Abilene High coach Steve Warren had the best quote of the week, best because it is a true statement.
"This has been unbelievable," he told a Friday night pep rally crowd of 4,000 at Shotwell Stadium. "This whole week has been awesome and then some."
Warren spoke with the mind, the experience, and the voice, of a professional athlete. When you sift through the stories in the week before a championship game, whether it's the Super Bowl, the BCS championship, the World Series, the College World Series, or prep championships like Abilene vs. Katy, it's a common theme: getting to the championship game is the real story.
I first became aware of this in writing about major league baseball. Players, managers and coaches kept saying the World Series is important, but it's important like a really good sauce on an entrée, the best gravy you ever had on (choosing a Texas measure of superlatives) a chicken-fried steak. The league championship is the chicken-fried steak. Win the National League or the American League pennant, you have won what really counts. It was a championship that took months, not one week. As Steve Warren said, it is a week to savor. There is nothing not to remember about this week. It's all good. Next week, well, someone will have won, and someone will have lost.
Based on their speed, defense, skill players, and penchant for getting better as the game goes on, I pick Abilene, by a score of 35-14. Whatever that score turns out to be, this week has been 100-to-nothing, for both sides.
December 19, 2009
December 17, 2009
A game with a life of its own
In Abilene High history, state championship games have had a way of taking on a life of their own, which may be true of all state championship games. Excerpts from "Warbirds" follow.
Dec. 18, 1954
"The juggernaut from Abilene was favored to beat Stephen F. Austin by three touchdowns in the state championship game at Houston.
"Instead, with 5:49 remaining in the game, the Mustangs on fourth down lined up at the Abilene six-yard line to kick a field goal that would put them ahead of the Eagles, 10-7.
"No one in Houston was surprised. Maybe they were having heart attacks, but they weren’t surprised.
"While Abilene was pounding two playoff foes by a cumulative score of 107-0, Stephen F. Austin in bi-district barely squeaked past Galveston Ball, 21-20. In the semifinals, the Mustangs faced a Corpus Christi Miller team that had beaten them soundly, 25-6, in the third game of the season. The Mustangs won, again by 21-20.
"It was the team that wouldn’t quit. Just to get into the playoffs, in the last game of the regular season the Mustangs had to beat the defending Class AAAA champions, Houston Lamar. And they did, 16-14.
"If these nail-biters were hard on the Mustangs’ fans, it was hell on the 3,000 fans that had followed the Eagles to Houston’s 20,000-seat Public Schools Stadium . . ."
Dec. 17, 1955
"During the week in the statewide media, Abilene was established as a one-touchdown favorite over Tyler, and the feeling was that it would be something like 21-14, based on the Eagles’ power to score. Moser himself felt that way. For several weeks he had been telling his coaches (but no one else) that the 1955 Eagles were the best offensive team he ever saw.
“ 'If we can hold them to two touchdowns,' Moser told the Eagle Booster Club, 'we’ll win, I believe.'
"Abilene, in West Central Texas, and Tyler, way over in East Texas, had never met on a football field. They had some mutual adversaries in Waco, Wichita Falls and Dallas Highland Park, but their meeting at Amon Carter Stadium for the 1955 state championship would be their first.
"Having won the Love Field coin toss, Abilene, as the home team, got to pick its jerseys. Moser told his team leader, quarterback David Bourland, that new white jerseys had arrived. Bourland quickly voted in favor of the old gold jerseys. The belly series depended on deception, particularly on the part of the quarterback, and Bourland had become very good at it. He always liked to wear the gold jerseys, because the ball was too easy to see against the white.
"Abilene and Tyler both had 12 straight victories against no defeats. In the playoffs, Tyler first defeated Corpus Christi Miller, 22-7, then Baytown, 20-0. Abilene had averaged 39 points a game, Tyler 29. The Eagles had surrendered 10 fewer points than the Lions, 77 to 87. Against their lone common opponent in 1955, Abilene had beaten Highland Park, 34-0, in the season opener; Tyler beat the Scotties, 33-13, in their next-to-last district game. Abilene’s scouts, Blacky Blackburn and Wally Bullington, told Moser the Lions were a great team. Moser told the Eagles they would have to do 'everything right' to win.
"The Lions were big and fast. Center Jim Davis and tackle Billy Sims both weighed 200 pounds and both were all-state candidates, as was 186-pound halfback Joe Leggette, who had 980 yards rushing. But the star of the team, and probably the best all-around high school football player of the 1955 season, was 6-2, 190-pound quarterback Charles Milstead.
“ 'Another Walt Fondren,' Jack Holden wrote, 'a Doyle Traylor,' comparing Milstead to star Southwest Conference quarterbacks of the era. Tyler ran the same belly option offense as Abilene, and Milstead’s ability to run or pass gave the Tyler system a dangerous extra option.
"Members of Abilene’s state championship teams of 1923, 1928, 1931 and 1954 were special guests at the Friday pep rally. The team left for Fort Worth on the Eagle Bus right after the pep rally and headquartered at the Texas Hotel. More than 5,000 Abilenians made the 140-mile trip the next day, including almost 1,000 on a special Texas & Pacific train. The Victory Bell went in a truck and the 100-plus members of the Eagle Marching Band went in buses. After about 8 a.m., two-lane U.S. 80 was lined up with cars going east, through Baird, Cisco, Eastland and Ranger, streaming black and gold crepe decorations, headed for Fort Worth. About the same number of fans came from Tyler. Crowd estimates at kickoff went as high as 30,000 in the 37,000-seat stadium, meaning as many as 20,000 people from Fort Worth and other parts of the state came to the game. It promised to be a big game between two powerhouse teams, maybe even a classic. It turned out to be a classic, all right, one that had fans shaking their heads that afternoon and 45 years later."
Dec. 22, 1956
"The Eagles rolled into Austin on Friday, Dec. 21, with two streaks and a record on the line.
"Their streak of consecutive games won stood at 36. They were playing to become only the third high school team in Texas to win three straight state championships, after Waco (1925-26-27) and Amarillo (1934-35-36). And by winning, the Eagles would become the school with the most state championships – six – in Texas schoolboy history.
"Twenty of 23 Texas sports writers picked Abilene to beat Ray, which was in a state title game for the first time. The margins ranged from one point to 'no doubt.' Amarillo’s Putt Powell thought it was reasonable to suppose the Eagles would score more touchdowns than Ray made first downs. . . . "
The final score was 14-0, and the game became memorable for a play sequence in the first quarter that involved what is called a "14-point turnaround." Back to the book:
"The Texan offense came to the line breathing fire. In five plays they had gained the Eagle 19 and looked like a team that could beat the Eagle defense. Then end Stuart Peake broke through and hit quarterback Arthur McCallum. The ball came loose and bounced all the way back to the 44 before McCallum could fall on it. Unperturbed, McCallum threw to end Sonny Davis at the Abilene 21. He threw again to Davis, this time to the Eagle 4. Abilene was very much a team in trouble. McCallum kept on a quarterback sneak to the 2. Sub halfback Bart Shirley rammed to the one. McCallum tried another sneak and was piled up at the one-foot line.
"On fourth down, the two teams massed at the goalline, Abilene in its gap-8 defense. The center Christian snapped the ball, the lines charged, and suddenly the ball was in the air above the tumult, floating free, describing a lazy parabola toward the left end of the Texan line. It landed directly in front of Eagle linebacker Gerald Galbraith, who smothered it at the 3 as fans on both sides screamed. The ball appeared to have simply squirted through McCallum’s hands at the snap.
"The Eagle backs lined up in the end zone. Gregory improved things somewhat with a three-yard dive to the 6 In the huddle, Galbraith looked at right tackle Boyd King. 'I asked old Boyd if he could take that old boy out (tackle Walter Beck),' Galbraith said. 'Sure, run that old 4-play,' King told him.
"Galbraith called it: '4 Straightaway, on Set, on Set.' The Eagles in their gold jerseys, standing in their end zone, broke the huddle with a clap of hands, trotted to the line of scrimmage at the 6, fell into the hands-on-knees 'ready' stance. 'Down,' Galbraith called, with the downward inflection. The team dropped into its three-point stance. 'Set,' Galbraith yelled, but without time for the rising, anticipatory inflection, because the Eagles had charged. Galbraith took the snap from Jim Rose, pivoted right, handed to Carpenter going by, and going by so fast that Galbraith barely got the ball to him. Boyd King got position on Walter Beck, just like his coach had taught him, and knocked Beck outside. Jordan blocked Floyd Brown inside.
"Carpenter, all 153 fleet pounds of him, hit the hole in a flash and burst into the clear on the other side. A Ray halfback came up. Carpenter spun to the outside, flaring slightly toward the right sideline, and in a couple of strides was in high gear. It was a footrace with the Ray safety that Carpenter won easily, 94 yards to the end zone. His teammates sprinted all the way down the field after him, and after Gregory’s kick, Abilene led, 7-0.
"Men who have played football, for the rest of their lives may refer to a particular kind of traumatic event as 'a 14-point turnaround.' A team is on the goalline, about to score, when something happens – an interception runback, or a fumble and a 94-yard run. Not only has the team lost its seven points, the other team has scored seven, more or less in the same breath. It is a terrific 'what if' shock, and it had happened to the Ray Texans . . ."
"The 14-point turnaround works both ways. After Carpenter’s run, the energized Eagles took control of the game . . . "
Saturday's game between Abilene and Katy will have acquired some sort of signature that will be remembered 50 years from now. What will it be?
Dec. 18, 1954
"The juggernaut from Abilene was favored to beat Stephen F. Austin by three touchdowns in the state championship game at Houston.
"Instead, with 5:49 remaining in the game, the Mustangs on fourth down lined up at the Abilene six-yard line to kick a field goal that would put them ahead of the Eagles, 10-7.
"No one in Houston was surprised. Maybe they were having heart attacks, but they weren’t surprised.
"While Abilene was pounding two playoff foes by a cumulative score of 107-0, Stephen F. Austin in bi-district barely squeaked past Galveston Ball, 21-20. In the semifinals, the Mustangs faced a Corpus Christi Miller team that had beaten them soundly, 25-6, in the third game of the season. The Mustangs won, again by 21-20.
"It was the team that wouldn’t quit. Just to get into the playoffs, in the last game of the regular season the Mustangs had to beat the defending Class AAAA champions, Houston Lamar. And they did, 16-14.
"If these nail-biters were hard on the Mustangs’ fans, it was hell on the 3,000 fans that had followed the Eagles to Houston’s 20,000-seat Public Schools Stadium . . ."
Dec. 17, 1955
"During the week in the statewide media, Abilene was established as a one-touchdown favorite over Tyler, and the feeling was that it would be something like 21-14, based on the Eagles’ power to score. Moser himself felt that way. For several weeks he had been telling his coaches (but no one else) that the 1955 Eagles were the best offensive team he ever saw.
“ 'If we can hold them to two touchdowns,' Moser told the Eagle Booster Club, 'we’ll win, I believe.'
"Abilene, in West Central Texas, and Tyler, way over in East Texas, had never met on a football field. They had some mutual adversaries in Waco, Wichita Falls and Dallas Highland Park, but their meeting at Amon Carter Stadium for the 1955 state championship would be their first.
"Having won the Love Field coin toss, Abilene, as the home team, got to pick its jerseys. Moser told his team leader, quarterback David Bourland, that new white jerseys had arrived. Bourland quickly voted in favor of the old gold jerseys. The belly series depended on deception, particularly on the part of the quarterback, and Bourland had become very good at it. He always liked to wear the gold jerseys, because the ball was too easy to see against the white.
"Abilene and Tyler both had 12 straight victories against no defeats. In the playoffs, Tyler first defeated Corpus Christi Miller, 22-7, then Baytown, 20-0. Abilene had averaged 39 points a game, Tyler 29. The Eagles had surrendered 10 fewer points than the Lions, 77 to 87. Against their lone common opponent in 1955, Abilene had beaten Highland Park, 34-0, in the season opener; Tyler beat the Scotties, 33-13, in their next-to-last district game. Abilene’s scouts, Blacky Blackburn and Wally Bullington, told Moser the Lions were a great team. Moser told the Eagles they would have to do 'everything right' to win.
"The Lions were big and fast. Center Jim Davis and tackle Billy Sims both weighed 200 pounds and both were all-state candidates, as was 186-pound halfback Joe Leggette, who had 980 yards rushing. But the star of the team, and probably the best all-around high school football player of the 1955 season, was 6-2, 190-pound quarterback Charles Milstead.
“ 'Another Walt Fondren,' Jack Holden wrote, 'a Doyle Traylor,' comparing Milstead to star Southwest Conference quarterbacks of the era. Tyler ran the same belly option offense as Abilene, and Milstead’s ability to run or pass gave the Tyler system a dangerous extra option.
"Members of Abilene’s state championship teams of 1923, 1928, 1931 and 1954 were special guests at the Friday pep rally. The team left for Fort Worth on the Eagle Bus right after the pep rally and headquartered at the Texas Hotel. More than 5,000 Abilenians made the 140-mile trip the next day, including almost 1,000 on a special Texas & Pacific train. The Victory Bell went in a truck and the 100-plus members of the Eagle Marching Band went in buses. After about 8 a.m., two-lane U.S. 80 was lined up with cars going east, through Baird, Cisco, Eastland and Ranger, streaming black and gold crepe decorations, headed for Fort Worth. About the same number of fans came from Tyler. Crowd estimates at kickoff went as high as 30,000 in the 37,000-seat stadium, meaning as many as 20,000 people from Fort Worth and other parts of the state came to the game. It promised to be a big game between two powerhouse teams, maybe even a classic. It turned out to be a classic, all right, one that had fans shaking their heads that afternoon and 45 years later."
Dec. 22, 1956
"The Eagles rolled into Austin on Friday, Dec. 21, with two streaks and a record on the line.
"Their streak of consecutive games won stood at 36. They were playing to become only the third high school team in Texas to win three straight state championships, after Waco (1925-26-27) and Amarillo (1934-35-36). And by winning, the Eagles would become the school with the most state championships – six – in Texas schoolboy history.
"Twenty of 23 Texas sports writers picked Abilene to beat Ray, which was in a state title game for the first time. The margins ranged from one point to 'no doubt.' Amarillo’s Putt Powell thought it was reasonable to suppose the Eagles would score more touchdowns than Ray made first downs. . . . "
The final score was 14-0, and the game became memorable for a play sequence in the first quarter that involved what is called a "14-point turnaround." Back to the book:
"The Texan offense came to the line breathing fire. In five plays they had gained the Eagle 19 and looked like a team that could beat the Eagle defense. Then end Stuart Peake broke through and hit quarterback Arthur McCallum. The ball came loose and bounced all the way back to the 44 before McCallum could fall on it. Unperturbed, McCallum threw to end Sonny Davis at the Abilene 21. He threw again to Davis, this time to the Eagle 4. Abilene was very much a team in trouble. McCallum kept on a quarterback sneak to the 2. Sub halfback Bart Shirley rammed to the one. McCallum tried another sneak and was piled up at the one-foot line.
"On fourth down, the two teams massed at the goalline, Abilene in its gap-8 defense. The center Christian snapped the ball, the lines charged, and suddenly the ball was in the air above the tumult, floating free, describing a lazy parabola toward the left end of the Texan line. It landed directly in front of Eagle linebacker Gerald Galbraith, who smothered it at the 3 as fans on both sides screamed. The ball appeared to have simply squirted through McCallum’s hands at the snap.
"The Eagle backs lined up in the end zone. Gregory improved things somewhat with a three-yard dive to the 6 In the huddle, Galbraith looked at right tackle Boyd King. 'I asked old Boyd if he could take that old boy out (tackle Walter Beck),' Galbraith said. 'Sure, run that old 4-play,' King told him.
"Galbraith called it: '4 Straightaway, on Set, on Set.' The Eagles in their gold jerseys, standing in their end zone, broke the huddle with a clap of hands, trotted to the line of scrimmage at the 6, fell into the hands-on-knees 'ready' stance. 'Down,' Galbraith called, with the downward inflection. The team dropped into its three-point stance. 'Set,' Galbraith yelled, but without time for the rising, anticipatory inflection, because the Eagles had charged. Galbraith took the snap from Jim Rose, pivoted right, handed to Carpenter going by, and going by so fast that Galbraith barely got the ball to him. Boyd King got position on Walter Beck, just like his coach had taught him, and knocked Beck outside. Jordan blocked Floyd Brown inside.
"Carpenter, all 153 fleet pounds of him, hit the hole in a flash and burst into the clear on the other side. A Ray halfback came up. Carpenter spun to the outside, flaring slightly toward the right sideline, and in a couple of strides was in high gear. It was a footrace with the Ray safety that Carpenter won easily, 94 yards to the end zone. His teammates sprinted all the way down the field after him, and after Gregory’s kick, Abilene led, 7-0.
"Men who have played football, for the rest of their lives may refer to a particular kind of traumatic event as 'a 14-point turnaround.' A team is on the goalline, about to score, when something happens – an interception runback, or a fumble and a 94-yard run. Not only has the team lost its seven points, the other team has scored seven, more or less in the same breath. It is a terrific 'what if' shock, and it had happened to the Ray Texans . . ."
"The 14-point turnaround works both ways. After Carpenter’s run, the energized Eagles took control of the game . . . "
Saturday's game between Abilene and Katy will have acquired some sort of signature that will be remembered 50 years from now. What will it be?
December 16, 2009
School of Eagle Fame
Somewhere in the mid-20th century, there stands a cultural watershed, a technological Continental Divide, beyond which people in general, but young people specifically, started moving indoors for their entertainment.
I wouldn’t be so bold as to say it was that Friday night in Abilene when “Blackboard Jungle” and “Rock Around the Clock” came to the Paramount Theater, but I would think that event was somewhere in the vicinity, because it was totally non-local. The main physical feature of the Divide is the ability to separate oneself from locality, and the galvanizing force of “Rock Around the Clock” made it an arrow pointing young people down the yellow brick road of media toward radio, and then television, and then the Internet, whose arrival in the 1990s really sealed the deal. Many young people today spend far more time in the Internet distance than they do in their locality, a troubling social reality that has become the subject of books.
I may be a year off about this, but I believe that television arrived in Abilene the same year Chuck Moser did: 1953. Both had an immediate effect, but I am sure that Abilenians between the ages of 10 and 20, who today are in their 60s and 70s, when they think about the ‘50s, remember more about Moser and the Abilene Eagles than they do television. Famous people on television were, and are, a dime a dozen. Famous people locally are, well, REALLY famous.
By Christmas of 1954, Moser and the Eagles were not only famous locally, but they were putting Abilene on the map, and it’s hard to generate much more community appeal than that. The Eagles created not only a football, but a social, dynasty. Pete Shotwell, a legendary coach whose retirement after the 1952 Eagle season brought about Moser’s hiring, was given a new job in the Abilene schools. From my book, “Warbirds:”
“Abilene had experienced significant growth during and after World War II, and there were more elementary schools and two junior highs with a third planned to open in 1955, plus a black elementary school and a black high school, Woodson High. But there was no centralized physical education system. To Abilene school administrators, Shotwell, or ‘Shot,’ as he was affectionately known, made a proposal to create a new administrative position that would oversee physical education and health education in the growing Abilene schools system.
“It would give him official authority over a program he had already helped create, elementary school football. Football, in uniform, was played as a strictly recreational program in all the city schools. By 1950, boys as young as fourth grade in Abilene could start playing organized football, in city school leagues, that played to championships and awarded championship trophies and jacket patches.”
I was in 6th grade when Abilene won the 1954 state championship. I was also a second-year player on the feared Central Elementary Wildcats. In seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, I played for the South Junior High Coyotes. By ninth grade, we played road games as far away as San Angelo, and we had cheerleaders, bands and pep rallies. The three Abilene junior highs played to a city championship, which South – ahem – won my ninth grade year. We beat the North Junior Broncos, 27-15, after trailing, 15-0, at Fair Park Stadium – same place the Eagles played – before a crowd of 4,000 people.
This was youth – and community – involvement that I am not sure the 2009 social network can support. Someone in Abilene would have to write that story. One thing: fame has not changed much, except to become more influential in young lives. One hears horrifying stories of six-year-old girls talking their parents into spending $2,000 for Hannah Montana concert tickets. Kids still are whelmed by fame up-close. Abilene kids this week are seeing quite a fuss over the team playing for a state championship in San Antonio on Saturday. It’s totally possible that Eagle football in 2009 can still pry kids away from cyberspace for a little while.
It’s the same, and it’s different. In the 1950s, fans would send telegrams to the Eagle teams, wherever the championship was being played, for the players to read before the game. This afternoon, on Facebook, I discovered the “Abilene Eagles 2009 Support Group,” to “show a collective support for the Warbirds to be victorious over Katy High School.” When I found the group, two hours ago, the membership was 1,401. Just now, it was 1,749. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
I wouldn’t be so bold as to say it was that Friday night in Abilene when “Blackboard Jungle” and “Rock Around the Clock” came to the Paramount Theater, but I would think that event was somewhere in the vicinity, because it was totally non-local. The main physical feature of the Divide is the ability to separate oneself from locality, and the galvanizing force of “Rock Around the Clock” made it an arrow pointing young people down the yellow brick road of media toward radio, and then television, and then the Internet, whose arrival in the 1990s really sealed the deal. Many young people today spend far more time in the Internet distance than they do in their locality, a troubling social reality that has become the subject of books.
I may be a year off about this, but I believe that television arrived in Abilene the same year Chuck Moser did: 1953. Both had an immediate effect, but I am sure that Abilenians between the ages of 10 and 20, who today are in their 60s and 70s, when they think about the ‘50s, remember more about Moser and the Abilene Eagles than they do television. Famous people on television were, and are, a dime a dozen. Famous people locally are, well, REALLY famous.
By Christmas of 1954, Moser and the Eagles were not only famous locally, but they were putting Abilene on the map, and it’s hard to generate much more community appeal than that. The Eagles created not only a football, but a social, dynasty. Pete Shotwell, a legendary coach whose retirement after the 1952 Eagle season brought about Moser’s hiring, was given a new job in the Abilene schools. From my book, “Warbirds:”
“Abilene had experienced significant growth during and after World War II, and there were more elementary schools and two junior highs with a third planned to open in 1955, plus a black elementary school and a black high school, Woodson High. But there was no centralized physical education system. To Abilene school administrators, Shotwell, or ‘Shot,’ as he was affectionately known, made a proposal to create a new administrative position that would oversee physical education and health education in the growing Abilene schools system.
“It would give him official authority over a program he had already helped create, elementary school football. Football, in uniform, was played as a strictly recreational program in all the city schools. By 1950, boys as young as fourth grade in Abilene could start playing organized football, in city school leagues, that played to championships and awarded championship trophies and jacket patches.”
I was in 6th grade when Abilene won the 1954 state championship. I was also a second-year player on the feared Central Elementary Wildcats. In seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, I played for the South Junior High Coyotes. By ninth grade, we played road games as far away as San Angelo, and we had cheerleaders, bands and pep rallies. The three Abilene junior highs played to a city championship, which South – ahem – won my ninth grade year. We beat the North Junior Broncos, 27-15, after trailing, 15-0, at Fair Park Stadium – same place the Eagles played – before a crowd of 4,000 people.
This was youth – and community – involvement that I am not sure the 2009 social network can support. Someone in Abilene would have to write that story. One thing: fame has not changed much, except to become more influential in young lives. One hears horrifying stories of six-year-old girls talking their parents into spending $2,000 for Hannah Montana concert tickets. Kids still are whelmed by fame up-close. Abilene kids this week are seeing quite a fuss over the team playing for a state championship in San Antonio on Saturday. It’s totally possible that Eagle football in 2009 can still pry kids away from cyberspace for a little while.
It’s the same, and it’s different. In the 1950s, fans would send telegrams to the Eagle teams, wherever the championship was being played, for the players to read before the game. This afternoon, on Facebook, I discovered the “Abilene Eagles 2009 Support Group,” to “show a collective support for the Warbirds to be victorious over Katy High School.” When I found the group, two hours ago, the membership was 1,401. Just now, it was 1,749. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
December 15, 2009
Eagles story: details of the day
Yes, I know, this blog is turning into "Abilene Eagle Week." It is also, I am sure, Abilene Eagle Week in far-flung parts of the globe, wherever live Abilenians who were there in the 1950s, following their team into state championship games, and, 53 years after Abilene's 1956 championship, the last of three consecutive, are enjoying the hell out of being there again.
But I wonder, 53 years from now (I hope it is not that long), if the Eagles are in a state championship game again, if the young Abilenians of today will attach to it in the same way I and my peers are feeling today. I wonder if it is culturally possible.
I keep going back to my book, "Warbirds," as these questions arise, because the book is a history of that 1950s era, gleaned from information compiled in long hours of research. I wrote the book because most (all but about six, actually) of the details of the Eagles' 49-game winning streak had been forgotten. Of course, as I did the work, I found that not only details of the games had been forgotten, but details of living in Abilene, Texas, in the 1950s. Example (from the book):
"To people with only a general attentiveness to history, the 1950s have receded into memory as a quiet time, a period of Eisenhower-era tranquility. The tumultuous 1960s by contrast certainly did what they could to enhance that memory.
"In fact, the 1950s were themselves tumultuous with change. The media and consumer driven world of the late 20th century could trace its roots directly to events of the 1950s. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author David Halberstam saw so much happening in the 1950s that he wrote a complete book, titled, simply, 'The ‘50s.'
"It is true that at the time, in Abilene, much of that change occurred with the force of a pebble dropping unheard into a distant pond, such as the unanimous Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954, that ended the 'separate but equal' doctrine of educational facilities for whites and blacks. That ripple would not reach Abilene for another decade.
"Other changes, like television, advertising, and longer, sleeker cars, were more apparent. But there was one change that more or less blew the others away. It occurred on a Friday night in April, at the Paramount Theater downtown. Friday night was the traditional movie night for high school and junior high students. Admission was a quarter, Milk Duds were a nickel, cokes and popcorn a dime. Each teen group had its chosen area, its turf, in which to sit in the large theater, built in the popular fashion that suggested an ornate outdoor playhouse under a dark blue sky. In the sky were 'stars,' and across it moved floodlight-generated 'clouds.' It could get noisy, and ushers with their flashlights were on constant patrol.
"The movie this Friday night was 'Blackboard Jungle,' starring Glenn Ford and Anne Francis. Also in the cast were two young actors, Vic Morrow and Sidney Poitier. None of the kids in the theater knew anything about the movie; they were there because it was Friday night. First there was the black-and-white newsreel, then the cartoon, then the curtain fell in preamble to the feature. The effect was to set up anticipation, and in fact the crowd became quiet. There were two or three moments of relative calm. Then:
'One two three o’clock four o’clock ROCK!
'Five six seven o’clock eight o’clock ROCK!
'Nine ten eleven o’clock twelve o’clock ROCK!
'We’re gonna ROCK around the CLOCK tonight!'
"It was music, very loud and urgent, and it thundered on into its first verse – 'When the clock strikes one, join me hon' – but the kids in the Paramount Theater sat rock-still, stunned, staring at the rising curtain, transfixed by the energy blasting at them from Bill Haley and the Comets.
"These young people knew there was something happening to music out there somewhere. They could catch snatches of it on local stations KRBC and KWKC, but they had better luck if they searched for stations in New Orleans, Oklahoma City and Nashville, that came in sometimes with remarkable clarity through a still-uncluttered sky. This was high-energy music that came from people with exotic names like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, and it didn’t sound at all like what they were accustomed to hearing from Gisele MacKenzie, Mitch Miller, Les Baxter, Perry Como, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney.
"They were intrigued by the new music, but it had come from somewhere else far away across the sky. Now they sat in their very own Paramount, with its big speakers and this high-speed music rocketing at them, and for several seconds they were frozen by it. Then they reacted. They jumped up and yelled and the cooler ones got into the aisles and danced in frenzy. It was a before-and-after moment that no one there would ever forget.
"The title of the song was 'Rock Around the Clock,' and it came to Abilene and all the other cities as a nice example of cross-media marketing. The recording industry’s principal marketing outlet was radio. Listeners who heard a song on the radio might then go buy it at a record store.
"But there were only 24 hours available in a day, and not many radio stations. In 1955, Abilene had only two, meaning there were only 48 music marketing hours available in any given day. Worse, the stations used much of their time to broadcast soap operas, news, and shows like 'Farm Roundup,' 'Mixing Bowl,' and 'Arthur Godfrey.' Their music playlists leaned to proven artists and songs like 'Hard to Get,' 'The Yellow Rose of Texas,' and 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing.' It would be years before enough radio stations existed to develop what came to be called 'narrowcasting.' In 1955, on KRBC and KWKC, you took what you got, in a very mixed bag.
"So 'Rock Around the Clock' rode a movie into town, and the results were instructive to future students of cross-media marketing. 'Rock Around the Clock' became the first example of this new music to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Magazine rating charts, and it did so very quickly, reaching No. 1 in June.
"The movie was electrifying, too, about gangs in schools not only challenging, but intimidating and literally attacking authority. The teacher, Richard Dadier, played by Glenn Ford, wins in the end, the punk Vic Morrow is hauled away, and Sidney Poitier (a black kid!) leaves the bad guys and becomes a good one. The movie was so controversial that many communities would not allow it to be shown, including, of all places, Memphis, Tennessee.
"But Abilene did, and kids who came out of the Paramount that night weren’t the same kids who went in. They came out in possession of a new kind of music, and they knew a new word: 'daddio.' It was the first night in Abilene of a new extension of culture that would become a culture unto itself. It can only be imagined what the parents thought on Saturday morning, encountering this change for the first time. Parents were one thing. Chuck Moser was something else. Daddio? Not in a hundred years would the Eagle players have uttered this word within earshot of their coach. But it was out there. Many new things were out there."
Many new things were out there. Hmpf. How little we knew. And that's where we will continue this story tomorrow night . . .
But I wonder, 53 years from now (I hope it is not that long), if the Eagles are in a state championship game again, if the young Abilenians of today will attach to it in the same way I and my peers are feeling today. I wonder if it is culturally possible.
I keep going back to my book, "Warbirds," as these questions arise, because the book is a history of that 1950s era, gleaned from information compiled in long hours of research. I wrote the book because most (all but about six, actually) of the details of the Eagles' 49-game winning streak had been forgotten. Of course, as I did the work, I found that not only details of the games had been forgotten, but details of living in Abilene, Texas, in the 1950s. Example (from the book):
"To people with only a general attentiveness to history, the 1950s have receded into memory as a quiet time, a period of Eisenhower-era tranquility. The tumultuous 1960s by contrast certainly did what they could to enhance that memory.
"In fact, the 1950s were themselves tumultuous with change. The media and consumer driven world of the late 20th century could trace its roots directly to events of the 1950s. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author David Halberstam saw so much happening in the 1950s that he wrote a complete book, titled, simply, 'The ‘50s.'
"It is true that at the time, in Abilene, much of that change occurred with the force of a pebble dropping unheard into a distant pond, such as the unanimous Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954, that ended the 'separate but equal' doctrine of educational facilities for whites and blacks. That ripple would not reach Abilene for another decade.
"Other changes, like television, advertising, and longer, sleeker cars, were more apparent. But there was one change that more or less blew the others away. It occurred on a Friday night in April, at the Paramount Theater downtown. Friday night was the traditional movie night for high school and junior high students. Admission was a quarter, Milk Duds were a nickel, cokes and popcorn a dime. Each teen group had its chosen area, its turf, in which to sit in the large theater, built in the popular fashion that suggested an ornate outdoor playhouse under a dark blue sky. In the sky were 'stars,' and across it moved floodlight-generated 'clouds.' It could get noisy, and ushers with their flashlights were on constant patrol.
"The movie this Friday night was 'Blackboard Jungle,' starring Glenn Ford and Anne Francis. Also in the cast were two young actors, Vic Morrow and Sidney Poitier. None of the kids in the theater knew anything about the movie; they were there because it was Friday night. First there was the black-and-white newsreel, then the cartoon, then the curtain fell in preamble to the feature. The effect was to set up anticipation, and in fact the crowd became quiet. There were two or three moments of relative calm. Then:
'One two three o’clock four o’clock ROCK!
'Five six seven o’clock eight o’clock ROCK!
'Nine ten eleven o’clock twelve o’clock ROCK!
'We’re gonna ROCK around the CLOCK tonight!'
"It was music, very loud and urgent, and it thundered on into its first verse – 'When the clock strikes one, join me hon' – but the kids in the Paramount Theater sat rock-still, stunned, staring at the rising curtain, transfixed by the energy blasting at them from Bill Haley and the Comets.
"These young people knew there was something happening to music out there somewhere. They could catch snatches of it on local stations KRBC and KWKC, but they had better luck if they searched for stations in New Orleans, Oklahoma City and Nashville, that came in sometimes with remarkable clarity through a still-uncluttered sky. This was high-energy music that came from people with exotic names like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, and it didn’t sound at all like what they were accustomed to hearing from Gisele MacKenzie, Mitch Miller, Les Baxter, Perry Como, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney.
"They were intrigued by the new music, but it had come from somewhere else far away across the sky. Now they sat in their very own Paramount, with its big speakers and this high-speed music rocketing at them, and for several seconds they were frozen by it. Then they reacted. They jumped up and yelled and the cooler ones got into the aisles and danced in frenzy. It was a before-and-after moment that no one there would ever forget.
"The title of the song was 'Rock Around the Clock,' and it came to Abilene and all the other cities as a nice example of cross-media marketing. The recording industry’s principal marketing outlet was radio. Listeners who heard a song on the radio might then go buy it at a record store.
"But there were only 24 hours available in a day, and not many radio stations. In 1955, Abilene had only two, meaning there were only 48 music marketing hours available in any given day. Worse, the stations used much of their time to broadcast soap operas, news, and shows like 'Farm Roundup,' 'Mixing Bowl,' and 'Arthur Godfrey.' Their music playlists leaned to proven artists and songs like 'Hard to Get,' 'The Yellow Rose of Texas,' and 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing.' It would be years before enough radio stations existed to develop what came to be called 'narrowcasting.' In 1955, on KRBC and KWKC, you took what you got, in a very mixed bag.
"So 'Rock Around the Clock' rode a movie into town, and the results were instructive to future students of cross-media marketing. 'Rock Around the Clock' became the first example of this new music to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Magazine rating charts, and it did so very quickly, reaching No. 1 in June.
"The movie was electrifying, too, about gangs in schools not only challenging, but intimidating and literally attacking authority. The teacher, Richard Dadier, played by Glenn Ford, wins in the end, the punk Vic Morrow is hauled away, and Sidney Poitier (a black kid!) leaves the bad guys and becomes a good one. The movie was so controversial that many communities would not allow it to be shown, including, of all places, Memphis, Tennessee.
"But Abilene did, and kids who came out of the Paramount that night weren’t the same kids who went in. They came out in possession of a new kind of music, and they knew a new word: 'daddio.' It was the first night in Abilene of a new extension of culture that would become a culture unto itself. It can only be imagined what the parents thought on Saturday morning, encountering this change for the first time. Parents were one thing. Chuck Moser was something else. Daddio? Not in a hundred years would the Eagle players have uttered this word within earshot of their coach. But it was out there. Many new things were out there."
Many new things were out there. Hmpf. How little we knew. And that's where we will continue this story tomorrow night . . .
December 14, 2009
Title game week in Abilene
Five years ago, I published "Warbirds – How They Played the Game" – a history of Abilene High's 49-game winning streak from 1954-57. Three of those games were for state championships, in 1954-55-56, and the Eagles won all three.
Little did I realize at the time, that if the Eagles made it to another state championship game, it would enable me, and all Abilenians living in Abilene in the 1950s, to go back and feel the experience again. Now that has happened. The 2009 Eagles meet the Katy Tigers on Saturday for the Texas 5A state championship. I can go back and read my own book, not as a history, but as an experience in the here-and-now.
For example, I know what the Katy fans feel like this week. They are going for their third straight state championship. As a result, they have a certain confidence this week that it can be done, just as Abilenians in December of 1956 had that certain confidence. Hell, by 1956, the Eagles had become so good that we enjoyed something MORE than confidence. It was after the 1955 state championship game, when Abilene trounced Tyler, 33-13, that Waco High coach Carl Price said, "Abilene's state champions of this year are 30 points better than the 1954 champions. If they improve another 30 points next year, they might as well get in the Southwest Conference."
That quote is in my book, and the Eagles of 1956 turned out to BE that good. It became pointless to talk about how good the first team was. Instead, people began to wonder if Abilene's second team might finish third in District 2-AAAA, behind San Angelo and of course the Eagles' first team.
I also wrote about what it felt like, in Abilene, the week before the 1954 championship game, against Stephen F. Austin High School of Houston. There was confidence – the Eagles had a very good team – but there was also apprehension, of this new playoffs territory, playing teams outside the well-known environment of West Texas. There were legends lurking out there, legends like Hunter Enis, quarterback for Fort Worth Poly, whom the Eagles were to meet in the semifinals. In the book, I wrote:
" 'Hunter Enis' was a name to be feared, even more than the name 'Wahoo McDaniel,' because Enis was a quarterback and a bona fide star.
"Everybody in Texas who cared about high school football knew who Hunter Enis was. He was big and athletic and so good a passer that his school, the Fort Worth Poly Parrots, ran something called the 'spread formation.' Nobody in West Texas had ever heard of the 'spread formation,' in which ends and backs lined up from sideline to sideline and then ran downfield to catch passes from the strong, deadly arm of Hunter Enis.
"All week, Abilenians read the newspaper and wondered: 'We can stop Fort Worth Poly, but can we stop Hunter Enis?' They were the kinds of thoughts that could bedevil fans of upstart teams suddenly plunged into the rarified atmosphere of the state semifinals. Only three other teams left. And boy, they must have been awfully good to get here.
"And Poly was there because of Hunter Enis, who was so skilled that in college, at Texas Christian, he would make all-Southwest Conference and eventually play quarterback in the National Football League. Enis had passed for 1,111 yards and it didn’t matter that Poly had been beaten badly, 34-0, by San Angelo, or that the Parrots had lost three other games. Those were early in the season.
"The game was in Fort Worth, at 20,000-seat Farrington Field, the biggest stadium in which any of the Abilene Eagles had ever played. Around 2,500 Eagle students and fans made the trip and of course the Victory Bell was there. Thousands more listened on the radio at home, anxious to see if the Eagles could survive Hunter Enis and get into a state championship game for the first time since 1931 . . ."
The 1954 Eagles survived. They beat Poly, 46-0. Hunter Enis finished nine-for-20 for 99 yards with three interceptions, and Poly collected only 15 yards rushing and 10 first downs. It was a confidence-builder. But oh my gosh, now they had to play Houston Austin, whose QB Vince Matthews was supposed to be better than Hunter Enis . . .
That is the kind of excitement that stirs in the minds of Abilenians this week, who can't wait for Saturday, even if Katy has players who can leap tall buildings at a single bound. I saw a picture of a Katy player in the Houston Chronicle today who was roughly the dimensions of DeMarcus Ware.
This is so much fun. Thank you, 2009 Eagles. A lot of people, even a lot of Abilenians, don't give a hoot about football and wonder now, as they did in the 1950s, what the fuss is about. I can only say that if you are an Abilenian who likes football, winning a state championship gets into your blood, and it never goes away.
Little did I realize at the time, that if the Eagles made it to another state championship game, it would enable me, and all Abilenians living in Abilene in the 1950s, to go back and feel the experience again. Now that has happened. The 2009 Eagles meet the Katy Tigers on Saturday for the Texas 5A state championship. I can go back and read my own book, not as a history, but as an experience in the here-and-now.
For example, I know what the Katy fans feel like this week. They are going for their third straight state championship. As a result, they have a certain confidence this week that it can be done, just as Abilenians in December of 1956 had that certain confidence. Hell, by 1956, the Eagles had become so good that we enjoyed something MORE than confidence. It was after the 1955 state championship game, when Abilene trounced Tyler, 33-13, that Waco High coach Carl Price said, "Abilene's state champions of this year are 30 points better than the 1954 champions. If they improve another 30 points next year, they might as well get in the Southwest Conference."
That quote is in my book, and the Eagles of 1956 turned out to BE that good. It became pointless to talk about how good the first team was. Instead, people began to wonder if Abilene's second team might finish third in District 2-AAAA, behind San Angelo and of course the Eagles' first team.
I also wrote about what it felt like, in Abilene, the week before the 1954 championship game, against Stephen F. Austin High School of Houston. There was confidence – the Eagles had a very good team – but there was also apprehension, of this new playoffs territory, playing teams outside the well-known environment of West Texas. There were legends lurking out there, legends like Hunter Enis, quarterback for Fort Worth Poly, whom the Eagles were to meet in the semifinals. In the book, I wrote:
" 'Hunter Enis' was a name to be feared, even more than the name 'Wahoo McDaniel,' because Enis was a quarterback and a bona fide star.
"Everybody in Texas who cared about high school football knew who Hunter Enis was. He was big and athletic and so good a passer that his school, the Fort Worth Poly Parrots, ran something called the 'spread formation.' Nobody in West Texas had ever heard of the 'spread formation,' in which ends and backs lined up from sideline to sideline and then ran downfield to catch passes from the strong, deadly arm of Hunter Enis.
"All week, Abilenians read the newspaper and wondered: 'We can stop Fort Worth Poly, but can we stop Hunter Enis?' They were the kinds of thoughts that could bedevil fans of upstart teams suddenly plunged into the rarified atmosphere of the state semifinals. Only three other teams left. And boy, they must have been awfully good to get here.
"And Poly was there because of Hunter Enis, who was so skilled that in college, at Texas Christian, he would make all-Southwest Conference and eventually play quarterback in the National Football League. Enis had passed for 1,111 yards and it didn’t matter that Poly had been beaten badly, 34-0, by San Angelo, or that the Parrots had lost three other games. Those were early in the season.
"The game was in Fort Worth, at 20,000-seat Farrington Field, the biggest stadium in which any of the Abilene Eagles had ever played. Around 2,500 Eagle students and fans made the trip and of course the Victory Bell was there. Thousands more listened on the radio at home, anxious to see if the Eagles could survive Hunter Enis and get into a state championship game for the first time since 1931 . . ."
The 1954 Eagles survived. They beat Poly, 46-0. Hunter Enis finished nine-for-20 for 99 yards with three interceptions, and Poly collected only 15 yards rushing and 10 first downs. It was a confidence-builder. But oh my gosh, now they had to play Houston Austin, whose QB Vince Matthews was supposed to be better than Hunter Enis . . .
That is the kind of excitement that stirs in the minds of Abilenians this week, who can't wait for Saturday, even if Katy has players who can leap tall buildings at a single bound. I saw a picture of a Katy player in the Houston Chronicle today who was roughly the dimensions of DeMarcus Ware.
This is so much fun. Thank you, 2009 Eagles. A lot of people, even a lot of Abilenians, don't give a hoot about football and wonder now, as they did in the 1950s, what the fuss is about. I can only say that if you are an Abilenian who likes football, winning a state championship gets into your blood, and it never goes away.
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