their was a good reason that’s why I didn’t remember what he told us. He said we had a private phone call from somebody.

It was Brian Urlacher, who was on the other side of the speaker phone. Everyone in the room was so amazed that Brian was on the phone with us. One of our assistant coaches knew him, and I guess that is why he called us. Brian was talking to us about when he played high school football, and Brian was just giving us advice. It was pretty cool to hear a NFL football player talking to us, and all we could think about when we ate dinner that night was Brian Urlacher. Brian had played college football at New Mexico, and went to high school in Lovington, New Mexico.

Game day came, and when we walked into the stadium for our first warm ups, everyone was scared, because we had never played in a stadium like this. All we would see was orange on their side, and we would look to our side, and you could see more of their fans wearing orange siting with our fans because their side was already filled up. They had fire works during the game, but what was funny was the game was during the daytime. We lost pretty bad, and I’m not going to mention the score, because it got ugly. We were happy that we gotten this far, but our coaches weren’t happy.

We will probably never remember what happen during the game, but we will remember when Brian Urlacher called us at our motel and talked to us. It something that very few people get the chance to do. It will be something I tell my grand kids when I get old, about him calling us before our big game. By than, he should be in the NFL Hall of Fame.

 

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