I began doing Howard Payne basketball in 1964. Howard Payne, starting in the 1950s and continuing into the 1960s, played The University of Texas. Yeah, the Longhorns, and we played them 10 consecutive seasons.

Most of the ones in the 50s and up to the early 60s were pretty well dominated by the Longhorns. Of course, the Jackets started getting real good in the early 60s. So, in ’64, we go to Gregory Gym and I knew ahead of time that this was one of the last two games these teams would play.

They played that night in Gregory Gym on the UT campus in Austin and Leon Black, who was head coach at Texas, made a commitment to Glen Whitis, who was the head coach at Howard Payne, that they would return the game to Brownwood’s brand-new coliseum the next season.

That night in Gregory Gym, Howard Payne and the University of Texas were about dead even at halftime.

The Jackets had two outstanding players that season. One of them was Dan Smith from Denton, Texas, truly one of the best I’ve seen in person. He was a great defender, a great rebounder, a great passer, a great shooter. He was the full package. The other one was Eddie Nelson. Eddie was one of the first black players at Howard Payne and was having a tremendous year. He had dominated in most ballgames. He and Smith were THE players on that team. The two of them were either first or second in both scoring and rebounding.

Smith got three early fouls in the game and sat out a lot of the first half, came back, and right before halftime he got his fourth foul. In the opening two minutes of the second half, Dan Smith was out of the game. Eddie Nelson and the rest of those Jackets fought their tails off and ended up tied in regulation. We got beat in overtime, but we knew that the next year, with as many good ones as we had coming back and the recruits coming in, and playing in the coliseum, we thought we had a great shot at them.

The only thing that Leon Black required was the game be played during the Christmas break so the student body wouldn’t be there, but we still had a very big crowd that night. It was little Howard Payne and the giant, The University of Texas, playing in Brownwood. I was so excited for the game because I knew we were going to whip them and get all of the publicity in the world.

But, instead, we stunk up the place. I don’t know what it was. Maybe we were just too wound up because of who we were playing or maybe when Texas came out with those burnt orange uniforms we got intimated or whatever, but we didn’t play worth a flip.

Texas ended up beating us by about 20. Later on that season, we beat North Texas in the coliseum then rolled to the national tournament. Those were the glory days for Howard Payne men’s basketball and with one of my favorites, Nadir Dalleh, now in charge of the Jackets, my hope is not to play the Longhorns again, but I do hope some more glory days for the Jackets are right around the corner.

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].