Beside football, there was baseball, school dances, cologne for Wirfs

Editor's note: Fifth in an eight-part series about Iowa offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs, who grew up in and left his mark on Mount Vernon. Many in the small Eastern Iowa town left marks on him, too.

By Marc Morehouse, The Gazette

MOUNT VERNON - This also is a football story.

We haven't been to a football field, so here we are at the Mount Vernon Middle School field.

This is where it all happened for Mount Vernon football, until a few years ago, when the Mustangs moved into Cornell College's Ash Park Stadium for home games but for one each year.

Sarah Wirfs is a 1993 Mount Vernon grad. Then, the side hills were still open. For homecoming, the school would burn 'MV” onto the side of the hill.

Tristan Wirfs, a 2017 Mount Vernon graduate, scored a touchdown here. He helped the Mustangs seal a late victory against Williamsburg at Cornell. Wirfs blocked a punt late and returned it 20 yards for a touchdown. He was 6-foot-5, 325-pounds doing this. Here, he returned an interception 16 yards for a TD against Anamosa.

This is a football story, so we needed a football scene.

Even here, there's more talk about baseball.

'Two home runs in one game at Cornell my freshman year,” Wirfs said with a laugh. 'Probably still have the ball somewhere.”

He wanted to play Major League Baseball.

'I did,” he said. 'I wanted to go to MLB so bad for a long time.”

What was it about baseball?

'I could just hit like crazy,” he said.

Fun knocking the crap out of something like that?

'I loved it.” he said. 'I'd just go out into my backyard in those fields and throw balls up to myself and hit them. All the time. I loved scooping wild throws at first.”

'And the stretch,” Sarah said.

'Baseball is kind of cool,” Wirfs said. 'When I was still playing in high school, kids would come to first base and just start talking to me. That was my favorite sport growing up.”

Baseball didn't get year four of Wirfs. It got only a little of year three.

Mount Vernon baseball coach Jeremy Elliott still is salty. Informed that Wirfs at least once considered baseball his favorite sport, Elliott had this response:

'Then why did he quit?” he said with a laugh and some other saltiness.

This was the summer going into Wirfs' junior year at Mount Vernon. He hit two home runs against Solon. A few weeks before that, Iowa State contacted him during a doubleheader at Williamsburg, and football recruiting became a thing and maybe the thing.

This is five years ago. The coach still is salty.

Why?

'He was really, really good,” Elliott said. 'The ball exploded off his bat. He's got great hands, great footwork. He was a first baseman. His skills around the bag were really, really high level.

' ... He could beat the (bleep) out of the baseball.”

During his freshman year, Wirfs saw a lot of fastballs, and he mostly launched them for hits. He hit in the .400s.

The Wamac Conference figured out sometime during Wirfs' sophomore year, the curveball was something Wirfs struggled with.

'The word gets out that he's pretty good and they start throwing him a lot of curveballs,” Elliott said. 'He didn't like that very much at all.”

Elliott wanted to make a pitcher out of Wirfs. So did Cal Eldred. Yes, the former UI baseball and major leaguer was around. He was an assistant coach and his son, C.J., who was being recruited by Iowa (where he ended up) for baseball, also was on the team.

'He's 6-5 and 300 pounds on the mound and he's throwing fastballs at you, that's a pretty intimidating thing,” Elliott said. 'We tried to get him on the mound and be a pitcher, but he just hated it.”

You'd think baseball would be the one sport where Wirfs didn't hear 'Take it easy, don't hurt anyone.” It entered his thoughts while pitching.

'When he was letting go of that ball, he didn't know where the hell it was going,” Elliott said. 'He threw close to 80 mph at that point, before he had any skill development on the mound. He didn't want to do that because he didn't know where it was going. That was a concern or fear for him, I think, too.”

Wirfs got into the pine tar with baseball. He and teammate Jack Cochran, who had 79 tackles as a linebacker last season at South Dakota State, got all goobered up with the pine tar and 'talc,” which probably was Gold Bond or some other chafing fighter.

'He swung so hard that the bat would come out of his hand,” Elliott said. 'The pine tar helped. They pine tarred the hell out of their stuff. It really got to be an annoyance. It was all over the place.”

The sticky mess didn't matter. Elliott still missed that bat in the lineup. Football waved Wirfs around third and that was going to play out.

'It was disappointing that he didn't stick it out with us, but I respected his decision, obviously he made a really good one, choosing to get after football,” Elliott said. 'He seems like he has a good head on his shoulders and he's in the right direction.”

It's too obvious to talk football at a football field.

Sarah suggests going to the site of a childhood landmark that no longer is standing. Everyone, let's give Don Mar Lanes a moment of silence. It burned down in August 2016. That was where dances and activity nights would be held.

Axe fumes have been ruled out, but back in the day ...

Lisbon dances and activity nights at the bowling alley.

'That was the best,” Tristan said. 'You'd put on as much cologne as you could. And tried to dress OK.”

Axe was preferred (dumb question).

'My one friend got this stuff called ‘Black,' ” Tristan said. 'That was what it was called. It was the best.”

'I think they got it at Rue 21 in the mall,” Sarah said.

'He got that stuff and I was like, ‘Give me some,' ” Tristan said. 'We'd go to the bowling alley and hang out, and then we'd go into the dance. We thought we were so cool.”

'Yeah, the cologne was flowing,” Sarah said. 'With my brother, it was always Drakkar and Polo.”

Ah, the classics.

Tristan is particular about the look. It doesn't just happen. There's probably a reason for today's cat T-shirt.

The smile is amazingly white. He admits it hides an overbite and bottom teeth Tristan said 'aren't very good.”

The master plan is to grow a beard that covers up everything. He'll be 21 in January, so that might take a while.

'Grandpa Ron had a nice beard,” Tristan said, referencing Sarah's father, who died in 2007 of prostate cancer.

'Yeah, my dad had one,” she said.

'I'm hoping that gene kicks in there at some point,” he said.