Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceage007
Good read here, sounds like a great game.
I had mentioned in a post long ago that my friends dad played on that Brack team (Floyd Boone).
I remember him showing me the yearbook for the year Brack won state.
This was when I was in 10th grade and I had no interest in SA history like I do now,
I would have loved to hear some of those stories from his dad.
The best high school game I ever saw was when Jay finally beat Holmes, think that was in 89 or 90...not sure on the year.
|
spaceage - Floyd Boone is quoted several times in the article.
I copied the entire story from that Dallas paper back in 99.
Here are a few more excerpts, (it's a long article):
"But I really didn't think it would be a high-scoring game," Baer recalls. "Our defense had only given up 62 points all season."
The Volunteers, who outweighed Brack by an average of 20 pounds a man, were projected as favorites. But the defending state champions weren't intimidated.
"We weren't just representing Brackenridge," says Boone, the Eagles' fullback. "We were representing our own. We knew where we came from and we knew we had something to hold up."
The big game
No one on either team, however, was prepared for what awaited on game night. When the teams took the field for warm-ups, the stadium was packed, with portable bleachers pushing capacity beyond 26,000.
On one side were Lee's fans, dressed in the school's red and gray. On the other was a sea of Brackenridge purple. Each starter was introduced on TV. Lee's Townsend remembers being acutely aware of the TV cameras well into the first quarter.
"I can still feel the crowd," Boone says. "They were so close to us that night. If you ran out of bounds, you'd run over somebody."
Brack's Forren had two surprises. The first was sprung when Lee made its traditional entrance, sprinting behind a student carrying a Confederate flag.
"I got one of our kids, a small, black guy, to dress up in a Union Army suit," Forren recalls with a chuckle. "He ran right behind, carrying an American flag. That went over pretty big with our fans."
***********************************
Floyd Boone and Edward Coleman grew up with McVea near Lincoln Courts, a West Side housing project. They say McVea was by far the best athlete at Grant Elementary, then Dunbar Junior High.
In 1962, McVea's junior season, the Eagles lost three of their first six games. But behind McVea and the passing of senior Victor Castillo, Brackenridge won its final eight games and the state championship - the last by a San Antonio inner-city school.
Castillo, now an assistant principal at Brackenridge, remembers that before the quarterfinal victory at Brownsville, Forren directed the bus to stop at San Benito for lunch. There were no restaurants in Brownsville at which blacks were allowed to eat.
"We really felt the discrimination," says Castillo, who threw for 256 yards in the 30-26 title win over Borger. "It bonded us together."
*****************************
"To me, it was just before the dawning of a new era," says Brack's Boone, who councils parents for the San AntonioSchool District. "I think that was the beginning of the end of that kind of feeling.
"It seemed like our whole world revolved around that night."
McVea's feelings about the game are unknown. He declined a request to be interviewed for this story.
Friends say McVea's life unraveled after his 1976 retirement. A divorce and the death of his parents occurred within a short span.
He had a house with a swimming pool in Houston's Braeswood area. He had two Mercedes and a Cadillac.
But he experienced a series of drug-related arrests beginning in 1987. He also was arrested for trying to bilk 42 chicken dinners from a Houston restaurant. He posed as Oilers wide receiver Tim Smith (who is white), saying he needed the dinners for charity.
McVea's Super Bowl ring wound up in the hands of a drug dealer. He lost his home. He began living in vacant apartments.
"He was the fastest human being in a football suit I've ever seen," says country singer Larry Gatlin. "But he finally found someone he couldn't outrun, and that was the Houston Police Department."
In 1987, Gatlin, who had battled his own drug problems four years earlier, videotaped a plea to a Houston judge to spare McVea of prison. McVea, Gatlin argued, would be better served in a drug rehabilitation center.
McVea had nicknamed Gatlin "Sweet" in college. Gatlin remembers visiting McVea at Austin's FaulknerCenter. The first thing McVea did was pull out an article about the '63 Lee-Brack game.
"All he kept saying," Gatlin remembers, "was 'Sweet, they don't know who I am.' I said, 'Warren, you're a junkie. It doesn't matter who you are. It's not pertinent to your current situation.' "
During McVea's 28 days in rehab, Gatlin and his 10-year-old son, Josh, attended a meeting with McVea. At the end of the meeting, the group leader asked if anyone had anything to add. Josh raised his hand and told everyone that God, rehabilitation and friends helped his daddy overcome drugs.
"If he can do it," Josh told everyone, "you can, too."
"That was one of the most defining moments of my life," Gatlin says. "The moral of the story is this 10-year-old boy got it. Warren still didn't get it."
Two days after leaving the rehab center, McVea tested positive for cocaine and was arrested again. He was paroled two years later, then was convicted of arson.
Despite his '91 arrest and 25-year conviction for cocaine delivery, McVea could get out of prison as early as 2002. He is in Huntsville's Ellis Unit, prisoner No. 639714. He does janitorial work.
According to Glen Castlebury, Huntsville's director of public information, McVea is classified as a state-approved trustee. In general, that means he has been on good behavior and has earned the maximum "good time" credits.
Gatlin hopes so. So do former teammates Castillo, Boone and Coleman and Coach Forren. So does Baer, his lifetime co-star.
"I've never seen anybody run the football like he did," Gatlin says. "No one. He could change directions with both feet off the ground.
"I know we all are human and we all have flaws and chinks in our armor. I hope he's changed his ways and can come back and contribute to society. I love him and pray for him."
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
SA Eateries -Early Beginings
Linear Mode
