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No doubt who’s No. 1 in Orrick Life stops for game day. Marcella McAfee, Bobo’s mother, has learned to accept that. She scolds Bobo for forgetting, but only briefly, and hands him a crisp bill to buy something at the game. Bobo sits in the living room, passing the time until kickoff of the Orrick game by watching game three of the American League Championship Series. This is the same house Bobo grew up in, the same house he often tried to run away from as a frustrated child. As Marcella puts it, they just couldn’t control him. Back then, Bobo was first learning to deal with the effects of permanent brain damage caused at birth. The family eventually sent him away to a special school. But Bobo is 55 years old now. He is comfortable in this house. He is comfortable anytime there is sports on the tube. The Tigers lead the A’s 3-0 in the seventh inning of game three. “If Oakland loses this one,” Bobo says, “they’re in trouble.” He says this with the authority of an ESPN “Baseball Tonight” anchorman. Jim McAfee may not be able to read or write or drive or work a day job, but sports, for whatever reason, he has always grasped. Here in Orrick, a Northland farming community of fewer than 1,000 people, Bobo has become the resident savant of sports knowledge, the town’s own “Rain Man.” He informs Orrick on everything from Friday night’s scores to Big 12 schedules to obscure Chiefs history. “The town adopted him,” says Ken McAfee, Bobo’s brother. “If people want to know something about sports, they call the house.” If there are sports being played in Orrick, Bobo is there, always with his handheld radio in tow. It’s his source for information, and it is Bobo’s job to inform. On this Friday night, Bobo arrives for the Crest Ridge game 45 minutes before kickoff. He paces the sideline, the crackle of the radio following him as he goes. He talks sports with anyone who will listen, and in this town, that seems to be everybody. “This is his life,” says Leanne Jones, an Orrick parent who drives Bobo to road games. “It’s the social interaction, too, seeing everybody and teasing them. Everybody knows him. He’s just an icon.” ••• For decades, the family picked Bobo up every weekend, bringing him home. His time at the Higginsville State School for children with learning disabilities had calmed him. Before he left Orrick at the age of 8, Bobo would cuss all the time. He hated the family’s cat, so he put it in the freezer. He once took a loaded pistol out of his father’s gun cabinet and fired it six times, luckily hurting no one. His parents would try anything to keep him from running away. One time, they tied Bobo’s overalls to a clothesline. Even that failed. They found the overalls hanging and Bobo running around Orrick in his underwear. But those days were over. The doctors and teachers in Higginsville taught Bobo how to get along with others. Bobo wasn’t ever diagnosed as autistic, but many of his symptoms mirrored autism, a developmental disability that affects social interaction and communication. Autistic children often become obsessed with one thing that helps them connect with the world around them. For some, it’s music. For others, it’s maps. For Bobo, it was sports. Bobo had become a big Kansas City A’s fan during his time away, which suited his brother Kenny, a star athlete in Orrick, just fine. Kenny was proud of Bobo’s sports knowledge. But on one visit back to Orrick, a friend of Kenny’s started giving Bobo a hard time about his supposed baseball expertise. “How many home runs does Dick Green have?” he challenged Bobo. “Fourteen,” Bobo said. “Nope,” the man said, satisfied. “Thirteen.” Bobo shook his head. He motioned to the radio in his hand. “Just hit one,” Bobo said. Bobo discovered that he could communicate in home runs, touchdowns and rebounds. So today, when he goes to town, he doesn’t talk to the guys about farming or politics. Sports and soap operas are the only things he knows, and he risks being teased if he brings up what’s happening on “The Young and the Restless.” Kenny remembers the one time he told Bobo not to talk about sports. They were going to ride in a car with the Orrick agriculture teacher. Kenny had told Bobo to ask the teacher about farming. But sure enough, Bobo started talking sports. Kenny flashed a hard stare at Bobo, who was forced to react quickly. “… and cows and pigs and stuff like that,” Bobo added. ••• Bobo McAfee was a vital part of Orrick’s lone state championship team in 1975. Kenny was an assistant coach, and Bobo had grown up with Brad Gaines, the head coach at the time. Bobo traveled to every game that year and was a fixture in the locker room. It was Bobo who gave a speech at the pep rally before the state title game, and it was Bobo who was the focus of Gaines’ speech to the team. “There’s only one person in this town who thinks we have a chance in this game,” Gaines said, pointing to Bobo. “He wasn’t just a super fan,” says Gaines, now the longtime coach of Oak Grove. “He was a super friend. I was decent at basketball growing up, but Jim always made you feel like you were John Havlicek. You never played a game that he didn’t think you should have won. He always looks at the bright side of anything.” Bobo always looked up to Kenny more than anyone. He still talks about what a great receiver Kenny was at Orrick, the diving catches he used to make. But in 1977, Kenny was involved in a car accident. He would be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. Kenny was bitter in the years after. He had all these people preaching to him about how lucky he was to be alive. He didn’t want to hear it. One day, he and Bobo were playing a game of Yahtzee. “I wish I had been killed,” Kenny said. “I don’t,” Bobo responded. “If you’d been killed, you wouldn’t be able to play Yahtzee with me.” Kenny looks back, and he can see his life start up again right there. “He can make you wake up,” Kenny says. “That really woke me up, more than what anyone else could do.” Kenny became a father and eventually took over as Orrick’s head football coach in 1980. He would coach in a wheelchair. He won the Class 1 Coach of the Year award that first year. Bobo didn’t think anything of it. “Jim sees things through gifted eyes,” Gaines says. “To Jim, his brother could still jump the highest rope there is to jump and catch the winning touchdown.” Says Kenny, “He doesn’t realize it, but to the people around here, he really is a hero.” ••• Bobo knows what he can and can’t do. His little sister, Lisa, found out the hard way when she once asked Bobo to check movie times in the newspaper. “Lisa,” Bobo said, “I can read the sports page, but I can’t read anything else.” Bobo’s mind can wrap itself around sports and numbers. After the Crest Ridge game, a 73-0 victory, Bobo can tell you that the last time Orrick won that big was against Lone Jack, when the Bearcats scored more than 80 points decades ago. Leading up to the Chiefs-Steelers game, he can tell you that the last time the Chiefs won a game in Pittsburgh was 1986. He can tell you that the Chiefs scored three special-teams touchdowns in a 24-19 victory. And he can tell you that the Chiefs lost in the first round of the playoffs that year to the Jets. While most of Bobo’s brain doesn’t function properly, the sports side of his brain works overtime. At Orrick basketball games, players ask Jim for their stats. He can tell each player how many points, rebounds and assists they have without writing down one number. Jim’s mind renders the scorekeeper useless. Predictions are one of Bobo’s favorite things. They’re not always accurate, though. Last week, Bobo predicted Orrick’s score against Wellington as 49-42 in overtime, 28-21, 42-14 and 49-20. If you notice, the ease of the Orrick victory increased as the week went on. Bobo loves the Chiefs, Royals and Tigers of Missouri, but Orrick sports are No. 1 in his heart. “Sports are the only thing I’ve seen him get mad about,” Kenny McAfee says. “If the Royals make an error and lose, or if the Chiefs fumble and lose, he can’t take it. But he never says anything bad about Orrick, no matter what.” ••• Bobo McAfee does not react well to change. His routine is set in stone, which helps him manage his daily life. Bobo wakes up at 7 and is at the Bearcat Den for breakfast at 7:30. He leaves for Fubbler’s Cove, another breakfast spot, at 8:30. He returns home a little after 9. From 11 to 3, he watches soap operas in his bedroom, only interrupted by Mom bringing him his lunch. Dinner is at 5 every night, and after that, he watches sports. But really, it’s all one big lead-up to Friday night football. He owns a lifetime pass to Orrick athletic events, so all he has to do is flash his pass at home games. For road games, the town always makes sure Bobo has a ride. This Orrick season has been extra special. The Bearcats are 8-0 after a 42-6 pasting of a supposedly tough Wellington team on Friday night. It’s shaping up to be 1975 all over again. Bobo is just proud of the kids. He’s watched some of the players since they played Little League football, like freshmen Matt O’Dell and Clayton Jones. “I don’t think he’s missed one of my games,” O’Dell says. “He is by far the biggest Orrick fan.” And that’s why the Orrick community held a Jim McAfee Night on Nov. 6, 2003, at an Orrick home game. They brought him out to the field and presented him with a plaque that was inscribed with a fitting quote: “There never was a bad Bearcat team.” Even Bobo’s old friend, Brad Gaines, came back to Orrick that night for the celebration. “I think the entire community would give Jim the keys to the city if he wanted them,” Gaines says. “But with Jim, it’s just about being his friend. That’s all he cares about.” Every week, Kansas City Star reporter J. Brady McCollough will take a look at a unique aspect of the high school football community. To submit a story idea, e-mail McCollough at jmccollough @kcstar.com |
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J. Brady McCollough - jbrady@coveringsports.com (email) - 816-868-2621 (cell) |
