Nowadays, it is seldom you hear of high school teams playing their games on Thanksgiving Day. I think it’s mostly because of all the college games that are played on Thanksgiving and with the NFL games, including the Cowboys, playing then as well.
In the old days that wasn’t the case. Fact is, back in the 60s in particular, Coach Wood wanted to play on Thanksgiving Day. So, if we won a coin toss, we always played on turkey day. He loved to play on Thanksgiving and right in the middle of the afternoon.
On this particular Thanksgiving in the late 60s, we were playing some Lubbock school for the bi-district championship. Back then, bi-district occurred two weeks later than now because there are two extra playoff games now. The first round of the playoffs was always on Thanksgiving weekend.
Anyway, we were in Sweetwater playing our game. Wasn’t a difficult game. We won by 35-40 points. Ken Schulze and I were broadcasting the ballgame. It turned out that there was also also an area playoff game in Bangs later that evening. So Ken decided that we would do a doubleheader. No problem except lunch ran a wee bit on the long side.
We did the ballgame in Sweetwater, waited around a bit, then hopped in the car, left and went to this restaurant in Sweetwater that was having a Thanksgiving meal. It turned out that everybody else decided to go as well so it took a long time to eat.
We finally got back to the car and we head to Bangs at a fairly good clip. It was apparent that it was going to be a very close call to get to Bangs on time. When we got to the stadium in Bangs, and it was so tight time wise, that we literally pulled up in the parking lot and just jumped out of the car. Each of us had an equipment bag.
We went running into the stands and up the stairs as the National Anthem was playing. We went headlong into the press box, plugged the phone in, and basically turned around and said, “Welcome to Bangs” on the radio. By the way, we never tried to do a doubleheader on Thanksgiving after this.
I have so much to be thankful for and I know if you give it some thought, you will probably feel the same. I am thankful that I am allowed to write these columns, for the people at Howard Payne and Brownwood High who have meant so much to me for all these years, to our church in Center City and our Monday Night Bible Study, and to so many people that I won’t try to name because I would leave so many out.
And finally, I am thankful for my wife, Linda, who is my everything, to my loving family, and especially to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Until next time, so long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].