Archive : July 2005

July 30, 2005

Football players to report Monday morning

Sweetwater Head Coach Kent Jackson announced that all football players, ninth through 12th grade, should report dressed for a meeting at 6:30 a.m. Monday, Aug. 1.

Workouts will begin at 7 a.m.

Players will practice from 7-9 a.m. and 10 a.m. to noon this week. Jackson is expecting 71 varsity and junior varsity players and 48 freshmen when camp opens.

All high school players will work out in shorts this week. Saturday is the first day the teams can begin practicing in pads.

Also beginning Monday, Sweetwater season ticket holders will be given an opportunity to exercise the option to renew their seats for 2005 Sweetwater Mustang football games.

The option period will be from Aug. 1-12, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and again from 1:30-4 p.m., at the Sweetwater Independent School District (SISD) administration building on 207 Mus-grove St.

Season tickets are $20 for Sweetwater's five home games.

Heralded tailback Devine enrolls at Prosper High

01:34 AM CDT on Saturday, July 30, 2005

By DAMON L. SAYLES / The Dallas Morning News


Highly touted Florida prep running back Noel Devine is now a Prosper High School student.

Prosper football coach and athletic director John Pease said Devine, an incoming junior who attended North Fort Myers (Fla.) High School, enrolled at Prosper on Friday. Devine (5-8, 170) received national attention after former Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders expressed his desire to adopt him and move him to Prosper, which is north of Frisco.

"He's enrolled. He came in today and tried on equipment," Pease said. "He was all smiles."

Devine enrolled at Prosper the same day a report in a Florida newspaper said he was having second thoughts about moving, according to friends. Devine had been living with the family of Robert Harlow Sr., whose son, Robert Jr., played football with Devine.

Devine's legal guardian is his grandmother, Lee Bertha Thomas, and Pease said Thomas gave Sanders custody. Both of Devine's parents are deceased.

Devine could not be reached for comment.

Sanders flew into Florida to pick up Devine, but Lee County officials were called Thursday night to investigate a claim that Devine did not want to leave with Sanders. Deputies checked on Devine's safety, which upset Sanders.

"We were sitting around his grandmother's house having dinner, and the police called," Sanders told The News-Press of southwest Florida. "The grandmother is his legal guardian. How can you kidnap someone from their legal guardian?"

"[Sanders] didn't kidnap the kid. And they wouldn't have let him go if he was wrong," Pease added. "Deion's not going to do anything to jeopardize this."

At North Fort Myers, Devine rushed for 2,700 yards and scored more than 30 touchdowns in his first two varsity seasons.

The News-Press reported Friday that a hearing regarding Devine's guardianship status would take place at 9 a.m. Monday at the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers. The hearing will discuss Sanders becoming Devine's legal guardian. Harlow Sr., however, also wants custody, according to the report in The News-Press.

Pease said Devine's first practice at Prosper is expected to be Aug. 8.

July 29, 2005

It's time for football!!!!

SHS football players to report at 6:30 a.m. Monday

Sweetwater Head Coach Kent Jackson announced that all football players, ninth through 12th grade, should report dressed for a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 1.

Workouts will begin at 7 a.m.

Jackson has sent letters out to each player of the reporting times this week. If a player has not received a letter, they can stop by the fieldhouse and pick one up, Jackson said.

In Summation

Editor's note...
The next two entries were written by David Redwine, Class of 1969 Sweetwater High School. He is writing about the historic game between Lubbock Estacado and Sweetwater on October 17, 1968.

Sweetwater lost that game 7-0 and Lubbock Estacado went on to win the state championship that year. Estacado never had as close a game than the game against the Mustangs. Since Sweetater and Lubbock Estacado were in the same district, Estacado advanced because of that night in October 1968. Later, that Mustang team carried the title "one of the best teams in Mustang history NOT to have gone to the playoffs."

Much has been said about that one game in Sweetwater's history. To this day, players from both Estacado and Sweetwater say that was the hardest fought game they were ever in.

Here now is David Redwine's take on how it affected him, and a large part of his life.

Lew


New!
From: David Redwine 1969 Jul 28 2005 5:33:18PM
To: Catharine Greer 1965
(98) Your LEAST favorite teacher (in reply to 96)

Joe,

That was a very special night. Sometimes now I hold that chin strap and I squeeze it very tight. It is just an inanimate object, leather with some snaps on it, but it has my blood all over it and it was there that night. It is almost like an old friend. I can't tell you how much pain that night caused me over the years. It took twenty two years for Coach Boyd to bury that demon for me. I use to go to the Bowl and walk around on the field and I could remember exact plays that took place and where I was and second guessing why didn't I do this or why didn't I do that. Now I go to the Bowl and watch a game and I just enjoy watching the guys play ball. When I think back about guys like Danny Foust, Robert Rivera, Benny Pace, Make Reed, Barry Davis and so on, I can't believe I got to be a part of that. I know those guys all played on some pretty special teams but at that time people in town talked as if there had never been anything like that night. I will never forget walking down tht ramp that night. I had my helment in my right hand as we went to the bottom of the ramp and usually I would put it on as we ran across the field to the sideline. That night I didn't want to put it on, I wanted to listen to the sound and look at all those people that were there. Even after playing in front of 40,000 people in college I have never had anything that exciting in my life. You know Joe, I thought winning that game and going on to the State Championship was the ultimate prize, but today I don't feel that way. High School football games are won and lost everyday the chance to experience what I did that night is a once in a lifetime thing. The ultimate prize was being there. I was on the field with folks that were so much above my playing ability that I should have been charged admission to be there. It was a great night, for the players, for the school and for the community.

I was told weeks after the game as were all the members of that team not to let 48 minutes of football be the high point in your life. I didn't think I was going to make it for a few years but as nice as the memory of that night is, overall it is way down the list. I have been truly blessed in spite of myself.

David

July 28, 2005

An entry from Classmates.com

Editor's Note**
I have asked permission from David many months ago if I could use his comments for this web site. He has graciously approved any and all comments from Classmates to use here.

Lew

From: David Redwine 1969 Jul 27 2005 10:40:05PM
To: Catharine Greer 1965
(93) Your LEAST favorite teacher (in reply to 91)

Joe,

I have no doubt that being a hero is the last thing on your mind. That is what makes you s special kind of man. I remember the first time a little kid came up to me after a game and asked me for my chin strap. I thought I was pretty special. Then two years ago s man I will not name came into my office and threw a chin strap on my desk. He asked me if I knew what it was. I laughed, I told him I have only seen a million of them. He informed me this was not the first time I had seen this particular chin strap. It was bloody and obviously old and cracked. He told me I gave him that chin strap after the Lubbock Estacado game in 1968. He said you know I was ten years old and I looked at the gash in your chin and I was amazed that you weren't crying. He said you had blood down your neck on to your jersey and a large swelled up knot under your eye and you seemed oblivious to everything that was going on. He told me he never had the size or talent to be a football player but he was in the UIL one act play. He told me that when he got so tired he remembered that night and how amazed he was that a person could forget pain and just go on. Not one time during my athletic career playing football and baseball at the Univesity of Houston did I ever feel like a hero but the day that a fellow Sweetwater High graduate told me he remembered me when he was preparing for the one act play competition I felt like a hero. Being a hero isn't for the hero, it is for the person they are heroes to. Joe, I am a total failure at being a life partner. I don't know why I am so lousy at it, I try very hard but I just don't posses the natural ability to do it and I can't seem to develop it. I have been with some special women that deserve way better than I gave them. I have hurt a lot of people in my life but I was a hero to a kid preparing for a one act play. I will never get that opportunity again. I know you don't care about being a hero probably more especially to me, but you did it any way.

David

July 14, 2005

Sammy Baugh Classic


The field has been set for the first-ever Sammy Baugh Classic to be held at the Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater. Eight teams will play in the three-day classic on Sept. 8-10. Sweetwater will take on Midland Greenwood in the marquee game Friday, Sept. 9. Other teams scheduled to play are Roscoe and Hamlin on Sept. 8; Rotan and Bronte, and Forsan and Hawley on Saturday, Sept. 10. The classic is being held to honor NFL Hall of Famer and Sweetwater graduate Sammy Baugh.

July 13, 2005

Baugh, Turner named to all-time Texas NFL team

Baugh, Turner named to all-time Texas NFL team

Two legendary Hall of Famers -- Sammy Baugh and Clyde "Bulldog" Turner -- represent Sweetwater in the current issue of Dave Campbell's Texas Football magazine on a mythical all-time National Football League team made up solely of players who got their start in the Lone Star state.

Baugh, who played for Sweetwater's district champion 1932 team and went on to play for the Washington Redskins from 1937-1952 and earn the nickname of "Slingin' Sammy," is on the team at both quarterback and punter. He is the only player to ever lead the NFL in passing, punting and interceptions in the same year.

Baugh, who led the league in passing six times, is one of 17 charter members of the NFL Hall of Fame.

The first Sammy Baugh Classic named in his honor will be held here during the third week of the 2005 high school football season.

Turner, who died in 1998, never started a game for Sweetwater but went on to become a Hall of Fame center and linebacker with several great Chicago Bears teams from 1940 to 1952.

He was elected to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1966.

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