I found more rushing yards for Red Law recently. Bud Henderson, sports editor of The News-Herald at the time, reported after only Law’s second game ever that he had almost 300 yards. 

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Now, I did have him for the 135 yards he was credited in that second game, which was against Warren. But after reading about the 300, I just gave Law 300 for the first two games against Academy and the Dragons and called it a day.

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That means Law has 2,178 yards. It is known he had 897 his senior season in 1966, but his first three years, from 1963-65, who knows?  I was able to glean about 1,250 yards for Law from game write-ups, and 1,092 from teammates. That still left 2,078 yards unaccounted for. And I’m certain he didn’t have all those leftover yards given the other talented players in the Knights’ backfields then – quarterbacks Dave Bierbach and Jack White along with Rich Hancox and Butch Henderson. Plus, in 1963, Franklin had Chuck Holland, who had at least more than 600 yards during an injury-riddled season, including 226 in the finale against Townville.

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However, there’s no doubt in my mind that Law is Franklin’s all-time leading rusher with well over 3,000 yards. Possibly closer to 4,000. More than once, Bud Henderson did call Law the best all-around player in Franklin history. That might not have gone over well in F-town, given it once had Ted Marchibroda, who knows? I know a lot of people freaked when anyone dared mention Chuck Snell in the same breath as Marchibroda.

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Thing is with Law: he scored 49 touchdowns, but many of them were on returns and receiving. So many that you think he rushed for more yards than he actually did. If you know what I mean. (Memories can be tricky.)

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Back then, scribes didn’t include individual rushing totals in their stories, for the most part. Bud Henderson and then Jack Mays covered Law and they, as with their peers, rarely reported that kind of information. I will say Henry Dolecki kept great tabs on Oil City all-stater Jim Shaughnessy in The Derrick in 1964. But not 1963 when Shaughnessy was a junior. Dolecki also had rushing stats for Dave Straub, who ran for 1,000 yards in 1965. Nothing on the lean years that followed.

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Actually, if you want to know the truth, I could have done a way better job with that kind of stuff when I was starting out at The Derrick in 1970. 

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Anyhow, now Caden Mincer is moving right on up the Franklin all-time rushing chart. We’ll see how it all plays out in the end.

How quickly they forget: Butch Conrad and Law share the gold standard for games against Oil City. Conrad ran for 267 yards and five touchdowns against the Oilers in 1959. Law matched the five TD effort in 1966. He ran for 120 yards and gained another 85 on receptions.  Funny thing is, The Derrick, forgetting all about Conrad, reported that Law's 5 TD game was the best by anybody in the history of the rivalry. Oops. And matching them later were Oil  City's Christian Cole (2018), Ethen Knox (2021, 2022) and Steven Heise (2024). -- Penny Weichel