World Cup 1950

Our friend, Jeff, sent us this soccer note:

Do you remember Mr. De Palma? He was the senior high Spanish teacher for one or two years. Rumor had it that he was a member of the 1950 World Cup Team for Spain. I did a brief search on the web and didn’t find anything about him but I think Spain made it to the second round that year. This I do remember about the guy. He was a total dud as a teacher. He was incredibly unengaged. His teaching technique went like this; talk for 5-10 minutes, give us a work sheet and then he would read the paper for the remaining 35 minutes. I sat next to a guy, I have been trying to remember who it was and I think it was Bill Rampe? The class was so dull that I told Bill that I could climb out the window of the classroom and come back into the room and not get caught. Bill’s father owned one of those coin operated car washes in Ontario and he had a tower of quarters that he had stacked on his desk. He said “I don’t believe you would do it.” I said, ” for that stack of quarters I will,” and he said, “you’re on”.

I checked on De Palma to make sure he was doing his thing and I went to one of the windows and opened it wide and returned to my seat. De Palma was fixated on his newspaper. I waited a bit and made my move. Without a sound I slid out the window and crawled along the ground past the other classrooms. I made my way to one of the back doors, they were unlocked in those days, walked down the hallway and reentered De Palma’s classroom. I told him I had been at the guidance office. He didn’t even ask for a pass. If he played soccer with the enthusiasm with which he taught, then it is no wonder Spain didn’t advance beyond the first knock out round. And while my respect for De Palma is non-existent, I have to hand it to Rampe, he delivered on his end of the deal. If I remember correctly and I think I do, I made around 5 bucks on the escapade.

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