Gridiron.

Pikemen · week 8 · 1989

Tobias Gravelle is 41 and still doing it

Hal Vandergrift, veteran beat

Tobias Gravelle TE
Pikemen

Tobias Gravelle is 41 and averaging 17.3 a week. He reads Normal, which makes the mileage harder to explain, not easier.

9,014 yards over thirteen seasons. 114 touchdowns. 204 games. His best was 1,055. This is not that, yet. Seven clubs have had him.

Forty-one, and Cork, Ireland before that. Ask anybody: he is popular in a way that does not show up anywhere useful. He was an academic transfer who arrived at Marchbanks to study engineering.

Pikemen, 5-3, and eight weeks gone. Ambrose Winterbottom is in year three of it. The contract runs out in the spring.

One more thing: he has worn the same undershirt since his rookie year and had it repaired twice.

This feature ran in the paper in week 8 of 1989. The rest of the season is there too.

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