by Scot Fleenor

UHCLIDIAN STAFF

In the summer of 1954, the famous Paul "Bear" Bryant loaded 50 Texas A&M boys onto a bus to travel from College Station to Junction, Texas, for a summer football camp that would turn into legend. Only 35 men came back.

Norbert "Dutch" Ohlendorf, a lecturer in the School of Education was one of the 35 who survived Junction and joined the first football team under Bryant.

Dutch began playing high school football in 1947. In those days it was customary to play both an offensive and defensive position, so he played as an offensive tight end and a defensive end. Although he entered college in 1950, he did not play college football until 1952. A senator from Seguin, Texas, who had seen Dutch play in high school, told him he should try out for the fall football scholarship in 1952. Dutch was awarded the scholarship and played two years before the football camp in Junction.

In 1954, Junction was an adjunct campus used in the summertime for students to study math and English.

"There were 10 or 12 wood huts with screen wire windows and tin roofs. All the cabins had twin bunk beds in them," Dutch said. "Coach Bryant wanted to get us away from all the distraction so we could learn his system."

Although the recent movie, The Junction Boys, shown on ESPN portrays Bryant as a person who mistreated his players, Dutch remembers it very differently.

"Coach Bryant was hard nosed, no question about it," Dutch said. "He expected you to win, but he did not mistreat the players. That is what was wrong with the movie; it showed him mistreating players."

Dutch believes the time he spent that year as the co-captain of the team shaped his life.

"Next to my parents, Coach Bryant had the greatest influence in my life," Dutch said.

Dutch knew Bryant as a man of great integrity who tried to prepare his players for their futures by equating football to life, while emphasizing hard work, sacrifice and discipline. Dutch recalls Bryant saying, "If it's the fourth quarter and the other team is at your goal line, are you going to just give up or are you going to rise to the occasion?"

Dutch gives the same advice given by Bryant in 1954 to the student body of UH-Clear Lake: "Are you prepared to meet the challenges of your life? When things happen in your life that are bad, what are you going to do, quit or step up?"

After graduating from Texas A&M, Dutch spent two years in the Army and then went on to coach high school football for 10 years. He continued working in secondary education and then became an assistant principal, principal and superintendent.

He has been teaching administration supervision at UH-Clear Lake since 1996. He became a lecturer in the fall of 2002.

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