FLAG FOOTBALL CHAMPS REUNITE

Palace Saloon team reunion set

Hall of Fame players for the Palace Saloon flag football team in the 1970s and ‘80s: Steve Link, who was receiver,  David Chapman was center and J.D. Jones was quarterback.


Palace Saloon players in the late 1970s: J.D. Jones is  11, Link is  8, Chapman is 18. Mike Hockstein, 33, was team coach and manager of the Palace Saloon bar.

By WILLIAM SNOWDEN Editor

They were the football powerhouse of their day.
From 1971 to 1985, they won eight state championships and four runnersup.
In 15 years, they weren’t No. 1 or No. 2 four times when the season ended.
They were the Palace Saloon flag football team. And they are holding a reunion on April 29th at the home of J.D. Jones, who was quarterback of Palace Saloon during those years when he was also coaching Wakulla High School football to two state titles.
On a recent afternoon, Jones and fellow players Steve Link and David Chapman gathered to reminisce about those years.
All three of the men – Jones, Link and Chapman – have been named to the Flag Football Hall of Fame, along with seven other players. In fact, the team itself was so dominant in the ‘70s and ‘80s that it has been honored at the Hall of Fame.
Jones joked that he didn’t even know he had been inducted into the Flag Football Hall of Fame until his son, Tanner, coaching in Perry at the time, was looking something up about flag football on the internet and found it – and then told his dad.
The three laugh about the number of FSU receivers who played for the team, such as Mike Shuman, who went on to play for the San Francisco 49ers and played in the Super Bowl in 1981. There was Jimmy Everett, an FSU receiver who played with Palace Saloon on the one time they went to the flag football national championship.
Jones recalled the national championship game in which Everett, who wasn’t usually a hot dog, caught a pass and started celebrating before he reached the end zone, spiking the ball at the 5. It was right at the end of the game and Palace Saloon lost by a score of either 13-7 or 12-7 – enough that if Everett had scored that touchdown, they would have won.
The team had an ever-changing roster over those 15 years and, in addition to Jones, included some Wakulla players: Ferrell Barwick, L.B. Brooks, Pete Murray, Jack Thomas, Buddy Tomaini, and Bobby Walsh.
 The three laugh recalling a play called the “pick split” – “highly illegal,” they all chortle – designed by FSU assistant coach Bill Crutchfield, who was later an assistant coach for the Atlanta Falcons. They used it on the goal line – and they agreed the play could not be stopped as defensive backs were picked by one receiver as the other broke into the open.
Link laughs and adds there was that one time on the pick split where the defensive back knocked his teeth out on the play. “I picked my teeth up off the field and went to the doctor,” he says.
Link shows his broken nose, a broken pointer finger – injuries picked up on the flag football field.
Chapman, who played center (which is an eligible receiver in flag football), said at one point in a game, he looked down the line and there were four FSU receivers, and in the backfield was Jones, who played for Troy in college. “And here I am,” Chapman says, “five-foot-seven, 115 pounds. I didn’t even play high school football.”
Jones estimates 50 to 100 people will show up for the team reunion.
“There’s gonna be a lot of lies told,” he says.