Oral history as related by Bill Hannah to Jesse Kracht on November 10, 1996.
Bill Hannah was born in Belle Fourche in 1931. He played high school football for the Broncs from 1946-1948. He joined the Marine Corps. After two years of the Marines he decided to go into the Army. When he left the Army he went to school at Black Hills State University where he got his Bachelor`s Degree in Business and Economics. Bill and his wife Janice, who moved here for a nurses job, got married and had five children. The oldest, Michelle, was left paralyzed when a drunken driver struck her car in a head-on collision. Rene spent six years in the Army and is currently a housewife. Mark is a captain in the US Army. A helicopter pilot, Mark is married and has two sons. Bob, also a captain in the US Army, is assigned to an armor division. He is also married. The youngest son Jim, is now in college.
Back in those days you were either a halfback, fullback, or a quarterback. The formation I used in high school was the single wing, this is strictly a power formation. A cloud of dust and a three yards gain was pretty typical for that type of offense. I used to get mad because we practiced out of the T-formation. The coach used it for a quick opening set offense but when game time came around, our coach would have us in our single-wing formation. Our coach was Clar Lilevjen. He graduated from the University of Minnesota. He was a lineman and that pretty much carried through to what he had us do. As far as coaching went, for me I had problems. Some people loved the guy. I did not; but I respected him. He used to carry this ring of keys with him. If you went screwing around, you got popped in the head with them suckers!
As far as I could remember all of our games were played at the old Roundup Grounds on nothing but dirt. We first started scrimmaging by the old Roosevelt on hard gravel. After a while, we walked from the Roosevelt down to the Round-Up Grounds and practice, then come back to the school. If it was muddy, you played in the mud. There was no grass to play on. Just hard dirt. If it rained, it got terrible. It would be like slopping hogs rolling around in the rain.
We never had ratings then, but I know my junior year we had virtually a perfect record. We only lost one game that year to Sturgis for the Conference Championship. We lost to them 13-6. In that game on the opening kickoff the ball came down to me. I got tackled and the skin underneath my nose got ripped. Boy, don`t think that didn`t hurt! Tears came to my eyes. I hated getting smucked in the old nose! It was like someone taking a knife and slicing across the bottom of your nose--very painful. From my junior year to my senior year we only lost a couple of players off that team. My senior year, we only won half of our games that season. I think we had a lot of dissention on the team at that time. It certainly carried through to our games.