Sobriquet

Obviously you have to have talented players. As legendary TCU coach Abe Martin liked to say, “Yew kain’t win without the hosses.†That’s fine for the major college programs and for the NFL. They can entice with recruiting pitches or simply draft the talent they want. But high schools generally have to go with the kids that grow up in their back yard. And it isn’t logical to think that for years and decades at a time the kids who grow up in one neighborhood are just naturally going to be more talented than the kids from the neighborhood down the road. So why does one school produce dominant teams year after year? Why is it that some schools never seem to be competitive? Is it the coaching? Are the dominant schools so successful because they have the coaches and the system that makes better use of whatever talent happens to walk in the door?

They were called "The Zing Along Gang" because the offense was so overpowering. As I recall, the All District Offensive team was practically the Stark starting line-up, with the Tigers supplying 9 of the 11 positions. And I think they had 5 out of 11 on the Defense. In district play that year, 1962, the other five teams scored a total of 12 points against Stark. Of those five, only one team held the Tigers to less than 40 points. The "zing along" tag was inspired by the TV show "Sing Along With Mitch" which featured a choir of about 30 male voices that was called the Sing Along Gang. The show had a brief bit of popularity, but is now long since forgotten. Year after year, we at Stark didn't have a lot of athletic success to cheer about. The handful of bright moments meant a lot to us. And still do, even a lifetime later.

Orange Stark 1. David Foster 2. Hogan Wharton 3. Frank Beachamp 4. Chachie Owens 5. Curtis Hodge 6. Billy Fisette 7. Dan Sears 8. Dickie Colburn 9. C. E. Riggs 10. R. C. Slocum Honorable Mention: Allen Daniel Jack McClelland Kenneth Eads Mike O’Quinn

Bill Hammond He was from Denton, too. (A fine young coach is dead--from the Port Arthur News)

Some of us still remember. > > >

David Foster hadn't broken his collarbone in the Bay City game.

True enough. But somewhere in the U.S. there are two or three high school football players who one day will win the Heisman Trophy. And there are also some HS players out there who will one day be in the NFL Hall of Fame. Having someone like that on the HS team does tend to have an impact. And it also tends to inspire the other guys to play to a higher level than they might otherwise attain.

I understand there's something called "reviewing a call." Has something to do with looking at video's. Could someone explain to me what it means?

One of the bowl games, several years ago. Penn State got the benefit of the bad call. Don't recall who the other team was.

Who won the game? The team that had the most points on the scoreboard when time expired? Or the other team that put the ball in the end zone on the last play of the game, but had the touchdown disallowed by a really bad call by the refs? Note: It wasn’t a close call. The player was clearly in the end zone and it’s incomprehensible how any of the officials could have thought otherwise.

Here’s a question for all you HS football experts. Especially for you experts with recent experience in HS football. I’m going to describe a trick play and ask, “Could this play be run in the modern game? Would the officials allow it? And would the other team be fooled? Let’s start with a little historical background. One thing must be understood. There once was an occasion when a HS team really did run this play. It really happened. And when the QB crossed the goal line with the ball the officials scored it as a touchdown. It didn’t happen in Texas, and most of you weren’t even born at the time. In fact, maybe your parents hadn’t yet been born. As best I recall the game was between two in schools in Nebraska or Kansas or somewhere in that general area. The year was either 1961 or 1962. The players at one of the schools concocted this play and during the game persuaded their very reluctant coach to let them try it. In the news item that came down on the AP wire service afterward the coach was quoted as saying, “I didn’t think it would work.†My understanding was that this was a completely original play worked up by the players. No one in the history of football had ever done anything like this before, and as far as I know it has never been repeated. And it has undoubtedly been forgotten by everyone except for characters like myself who have weird memories and unusual powers of retaining useless facts. It was a remarkable play, which was why AP picked up the story and sent it down the wire to all their newspaper subscribers. OK, here’s how the play was run. The team broke from the huddle and formed their line of scrimmage. Everyone was set and all that remained was for the ball to be snapped and the play would be in motion. The QB was calling signals just like normal. Suddenly, according to plan, the QB pointed to a player on the other team and yelled, “Hey, you can’t do that. That’s a penalty.†And then to the center, “Give me the ball, there’s a penalty.†The center, as planned, didn’t move and the QB yelled again, “Give me the ball.†And then slowly, as if bewildered and confused, the center lifted the ball off the ground, straightened up and twisting his upper body around handed the ball to the QB. Nobody else on the offense had moved and at that point the play was in motion. Naturally they had previously alerted the officials to what they were going to do. And with the play now in motion the rest of the offense started standing up and staring in well acted amazement at the QB and giving each other confused looks. By this time the QB was acting like a man out of his mind. Yelling things like, “Football is a game of rules and when you break the rules you get penalized.†And more importantly, toeing up to the line of scrimmage, he started stepping off penalty yardage against the other team just the way an official would have stepped it off. And all the while the other players were yelling things to each other like: “What does he think he’s doing.†“You talk to him. You’re his buddy.†“Joe, what do you think you’re doing? You’re going to get us penalized.†All this and turning to their own bench and giving arms spread out shrugs as if to say, “I don’t know what’s going on? And the other team didn’t know what was going on either. They also stood up and just watched in confusion as the QB walked right through their defense, stepping off the penalty yardage and yelling like a maniac. Of course once he was through he suddenly stopped yelling and walking, and broke into a dead run for the goal line. And his teammates, in their milling about confusion, had managed to move along with him, enough so that they could block out any of the defenders who might suddenly wise up and take off in pursuit. The QB raced all the way to the end zone and it was scored as a touchdown. It really happened—45 years or so ago. And maybe the point of telling it is not so much to ask if it could be done again. But rather because it’s just too good a piece of football history to be forgotten.