Joe Rexrode

Detroit Free Press

EAST LANSING – Bob Apisa was the last one out of the Michigan State locker room on Oct. 8, 1966 at Spartan Stadium, carrying with him the game ball he received from Duffy Daugherty for his 140-yard rushing effort in a 20-7 win over Michigan.

The next couple of minutes seemed like no big deal at the time. Nearly a half century later, they became the backdrop for most compelling story to emerge from another weekend at MSU, another win over Michigan. It involved Apisa, Mark Dantonio, Mark Hollis, three game balls and several adults shedding tears.

One of them was Nick Wittner, a 60-year-old MSU grad, MSU law professor and international attorney from Northville who contacted the Free Press to make sure others got to hear it.

"I want this to be the story people are talking about, not the story of a stake in the ground," Wittner said. "This story not only took my breath away, it slammed me in the chest."

It was more personal for Wittner because his son Brian, 29, has been in a wheelchair for his entire life. Brian has cerebral palsy. Nick and Brian used to wait together outside Spartan Stadium after games, getting autographs from players on a white scarf.

They probably looked a lot like two people Apisa passed on his way out of the tunnel on the north side of the stadium on Oct. 8, 1966 — a boy in a wheelchair and his father. The boy, about 10, asked for an autograph from the junior All-America fullback.

"I looked at him, and then it hit me," Apisa recalled. "I figured, I've got a year and a half more of playing football. I can run, I can jump, I can walk. This young man can't. To me, it was a no-brainer."

Apisa offered up the game ball. He does not remember the kid's name. He does remember the look on his face.

"It said, 'Are you sure?' " Apisa recalled.

Apisa, of Honolulu, signed the ball as he signs every autograph — "Aloha, Bob Apisa" — gave it to the boy, shook the father's hand and set out for the postgame celebration. It would be 25 years before he would think about that interaction again.

Six weeks after the win over U-M, No. 2 MSU hosted No. 1 Notre Dame in "The Game of the Century," a moment that remains one of the most impactful in the history of the sport — a college football record 33 million viewers, a sporting event record 754 reporters on site, the first game broadcast live to troops overseas, a game featuring 33 future NFL players on the field.

It ended in a 10-10 tie, and that meant Daugherty did not award the game ball. He took it and gave it to MSU's equipment manager, Ken Earley. He told Earley to hold onto the ball for a while, until Daugherty wanted it back. Like MSU's current and longtime equipment manager, Bob Knickerbocker, Earley was a program fixture.

Years passed. Earley retired. Apisa got into the movie industry in Los Angeles. Daugherty also moved to the Los Angeles area and passed away in 1987. In 1991 in East Lansing, MSU held a reunion for its 1965-66 national championship teams.

Apisa still remembers the joke Earley told him when Apisa hugged him and said it was good to see him: "Bob, it's better to be seen than to be viewed."

Earley had something else to tell Apisa that night: He should expect a package in the mail upon his return to Los Angeles.

A few days later, Apisa opened a box from Earley. In it were a football and a note. The football still had grass and mud on the laces. It was the 1966 MSU-Notre Dame game ball, and the note explained why Apisa now owned it.

Earley was standing there when Apisa gave that young boy the game ball in 1966, the note explained, and that moment left a lasting imprint on Earley. Now he wanted to replace that game ball with this one.

"This is the same ball that Jimmy Raye handled, that Terry Hanratty threw, that Bubba Smith recovered," Apisa said. "I was shocked."

Apisa called Earley to thank him and they talked about that day in 1966, which had never seemed significant to Apisa until now. It was the last time they spoke. Earley passed away in 1997 at age 87.

Apisa has cherished the ball, his only game ball. But last weekend he followed through on something he has thought about for years. He told the story of the ball at a pregame brunch hosted by MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon and with the help of a college friend — the president's husband, Roy Simon — presented it to Dantonio.

"I cannot capture in words the emotion in that room," said Wittner, who witnessed the speech and presentation of a ball and note that will be displayed in the MSU football building.

"This is not my ball," Apisa explained. "Ken had it for 25 years and I was the caretaker for 23. But this does not belong to me or any one person — certainly not to a collector or eBay. This belongs to all the players on that 1966 team, the coaches, the current players and coaches, the future players."

Apisa was the last one out of the locker room as a player because "I was a lolly-gagger," he said. Three hip replacements and a knee replacement help explain why it took him extra time to get to the locker room Saturday after MSU's 35-11 win over U-M.

When he arrived, Hollis and Simon stood next to him as Dantonio presented him the game ball. This was "completing a circle," Dantonio said.

"I broke down," Apisa said.

"It left a lot of people teary-eyed in the middle of a huge celebration," Hollis said. "To see a guy of that strength wrapped up in emotion was emotional for an athletic director."

To Hollis, this story represents what he preaches often about marrying the past and present. To Wittner, it's about what one simple act can mean.

"That little boy could have been my own son," Wittner said. "Showing kindness to people in need, people with special needs — you can't understand how special gestures like that can be."

Contact Joe Rexrode: jrexrode@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @joerexrode. Check out his MSU blog at freep.com/heyjoe.