Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 14]

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On the Banks of the Boneyard

and rates as one of the all-time great pitchers in Illinois history; Charlie Gunn, Billie Roysden, Tommy Jasper, Newt Harris, Roy Warfield, George Atherton, and Bert Merrifield,, who was also one of the greatest sprinters in our history. This group comprises one of the best teams we ever had, but here again, George Huff was missed. In tennis Frank Carnahan was our only contestant. The track team consisted of Glenn Hobbs, pole vaulter de luxe; Con Kimball, high kicker and jumper; Chris Toerring, mile runner, who didn't win his event in the intercollegiate contest, but who showed the police a clean pair of heels that night and broke all records in getting out of Monmouth; George Behrensmeyer, weight thrower; and Zeke Aranda, bicycle rider. Jimmy Phillips was the manager. The athletic teams won the state championship for "Champaign" as the newspapers of that far-off period consistently called us. Our victories naturally put a lot of enthusiasm into our crowd, and as I have already said, the police, regular and special, were watching us very carefully, and when a couple of boys were settling an argument with their fists a special policeman wearing gum boots grabbed an innocent bystander, Chris Toerring by name, our mile runner, and started toward the city bastile with poor Chris. The Champaign crowd followed; others joined in the parade and the colored policeman and his gum boots got quite a heckling. Word was passed among our boys that Chris was to be rescued; we couldn't stand idly by and witness such a crime as would be perpetrated in the name of the law, were Chris Toerring to be locked up in the calaboose. Just what was to be done, no one knew and very much to the surprise of all who knew the innocent Chris, he took matters into his own hands. When this gum-booted majesty of the law reached into his pocket for the key to unlock the jail, Chris let go with both fists, and was forthwith aided and abetted by George Behrensmeyer and others. Chris Toerring got the jump on the policeman and the way he departed down the main street of Monmouth would have won any old foot race. The colored policeman kicked off his gum boots to get into good running form, but when Chris ducked down a side street, that policeman was gaining on him. It must have been that heaven was protecting the innocent Chris; his sharp eyes spotted a mortar box buried in the ground of this side street, but the officer of the law