1A Sixman Rankings After Week 1

By: Randy Savage Jr.

As to be expected, there was a good bit of movement in the rankings after Week 1 of the 2015 Sixman season. As new Coaches get time with their teams, and new players in key starting positions get more experience, I expect that later in the season when we look back, it will be clear that many games could have certainly gone a different direction. 

Division I		Division II
Rank	Team	Rank	Team
1	Borden County	1	Richland Springs
2	Happy	2	Calvert
3	Blum	3	Jonesboro
4	Crowell	4	Balmorhea
5	Knox City	5	Mt. Calm
6	Valley	6	Guthrie
7	Abbott	7	Paducah
8	Garden City	8	Walnut Springs
9	Zephyr	9	Motley County
10	Gordon	10	Follett
11	Grady	11	Loraine
12	Ira	12	Groom
13	Rochelle	13	Throckmorton
14	Sterling City	14	Rising Star
15	Meadow	15	Mullin
16	Strawn	16	Buena Vista
17	Newcastle	17	Sands
18	Nazareth	18	Grandfalls-Royalty
19	Robert Lee	19	Oakwood
20	Santa Anna	20	Jayton
21	Milford	21	Blanket
22	Water Valley	22	Southland
23	Hermleigh	23	Iredell
24	Marfa	24	Lefors
25	May	25	Oglesby
26	Petersburg	26	Dawson
27	Coolidge	27	Forestburg
28	Highland	28	Chillicothe
29	Miami	29	Lueders-Avoca
30	Spur	30	Blackwell
31	Klondike	31	Sierra Blanca
32	Rankin	32	Trinidad
33	Anton	33	McLean
34	Tioga	34	Harrold
35	Rotan	35	High Island
36	Savoy	36	Panther Creek
37	Ropes	37	Whitharral
38	Aquilla	38	Rule
39	Aspermont	39	Sidney
40	Whiteface	40	Cherokee
41	O'Donnell	41	Amherst
42	Westbrook	42	Cranfills Gap
43	Evant	43	Higgins
44	Covington	44	Kress
45	New Home	45	Woodson
46	Paint Rock	46	Wellman-Union
47	Eden	47	Silverton
48	Leverett's Chapel	48	Trent
49	Campbell	49	Sanderson
50	Lingleville	50	Lazbuddie
51	Lometa	51	Morgan
52	White Deer	52	Wilson
53	Hart	53	Buckholts
54	Saint Jo	54	Fort Elliott
55	Chester	55	Cotton Center
56	Medina	56	Northside
57	Gholson	57	Moran
58	Avalon	58	Patton Springs
59	Bynum	59	Loop
60	Bryson	60	Fannindel
61	Fort Davis	61	Dell City
62	Gustine	62	Paint Creek
63	Veribest	63	Hedley
64	Apple Springs	64	Lohn
65	Kopperl	65	Benjamin
66	Lorenzo	66	Gold-Burg
67	Union Hill	67	Brookesmith
68	Penelope	68	Prairie Lea
69	Irving Universal Academy

It All Starts Today!

The 2015 Texas high school football season officially kicks off today. Stick with us for live scores from around the state. If you are attending a game or listening on the radio you can keep us up-to-date using our LIVE SCORE TRACKER http://lonestarfootball.net/Live

We also want to take this opportunity to invite anyone interested in submitting photos from the game to email us at data@lonestarfootball.net. We would be happy to share your work in our gallery, team pages, and possibly on our home page. At the same time we ask anyone that wishes to send us previews or recaps of games to also contact us at the email address above. We are always looking for willing writers.

Thanks for visiting our site and good luck!

2015 Preliminary - UIL 1A Sixman Rankings

By: Randy Savage Jr.

About 15 years ago, in the late 90's and through 2000, I posted rankings each week on my own site called SixmanWeekly.com. After a couple years of being a part of LSFN, I have decided to dust off the old system and take a stab at it again. Soon we hope to be able to integrate the rankings into the individual team pages. I will also be doing previews for Big Games in 1A Sixman each week. 

Division I		Division II
Rank	Team	Rank	Team
1	Borden County	1	Richland Springs
2	Crowell	2	Calvert
3	Zephyr	3	Jonesboro
4	Gordon	4	Mt. Calm
5	Robert Lee	5	Guthrie
6	Abbott	6	Follett
7	Valley	7	Loraine
8	May	8	Throckmorton
9	Knox City	9	Walnut Springs
10	Blum	10	Groom
11	Hermleigh	11	Motley County
12	Rochelle	12	Balmorhea
13	Sterling City	13	Paducah
14	Strawn	14	Jayton
15	Water Valley	15	Mullin
16	Happy	16	Buena Vista
17	Grady	17	Chillicothe
18	Ira	18	Grandfalls-Royalty
19	Highland	19	Oglesby
20	Garden City	20	Rising Star
21	Newcastle	21	McLean
22	Rankin	22	Lefors
23	Santa Anna	23	Forestburg
24	Rotan	24	Oakwood
25	Milford	25	Blanket
26	Anton	26	Iredell
27	Ropes	27	Lueders-Avoca
28	Aquilla	28	Blackwell
29	Marfa	29	Southland
30	Meadow	30	Sierra Blanca
31	Coolidge	31	Dawson
32	New Home	32	Trinidad
33	Spur	33	High Island
34	Klondike	34	Sands
35	Petersburg	35	Panther Creek
36	Miami	36	Harrold
37	Aspermont	37	Whitharral
38	Whiteface	38	Rule
39	O'Donnell	39	Amherst
40	Nazareth	40	Cranfills Gap
41	Westbrook	41	Higgins
42	Evant	42	Cherokee
43	Covington	43	Kress
44	Savoy	44	Woodson
45	Paint Rock	45	Sidney
46	Lometa	46	Loop
47	Eden	47	Wellman-Union
48	Leverett's Chapel	48	Silverton
49	Tioga	49	Trent
50	Campbell	50	Northside
51	White Deer	51	Sanderson
52	Hart	52	Lazbuddie
53	Saint Jo	53	Fort Elliott
54	Gustine	54	Patton Springs
55	Lingleville	55	Fannindel
56	Chester	56	Buckholts
57	Medina	57	Wilson
58	Avalon	58	Cotton Center
59	Bryson	59	Paint Creek
60	Bynum	60	Hedley
61	Veribest	61	Morgan
62	Gholson	62	Lohn
63	Apple Springs	63	Karnack
64	Fort Davis	64	Moran
65	Kopperl	65	Benjamin
66	Lorenzo	66	Gold-Burg
67	Union Hill	67	Brookesmith
68	Penelope	68	Prairie Lea
69	Irving Universal Academy

The Waterboy, 1920s Style

By Rick Sherrod - The Tale of Wayne “Chicken” McCluskey    

We all fondly remember Adam Sandler’s portrayal of Bobby Boucher, a waterboy who, after unlocking his Medula Oblongata, goes on to become the terror of the fictional South Central Louisiana State Mud Dogs’ linebacker corps.


But did you know that during the 1920s, there was a real waterboy, Wayne “Chicken” McCluskey (Nov. 17, 1906 – April 2, 1962)*? His story comes down to us today as an interesting footnote in books about Texas high school football history? Indeed, albeit with a few critical differences, McCluskey’s story even somewhat mimics the waterboy-turned-into-player version of Adam Sandler’s movie character.


McCluskey’s association with football began at Stephenville High School. The diminutive fourteen-year-old appears in the 1921-1922 high school year book,The Aviator, pictured alongside principal and Yellow Jacket head football coach, J. C. Dykes. In that same annual, McCluskey’s smiling face appears (far left, second row from the bottom) as part of the “Class of 1926”—the 8th graders at SHS that school year.


One yearbook summary page rehearses in detail the Class B Yellow Jackets’ 4-5-1 season, including a cryptic reference to a rather embarrassing and still-standing school record. “De Leon’s splendid team carried us away to the tune of 122-0.” The final three lines of this same page pay tribute to McCluskey, declaring “Do not forget our mascot, ‘Chicken’ McCluskey, who did much to keep the spirit in the boys thru the season and who is very much appreciated by them as well as Coach Dykes.”


Yellow Jacket fortunes marginally improved in 1922. The team ended its season with a record of 5-5-0. Page 46 of the 1922-1923 Aviator finds the pensive fifteen-year-old freshman, McCluskey, seated squarely on the bottom row of that year’s team photo. Immediately before him is the SHS water bucket bearing his nickname, “Chicken.” 



Above are the 1922 Stephenville Yellow Jackets. Front row and center is fifteen-year-old freshman waterboy, Wayne McCluskey.


The 1924 and 1925 Yellow Jackets continued to improve, enjoying back-to-back winning seasons (8-1 and 6-3, respectively). The 1924 team even brought Stephenville its first district title and playoff run. Alas, Wayne McCluskey’s personal goings and comings from 1924-1925 are largely lost to history. Stephenville High School produced no yearbooks from the 1923-1924 through the 1936-1937 school years.


Evidently, during those years McCluskey (like Bobby Boucher) abandoned his waterboy duties and donned the shoulder pads, such as they were in the 1920s. If he didn’t do so for Stephenville, by the fall of 1926 he was doing it for Dallas Oak Cliff. If that date sounds suspect, it should. Assuming “The Chicken’s” academic career moved forward on schedule, he should have graduated high school (presumably SHS) in the spring of 1926—at least three months before the kickoff of the 1926 high school football season. Whenever, wherever, or even whether he graduated, McCluskey is found in the 1926-1927 Oak Cliff year book, listed among those scheduled to graduate in the spring of 1927.**


McCluskey’s cameo appearance helps to explain an account related by Harold V. Ratliff, the Texas Associated Press sports editor commonly known as “Mr. Schoolboy Football.” Among many other things, Ratliff’s Autumn’s Mightiest Legions—his 1963, first-ever narrative history of Texas high school football—addresses the issue of suspect eligibility during the opening decade of UIL supervision of this new sport. In Chapter IX, “The Tigers Roll On,” Ratliff sketches the 1926 Waco Tiger title run that brought Waco High School its third state championship in a compact five seasons. In that year’s final, Waco played Dallas Oak Cliff for the second time in three years. In brutal 1924 weather conditions just two years earlier, the Tigers sustained an embarrassing 31-0 defeat and were eager to redress the balance in 1926.


In fact, Oak Cliff was fortunate just to be in that year’s final. Starting in mid-November and continuing all the way to the day of the championship game itself, multiple schools (Paschal, Ranger, Cleburne, and 1925 finalist Dallas Forest Avenue) sought to have the Leopard eligibility revoked. And very real Oak Cliff issues did exist.


Indeed, statewide at least a few schools tried everything from ingenious sleights of hand to outright deception to evade rapidly-evolving eligibility requirements regarding residency, age, attendance, grades, and other legitimate considerations. Even still today, there abound stories about 1920s Lone Star football where sixteen year-olds lined up across from fully-bearded, heavily-muscled twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three year-old “Encores” (graduates who returned home to be welcomed back to their former high school teams).


The precise details of the nineteen-year-old “Chicken” McCluskey’s migration into the Oak Cliff football program remain obscure. What we do know is that he played on the 1926 Oak Cliff team. We also know that Ranger, after losing 25-7 to Oak Cliff in the semifinal, subsequently filed a protest to the State Committee, declaring Leopard head coach, Howard Allen, had played several ineligible athletes in the semifinal contest. One of them was McCluskey (who, by that particular game, had turned age twenty). But age was neither the only nor the most important consideration.


About this debacle, Harold Ratliff writes: “Ranger had charged that Wheeler Smith, Wayne McCluskey and John Hall had violated the transfer rule. . . . Ranger said Smith came from Fulton, Missouri, Hall from El Paso, and McCluskey from Stephenville and they had not been properly certified to the state office under the transfer rule” (Autumn’s Mightiest Legions, p. 39). And Ranger was completely right. As remains today the style of coaches hoping to get all their players—especially seniors—into the late-round playoff contests, Oak Cliff’s coach cleared his bench before the semifinal’s end. In so doing, he had played several athletes for whom the required “transfer slips” had never been filed.


In what sounds hauntingly familiar to the invalidation of the 1998 Katy Tiger semifinal win—the result of playing a reserve who had hidden his academic ineligibility from his coach—Oak Cliff was similarly and justifiably exposed to the Ranger accusations. The principal difference between the two examples resided in the fact that Ranger’s protest arrived in Austin on the very day that Oak Cliff played Waco in the final.


“ Chicken” McCluskey was among those transfers whose paperwork never had been filed. Of course, by 1926 he had probably grown a bit since, at age fourteen, his yearbook picture alongside Coach Dykes showed him more than a head shorter than his Yellow Jacket mentor. Still, as his Oct. 8, 1942 draft registration documents attests€ McCluskey, at his tallest, was never any more than 5’ 8.” Something, however, compelled the highly competitive Leopards—contestants in the finals of 1921, 1924, and 1926—to welcome him into their ranks.


Whatever role McCluskey might have played during the 1926 season, UIL did not approve. Page 2, column 2 of the January 1927 Interscholastic Leaguer (vol. X, no. 5) specifically mentioned him and the other Oak Cliff players whose eligibility had been challenged. Regarding “The Chicken,” the Leaguer wrote:


“Wayne McClusky [sic]: Ineligible under Section 14 for the reason that he changed from the Stephenville High School to the Oak Cliff High School at the close of the 1925 football season, and no transfer certificate for him was filed, as required in the rule above referred to. He was ineligible at Stephenville for Interscholastic League contests at the time of his withdrawal from Stephenville, according to a signed statement from Superintendent T. A. Parker. Superintendent Parker refused to sign a transfer certificate for him when the same was submitted to him by this office.”€€


Citing Section 11, Article VIII, UIL’s State Committee suspended Oak Cliff (albeit temporarily, as was later decided) from the high school football season of 1927.


What truly brought McCluskey to Oak Cliff may never be entirely proven. We can speculate, however, that poor grades at SHS or the end of his football career as a Yellow Jacket—perhaps both—left him wanting one last opportunity to play again. “The Chicken’s” proximity to a Stephenville program beginning to experience success probably gave him a taste for playoff action. Simultaneously, the recent and consistent Leopard success just 85 or so miles to the northeast no doubt lured him in the direction of Dallas.


Exactly where McCluskey made the transition from waterboy to player cannot be precisely pinpointed. But the team spirit he exhibited as an 8th grader on the sidelines would undoubtedly have translated into an asset for any team in Texas. If his smallness in stature calls into question his on field effectiveness, he would not have been the first undersized overachiever to lay a Bobby Boucher-style hits on opposing players.


But then, as now, the rules must be followed. The annoyance of bureaucracy and paperwork notwithstanding, attention to the details can spare a program a world of hurt if executed in an honest and timely manner.


*McCluskey is buried in Stephenville’s West End Cemetery— Findagrave.com Link

**See McCluskey Ancestry.com Link

€ See WWII Ancestry.com Link

€€ On the UIL ruling against Oak Cliff, see PDF Link .