Kendras Always Good To Bowden
Rumors persist that the Wake Forest Demon Deacons may be looking for a new home following a brief and ill-fated franchise shift to Orlando. The Deacons’ first home game in their adopted address turned out to be a bummer, a 44-7 romp Saturday by “visiting” Florida State at the Florida Citrus Bowl.
In truth, Wake didn’t really move to Orlando, instead only stopping in on a mercenary mission, farming out a home game for the $1.2 million guarantee that the local Florida Citrus Sports won’t be able to cover with the announced crowd of 34,974. It’s a tossup as to who is having the worst season - Wake or FCS. Wake lost it’s seventh game in a row, but FCS, adding this to that earlier Cowboys-Oilers disaster, will have lost somewhere in the vicinity of $1 million on the two promotions.
Other than the balance-sheet disappointment, it was an idyllic day for all but the few hundred Deacons in attendance - Chamber weather and an easy victory for unbeaten FSU (8-0). A cool, cloudless afternoon with a warming sun combined with the lack of drama to produce mass lethargy.
The only mystery was how many sound trucks, stadium pillars and Wake linebackers would be bowled over by FSU freshman bulldozer/curiosity/quarterback Dan Kendra in his coming-out party. Kendra and all of his folk lore got a first college start as a fill-in, giving injured Thad Busby an extra week to rehab a slight wrist fracture. Because of it, assorted Wake defenders are rubbing various welts and bruises this morning after the muscular, 6-0, 240-pound Kendra, who disdains the usual QB slide, often battered his way for extra yardage to ensure a happy debut.
“He mauls better than he slides,” chortled FSU coach Bobby Bowden. “You see him break out in practice, and you hate to tell him to slide, knowing he has the ability to go ahead and score. If he was our only quarterback, I’d have to tell him to slide.”
“They know that’s my style of play,” Kendra said, adding with a shrug: “That’s football. It’s an aggressive sport. You run over people, they respect that.” Kendra says he doesn’t gloat or trash-talk after trampling over some unsuspecting linebacker, but he does admit to “always looking at them afterward” to check the expression. Often, it’s the befuddled look of a guy who just stuck his finger in a socket he thought was dead.
With his fireplug physique, Kendra would seem more in danger of near-sighted dogs than linebackers. The latter posed little problem for him Saturday as Kendra sprinkled in bone-jarring runs of 11 and 16 yards to go with his 281-yard, three-touchdown passing day.
On a scale of 1-to-10? “About a 5,” Kendra self-assessed. “I’m just glad I did OK. I knew I was going to go out there and get my job done. That’s my personality. The only way you prepare for anyone is a positive mental attitude. I’m really positive on myself.”
A few feet away in the victorious FSU bath house, another Dan Kendra was beaming. Dan Kendra Jr., 41, is the father of the FSU quarterback, Dan III. “He did just fine. I’m proud of him,” gushed the father, whom Bowden credits for sparing his coaching career an early death.
Bowden’s 1974 West Virginia team had dropped four games in a row, and inpatient WVU boosters had trouble seeing their man as a legend-in-the-making. “I was getting hung (in effigy) every week. I was a favorite for the rope,” recalls Bowden, whose team was in danger of losing another to Syracuse until he sent in Kendra Jr., then a raw freshman, who promptly threw a 97-yard touchdown that ignited an eventual 39-11 victory. Two weeks later, Kendra came on again to pilot the TD that pulled out a 22-21 victory over Virginia Tech. Bowden swears those two Kendra-sparked wins saved his job.
The next winter, three significant things happened: Kendra and Bowden (1) led West Virginia to a nine-victory season, (2) Kendra had a son, Dan III, and (3) Bowden slipped on the ice in his Morgantown driveway, inspiring him to accept an offer from Florida State. Easy to see why Bowden looks upon his unorthodox backup quarterback/ wrecking ball with both fascination and gratitude.