From The Missourian: Sylvester Johnson, Cape Central’s football and basketball standout, fulfilled one of his greatest dreams – to wear Principal Dallas Albers‘ suspenders – at the recent basketball homecoming dance.
Mr. Albers, an inveterate suspenders-wearer, noticed Syl admiring the pants-holder-uppers at an assembly one day, so he made a “deal” with him: if the team won the homecoming game with Sikeston, Syl wouldn’t have to worry about his pants falling down at the dance – they would be securely held up by the coveted suspenders.
“Had confidence in my boys”
To make a long story short, Central did just that – and Mr. Albers, is shown here wearing a belt (“because I had confidence in my boys”) pinning the prize on the season’s high scorer.
Beth Barringer crowned queen
Miss Beth Barringer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Barringer of 1012 North Middle, was crowned Central High School Basketball Homecoming Queen. The queen and her court are, from left, Miss Mary Ann Sides, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.O. Sides of 1403 Bessie; Miss Debbie Elfrink, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Elfrink of 1216 Butler; Miss Barringer; Miss Linda Stone, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Stone of 1744 Themis, and Miss Ruth Wilson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter A. Wilson of 527 Amethyst.
Escorts didn’t rate a photo
Serving as escorts were Brad Horky, son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Horky of 1447 Broadway; Terry Robinson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Robinson of 1708 Montgomery; Mike Johnson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel B. Johnson of 1301 Bertling; Richard Baker, son of Dwight Baker of 121 North Clark, and Sylvester Johnson, son of Mrs. Lula Mae Johnson of 910 Giboney.
I think that is Terry Crass with Beth in the last picture….Debbie Young in the background. I don’t remember this event must have been…well it was the 60’s.
The Johnson photo ran on the Youth Page March 5, 1966. The homecoming court ran a week or two earlier.
Terry is right…that is Terry Crass.
Late October or very early November of 65. We played Perryville for our last game after Sikeston in tbe first week of November.
All I can admit to as a callow member of the class of ’68, I had an embarrassingly sophomoric crush on the Barringer twins, Amy and Beth. I suspect I was not alone.
Does anybody know what happened to Syl Johnson? I played one year of football with him at SEMO, 1968 or 1969.
Sly is my dad and he live in St.Louis
Glad to hear that. There are a lot of folks who have put him on their “wonder what every happened to …?” lists. None of us at Central from that era will forget him.
Kim your dad was a great individual..not just a great athlete..Syl was on my little league team..while he was in the on deck circle swinging bats..I ran behind him with some batting helmuts..he accidently hit my elbow..being pretty thin the elbow swelled up pretty bad..my dad was there and took me up to southeast hospital emergency room..900 or 930..at 1000 here came Syl having rode his bycycle from arena park to the hospital..my dad was amazed..I later played basketball against Syl in junior high and watched him in high school..he never embarrassed himself or the school..I later watched play football at SEMO..while I played basketball at SEMO..you have a special dad..
He lives in St.Louis that’s my Father
Your dad was in fine form at the Class of 1966 70th birthday party. Check out this video.
Small world…. Gary Possum Wren and I were just discussing our old buddy Sylvester this week while volunteering at the AJGA golf tournament at Dalhousie Golf Course.
As I remember the urban legend – Sylvester played two “Freshman Years” at Semo. First one was 66/67. He made the MIAA Conference All Freshman Team. Coach Hambie said he was the most naturally talented defensive end he had ever seen and could have moved to professional level with some seasoning. Syl didn’t make grades as I remember and joined the Army. After two years he returned to Semo and played another year of football – again making the “All Freshman” Conference Team.
The first of My two favorite stories about Big Syl and football was against Perrville our senior year I pitched out to Syl on a sweep left. He ran through several perryville players that just bounced off him. There was one little Defensive back between Syl and an unobstructed 60 yard run to the end-zone. He could have easily run right over this poor guy, but Syl had developed a bad habit of jumping when being hit in the open field.
Coach Hargins had not had much success in breaking him of this habit – mostly because it usually worked as I personally remember from practice – it was a very scary sight to suddenly see his huge feet and knees up at your head level when you were trying to tackle him.
Unfortunately for Syl this tough little 5’8″ Perryville “Dutchman” was not the least detoured by this awesome site and caught Syl with a hard shoulder and helmet hit right at the ankles. As if in slow motion I remember all 6’4″ of a fully extended Sylvester do a 360* somersault – landing on his feet but loosing his balance and falling backward and was down. Syl jumped up and ran back to the huddle….. and they carried the little defensive hero off the field.
The second memory was against Webster Groves from St. Louis early in the season before conference games started. Syl was playing right end and we were on our 20 yard line. To my great surprise Coach Goodie sent in a pass play. A surprise because the huge Webster line had easily sliced through our offensive line at will to tackle Mike Schuette and/or me well into the backfield with all previous attempts to pass. Goodie said “Fake a hand off to big fullback Ben King to pull the secondary up – then throw a “Jump Pass” to Syl on a quick slant across the middle. Well, it worked to perfection! I faked it to Benny off tackle right…. jumped as high as I could to see over the big Webster linemen…. and lobbed almost a basketball push pass to Sylvester wide open streaking across the middle where the linebackers normally would be standing. Syl lopped down the left side line unopposed with half our team, including me, running behind cheering him on.
20 or 30 yards behind Syl it looked like he crossed the goal line…. through the ball straight up in the air…. and fell down on his back to get his breath. Trouble was…. the referees did not signal touch down and as I arrived I could see why. Syl had mistaken the 10 yard line for the goal line and he and the loose ball were laying on the 2 or 3 yard line. One of our Tigers (my memory is Andy Pemberton)was the first to realize the ball was live and jumped on the “fumble”. Remember these were the days before any sort of touchdown celebration was even conceived of. Had Syl actually been in the end-zone surely an “unsportsmanlike penalty” would have been flagged. But the Refs were as shocked as the whole of Houck Stadium… and no penalties were called.
I wish I could say there was a happy ending with the Tigers on the 3 yard line and four plays to get into the end zone. But as I remember…. they stuffed us back into the back field three times, and we missed a short field goal from about the 15 yard line.
Ah……… memories of the good ol’ days!! But, of course those are my memories…. I’m getting pretty old….and I could be wrong.
Brune
Hi Brad,
Thanks for the commentary. He was a natural athlete, no doubt. I talked to Gary last week for the first time in about 35-40 years. Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but what happened to Syl Johnson?
Thank you Kim. Tell him I said hello.