I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you, but it has been a pleasant shock to me. I have become a REAL Brownwood Lion fan! This happened in our last ballgame and I’ve never done this before, but I am going to take you on a little trip.
This is a guy, talking about myself, who was very close to all seven State Championship teams. This was a town that really didn’t care about football. One team went to the playoffs all those years, and we would have good ball clubs but they weren’t that good and never accomplished anything state wide. Then, Gordon Wood showed up and I fell in love with the guy. In 1963 we had already won one State Championship and I stuck that in my hat and bragged about it. Then number two came in ‘65, number three in ’67, number four in ’69, number five in ’70, number six in ’78, with ’77 being a State runner up. Then, ’81 we won our seventh State Championship. We had seven State Championships, eight State Championship game appearances and I loved every one of them!
Then, different coaches came in and I didn’t love any of them the way I loved Coach Wood. Things started changing and you know, except for 2010 which I thought should have been a State Championship team and most people agreed. Well, then things really got strange and I came to this year and really I kind of floated around when I stopped broadcasting and made sure I knew where the practice fields were and how often they were practicing and things like that, but I wasn’t very close to the ball club.
Then came this year. I couldn’t have told you five players on this team, maybe not three. I’m just not close to them. I’m not close to the staff.
I’m not close to anything that I’m talking about except this team was different. It started off and I don’t think we scored the first two games did we? We started off 0-2 and I was embarrassed to tell anyone I even used to be a Brownwood Lion. I didn’t see anything in this team, which part of them went to Early and thank goodness most of them stayed here. I couldn’t find anything about this team to grab hold of, to love, to care about them. Then we go to the stadium and we end up playing China Spring and I remembered them and they were really good and beat us really bad before. We played them and 20-10 we win! I didn’t tell anybody. The following week we had an easy game against the team down on the coast – Ingleside. Now, we’ve won two straight. I don’t know how good China Spring is and I do know how bad the other team is so we are dead even, but our District is about to start and it starts with Lampasas.
Now Lampasas is not a known power, but they have been. They are in the top ten this year. Harris Rating had them favored by twenty-five over us and they are usually pretty accurate, so they are favored over us and by a good margin. So, I’m listening on the radio and watching on the computer because I physically can’t go to the ballgames any more. I listened as best I could and the score at the start of the ballgame is 14-0 and we haven’t done anything to half-way stop these people. Goodness knows I didn’t know what was going to happen. I turned the radio off and then turned it back on and it’s 14-7. We jockey back and forth and its 21-20 at halftime. I said, “What’s up with this team? They aren’t running and hiding.” They have a one point game at the half. Then, we go up 28-20 and I just can’t believe it. Our kids are standing toe-to-toe with them, trading blows with them, and all of that! Then, we get down toward the end and with about two minutes to go they score and they go ahead of us. I said, “I’m at least going to get a little bit out of this. I think this is a great performance about a team that I didn’t know anything about!
Now, there’s two minutes to go and a bad team, a weak team, and stuff like that would have gone into hiding right about then, maybe lose by two touchdowns instead of four. What happens? Brownwood goes in the last two minutes and they go about eighty yards for a touchdown! I mean they had to overcome some stuff too.
The main thing to know is this. In the final two minutes, really 1:50 or so, the Lions went all the way down the field and scored a touchdown then went for two. We were ahead and overcame all sorts of obstacles and now we were ahead in the last 18 seconds of the game. All we had to do was hold on and we did. The final score was 42 to 39, but Brownwood won! Brownwood won! I was like half the people in Brownwood and didn’t know what to do – we won!
A team that was favored over us failed to cash in. Brownwood had won and I’m excited as can be! This team that everybody gave up on, probably weeks ago, WON! It’s hard to say and it’s hard to believe. This team WON. Now, I don’t care they may not win another game this year, but by golly they may win every one of them.
Against all odds, with a town that really isn’t supporting them that well, it’s unbelievable to me that the Brownwood Lions won that ballgame. I don’t think it will be the last time that we celebrate!
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].