Many worthies have already fallen by the wayside. Other scrappy teams have surprised us as they’ve fought their way through several season losses and suddenly find themselves among the remaining Elite Eight. More importantly, at this late date, almost anything can happen.
As we anticipate round #4 weekend action, two examples from days gone by naturally come to mind (at least to my mind, they do). If both teams concerned have seen better days—neither have made it to the semifinals during the 21st century—there was a time when the Plano Wildcats and Odessa’s Permian Panthers took center stage and enjoyed the spotlight.
The Wildcats have been state finalists nine times. On seven of those occasions—1965, 1967, 1971, 1977, 1986-87, and 1994—they restocked the high school trophy case with championship hardware. During roughly the same era of Texas high school football, the Panthers worked a similar magic in western part of the Lone Star State. Permian has been a finalist a record-setting eleven times, winning on six of those occasions (1965, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1989, and 1991).
A host of similarities exist between these two late-20th century football juggernauts. Perhaps the most fascinating one is a hard to pinpoint, ill-described commodity often identified simply as “mystique.” Like many things in life, it defies scientific analysis; it cannot be measured in a test tube; it can scare even be explained . . . but it is nonetheless as real as night and day . . . and it sometimes determines the outcomes of important playoff football contests.
Endless examples exist, but on the eve of the coming 2014 quarterfinal round, the two I like the best originate in Plano and Odessa.
Plano Wildcats
Football historian Bart Benne’s book, The Best High School Football in the Country (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1989), preserves a well-done record of the better part of Plano football’s “Golden Age.” In the introduction to his volume, Benne aptly defines the illusive quality “mystique” as “the games that were won against theoretically stronger opponents, or last-minute comebacks, or miraculous finishes.”
He marshals an avalanche of evidence that would convince even the crustiest of critics, but my favorite illustration springs from the December 3, 1977 quarterfinal contest—the “so called ‘Miracle Game’”—between Plano and its Metroplex rival Highland Park.
If trailing 21-0 at halftime wasn’t enough of a challenge for the Wildcats, the Scots scored yet again in early third quarter play. But the game “ain’t over until it’s over!” Down 28 points, Plano somehow seized that other equally intangible commodity—“momentum”—and turned the game around. Two-third quarter Wildcat touchdowns put Plano within 14 points of the Scots. Wildcat defender Carl Smith subsequently grabbed a Highland Park pitchout and took it sixty-six yards to the house, making it a one-possession contest. Subsequently, the Scots failed to run out the clock, giving Plano one last opportunity. The Wildcats made the most of it. With thirty-three seconds left on the clock, a sixty-one yard flea-flicker pass play took Plano into the Scot end zone for a fourth time. Wildcat Coach Tommy Kimbrough then called for two-point conversion which succeeded, giving Plano a most unlikely 29-28 victory.
The weekend following Plano’s Miracle Game, the Wildcats met a worthy opponent and fellow-football powerhouse in Odessa Permian. At Jones Stadium in Lubbock, Plano punched their ticket to the state final—a game that conferred upon the Wildcats their fourth state championship—but only by a narrow 3-0 margin.
Three years later, the Panthers would also go the distance, getting to their sixth championship contest. There they met the favored Port Arthur Jefferson Yellow Jackets. It became another contest in which “Mystique” would play a decisive role.
Permian Panthers
Before the spectacle of Friday Night Lights (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1990) and Buzz Bissinger’s ascent to national prominence, there was Regina Walker McCally. Her magnificent volume, The Secret of Mojo (self-published, 1986) predates Bissinger’s masterpiece by four years. Her opening chapter, “You Don’t Bet Against Mojo,” is one of the finest scene setters in the body of literature describing Texas high school football.
McCally tells her tale by starting on December 20, 1980. That cold and wintry day, the 5A championship contest took place before 22,179 spectators in Irving’s now-gone Texas Stadium where, prior to Jerry World, the Dallas Cowboys claimed the honor of being “America’s Team.”
The title matchup, pitting Panthers against Yellow Jackets, had much the same texture and feel of the 1977 quarterfinal Miracle Game, only with far worse weather conditions—twenty degree temperatures in whipping winds—making it all the more challenging to score. If Port Arthur’s 19-7 halftime lead was somewhat smaller, the Panther prospects at intermission seemed no less gloomy than those of the Wildcats three seasons before.
As McCally put it, Permian was “outweighed in the line and outgunned in the backfield” (p. 3). The Yellow Jacket offense featured Todd Dodge, the greatest statistic-producing passer in Texas high school history at that point in in time. Yellow Jacket speedster Brent Duhon was on the receiving end of many of his more than 3,000 yards of 1980 pass completions. Port Arthur’s dynamic duo would continue their football careers as Texas Longhorns . . . but before that day arrived . . . there was a high school title game to finish.
Panther coach, John Wilkins, restored composure in a heretofore chaotic halftime locker room, but only by sending coaches, trainers, managers, the team doctor, journalists, and even the sophomore and junior players out of the room. In a calm, quiet voice, he addressed his seniors saying, “This is a dream. It’s what everyone wants. It’s y’all’s dream. But it’s up to you to get it together now. You’ve worked too hard and come too far to quit now. And if you’ll just hang tough, we can win this thing in the fourth quarter!” (pp. 3-4). I suppose that was Wilkins’ way of repeating the Yogi Berra mantra in a somewhat more sophisticated fashion. Whatever the case, his words proved prophetic.
Things looked little better, however, as the Yellow Jackets held Permian for a three and out on the opening Panther series. Port Arthur quickly exploited their opportunity, taking the football to the Permian twenty-six yard line. And then the worm began to turn. The game “ain’t over until it’s over!” Permian safety Mark Glasscock picked off a Todd Dodge pass in the end zone. The subsequent Yellow Jacket possession resulted in a failed twenty-six yard Port Arthur field goal attempt.
The pulse of Mojo began to quicken.
A thirty-seven second, four-play, eighty-yard Panther drive at the end of the third period culminated in Permian’s first score since the early second quarter. The Panther touchdown narrowed the gap to 19-14. But thus the score remained until late in the final quarter. Mystique again took over when Port Arthur fumbled a Permian punt setting up an eight-play Panther drive that gave Odessa a 21-19 lead with only 4:13 left in the contest.
Several subsequent Dodge-to-Duhon passes fell incomplete, pinning Port Arthur down on a fourth-and-one at their own forty-six yard line. Again, Dodge’s next pass fell incomplete setting the stage for apparent Permian victory. But the drama wasn’t over just yet. Panther quarterback—the 136-pound Jerry Hix—lost the football immediately thereafter when a 207-pound Yellow Jacket lineman authoritatively separated Hix from the pigskin. A tired Panther defense returned to the field but nevertheless did their duty, stopping the Yellow Jackets at midfield following a failed Port Arthur fourth-and-twenty-one attempt.
Not only did Permian win the contest. On the final Panther possession, it only took Odessa’s offense three plays to put it into the end zone one last time. With seventy-three seconds remaining, Permian suddenly found itself back in the driver’s seat, leading 28-19. The July 1984 issue of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine would rank the 1980 Permian victory as “the second biggest upset between 1960-1984” (p.12).
Parting Thoughts
As one north-central Texas high school football coach recently and loudly reminded his team with twenty ticks left on the clock: “You’ve got to believe!” In this 2014 round #1 contest, three plays later that team tied the game and went on to win in quadruple overtime.
Are you a believer? Mystique is still out there. It does exist. Enjoy as you watch it at work this weekend. The game “ain’t over until it’s over!” At this late date in the season, virtually every team taking the field of play will stand a chance to win.
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