Alumni football games coming to Wichita this summer

In the summer of 1985, Bob Cazet found himself back home in St. Helena, Calif., reminiscing with old friends one night at a local pizza place.

The group, all in their mid-20s and all graduates of local St. Helena High in bucolic Napa County, were taking turns answering the same question: If you could do anything, what would it be?

“One guy wanted to go hang glide, another guy wanted to bungee jump,” said Cazet, who played college football at Saint Mary’s. “When it came to me I just said, ‘Man, I just want to play one more football game.’

“So I got to thinking that night and went and approached my high school football coach, got the principal to approve it and we played a game later that summer between St. Helena alumni. We had almost 3,000 people show up and a bunch of my teammates from Saint Mary’s came, too, and after the game they all came up to me and said, ‘Now what about us?’

“And I started thinking, you know, maybe this could be a business.”

And with that, his life’s work took hold. Cazet saved up some money for pads and insurance and founded Alumni Football USA, a company that has been putting on full-contact alumni football games all over the country for the last three decades, hosting more than 1,000 in 31 states.

He’s hosted five games in Kansas in the last three years, and will have City League teams playing for the first time this summer, with games scheduled for Aug. 14-15 at Northwest.

“Right now, we’re planning on two games, one on Friday and one on Saturday,” Cazet said. “But we’ll readjust based on rivalries or if we get another team to play and maybe play two games on Saturday.

Cazet also has a game scheduled between Winfield and Arkansas City that already has more than 40 players signed up on each side. A team needs 25 players signed up to play a game, and it costs around $100 per player.

Northwest leads the way, so far, in the City League with 33 players, followed by Southeast with 30 and Heights with 29. North has 15 so far.

“For me, it’s more about connecting with our alumni and getting them back in touch with the school and back around the program,” Northwest football coach Steve Martin said. “So that’s why I’ve been spreading the word with these guys … Northwest has had so many quality football teams in the past and it would kind of be a cool homecoming to have all these guys back and playing under the lights.

“And it’s nothing connected to the school district other than (Cazet) is the one who rents the stadium out. All I have to do is go unlock the gates and he takes care of everything else. What I’ve been telling people from other schools is just to spread the word, to just let their alumni know it’s available and that’s all you have to do to get the ball rolling.”

All football alumni are eligible. Cazet has hosted games with a 91-year-old who suited up but didn’t play, a 79-year-old who played 10 snaps and a 61-year-old quarterback-center combo. Players can sign up at alumnifootballusa.com.

Heights assistant wrestling coach Zac Poague, who graduated from Southeast in 1995 and played college football at Friends, is one of a group of ex-Buffaloes signed up to play.

“Being a football player, there’s no pickup games that you can go out and play when you’re done,” Poague said. “The moment that last game is over, you’re done. So we’re all fired up to get one last chance to go say we did it, to see what we have left in the tank. Now for some of us, that might be nothing, but at least we did it. At least we get to be a team again, to play together with some of the old guys and hopefully meet some of the new guys that are also Buffaloes.

“I know the Heights guys are real fired up to play Southeast, and that’s a deep rivalry for them. We wanted Kapaun, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to do it, so hopefully we’ll get to see the old Falcons and Buffaloes lock horns one more time.”

Cazet has between 8-10 truckloads of equipment going around the country at all times – including 1,200 full sets of gear he furnishes to the teams, with another 300-500 sets purchased every year to replace out-of-date equipment. Most of the company’s profits come from ticket sales, with a portion of that going to the host schools.

If this whole scenario sounds somewhat familiar, there’s a reason. The 1986 film “The Best of Times,” starring Robin Williams and Kurt Russell, was about Williams and Russell replaying a game between Taft High and Bakersfield High 13 years after Williams dropped the game-winning touchdown pass from Russell.

The two schools’ real-life alumni actually played in 2010. The game, dubbed “The Best of Times 2” drew more than 4,000 fans. Unlike the movie, Taft lost that rematch.

That led Cazet to refer to a piece of mythology associated with the movie.

“Robin Williams lived in Napa County, and liked to come to the bars in St. Helena,” Cazet said. “So the story I’ve always heard is the day of our first alumni game, in 1985, he goes down and sees the bars are closed and wants to know what the deal is. Somebody tells him it’s because of the game and he gravitates toward that.

“Six months later, the movie comes out. So go figure.”

This story was originally published June 13, 2015 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Alumni football games coming to Wichita this summer."