Friday, August 13, 2010

Texas Tidbits : The Greatest HS Football Game Ever

Plano East Panthers
John Tyler Lions
High School football is a big deal in Texas. Just ask a Texan. Small towns all over the Lone Star State roll up the sidewalks in anticipation of the big game on Friday night. All across the state on Friday night, stadiums smell of hot dogs and tortilla chips with  yellow Elmer's Glue-looking "pasteurized cheese product" globbed all over them pretending to be nachos amongst other not-qualified-to-be-on-the-school-lunch-menu goodies. The sounds of HS football venue on game night are familiar to anybody who has ever attended one of these contests - cheerleaders cheering, children begging Dear Old Dad for some cash flow to blow on the aforementioned nachos and the Home Team band playing (I'm being charitable here) a pretty bad version
of "Louie, Louie". Over 30,000 (not a typo, thirty thousand) people were at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas on November 26, 1994, for the playoff game between the Plano East Panthers and the Tyler John Tyler Lions in what has been called "The Greatest High School Football Game Ever". I find that assessment pretty dang accurate. The video at the link bears me out. Here's the setting : 4th Quarter, 2:42 to play and John Tyler leads 41-17. Click here for the most incredible finish to any sporting event you've ever seen. Or likely ever see again. Stay with it to the end or like many of the folks who left the game early, you'll be sorry.

6 comments:

  1. The Louie Louie comment is pretty funny and so true.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Anon ! We have all experienced that moment, haven't we?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was fortunate enough to find that game on the radio about midway through the fourth quarter.
    While it was a great finish, the game itself wasn't that great til near the end. What made this game so much fun was the announcers. They got a bit of stardom from the call and got roles in the movie Necessary Roughness as announcers.
    Any game in the history of Texas High School Football to make the claim as the greatest of all time is purely subjective.
    There was a really good one played at the new Cowboy stadium last November, South Lake Carroll, the mythical National Champions for three consecutive years, played this against Allen. There were upwards of 45,000 people at this game.
    SLC played in a memorable state championship game several years ago at the old Texas stadium. The QB showed what it means to gut it out.
    Some of us who were around then, still think the 1963 San Antonio Lee-San Antonio Brackenridge bi-district football game was the greatest high school game ever played in Texas. I got to see Warren McVea in action, as he and my oldest brother went to UofH the same year on football scholarships and he was the most amazing running back I had ever seen, at that time.
    I am a 'homer' and have seen my old high school play some great games in the past, like the 13-12 victory over Odessa Permian. This game was written about in the book "Friday Night Lights. Then there was Marshall's state championship game in 1990 at the Houston Astrodome. What a game, the final score was 21-19 Marshall(wearing all white).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Forgot to mention, Allen High school, reminds us how important football is to our communities.
    They recently approved a bond issue for a new stadium for $60million, in these strange economic times.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I posted a human interest story at Nuke's yesterday.
    Thought you might like to read it.
    LSU Football Player’s Inspiring Story.

    ReplyDelete

Copyright ©

All Original Material © Toby Shoemaker