A couple of recent events prompted me to take a trip down memory lane.

One of those events occurred a couple of weeks ago during the Prairie-Kennedy football game at Kingston Stadium. The second took place last Friday night, also at Kingston Stadium.

The first was provided by Prairie's Demetrius Harper on the field, and the second was a ceremony for former J-Hawk Blake Tiedtke.

The first highlight took place just ahead of halftime. Kennedy had just scored to get back into the ballgame against Prairie and was kicking off to the Hawks. Harper fielded the boot at the 6-yard line on the near side of the field, and that's when the fun began.

Harper started back toward the middle of the field, found his path cut off by defenders and circled back toward his own goal line. The defense chased him back toward the near sideline where he turned the corner and proceeded to start down the sideline. As he approached the final Cougars to have a shot at stopping him, Harper hurdled over a would-be tackler, and went the rest of the way for a touchdown.

It was one of the most exciting plays certainly in many years.

That play reminded me of many great plays that had taken place over the years on the grass, and now the Field Turf at Kingston Stadium. One of the players it brought back memories of was honored last Friday night at Kingston with his induction into the Jefferson Football Hall of Fame, and that was Blake Tiedtke.

Tiedtke thrilled J-Hawk fans with great plays on both offense and defense during his time in the Columbia blue around a decade ago. He then went on to a great career as a defensive back at Nebraska.

Over the last couple of weeks I started to think about some of the other great individual players that have shown their wares on the gridiron at Kingston.

Here are a few of the biggies that pop to mind.

One night that many fans probably have forgotten about was the night that Nate Kaeding made a big name for himself. The Iowa City West kicker and future Hawkeye and San Diego Charger trotted out to the field at Kingston one chilly night and connected on a 58-yard field goal, I believe still the longest field goal ever made at the stadium.

The mid 2000s brought the age of the "spread" offense to the Metro. Several teams were running it, and running it effectively.

The top two squads to feature this offense were Washington and Kennedy. Over a three-year period, the Warriors and Cougars entertained us all with high scoring shootouts that more often than not came down to the last possession before the game was decided. Records were set on one night only to be broken later in the year. They were some of the most entertaining nights I have ever seen and called on the football field.

But in my mind the greatest night of them all was a night provided by perhaps the greatest athlete the corridor has ever seen, Tim Dwight.

Dwight's City High team's were terrific both on offense and defense and especially on special teams. One of the best City High teams with Dwight came up to Kingston Stadium one evening to meet Jefferson on a J-Hawk Homecoming Night. It turned out to not be a fun Homecoming night. In the first half alone Dwight gave one of the greatest individual performances of all time. He scored touchdowns running the ball, catching the ball, on defense and on special teams.

Even the stunned Jefferson crowd was applauding at Dwight's heroics. All of us assembled at the stadium were caught patiently waiting for wait he would do next. It was during the era of the "50-point rule" in high school football, when a game was ended after halftime when a team owned a 50-point lead. That night the game ended at halftime, mainly due to the single greatest individual performance I had ever witnessed to this day.

More great individual performances lie ahead. Who knows? Perhaps even some more this fall.

The players are getting faster and stronger than ever and I, as well as all fans, look forward to watching them make more great memories in the future.

(Scott Unash is the sports and program director at KGYM-AM 1600 (FM 107.5 and 106.3). He is a six-time winner of the Iowa Broadcast News Association play-by-play Announcer of the Year Award. Scott and Mark Dukes co-host the Gym Class weekdays from 3-4 p.m. on KGYM-AM 1600, FM-107.5 and FM-106.3)