As we approach a new year, I want to look back on the championship games at AT&T Stadium a while back.

Congratulations to the May Tigers! When you make it to that game you have had a terrific season.

I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I’m going to congratulate the Stephenville Yellow Jackets. They won their sixth state championship and they did it in dominating fashion against the No. 1 team in the state. I mean they were absolutely electric in that ballgame. They finished the season 16-0.

But I want to go back a couple of years ago when they made a coaching change. Fact is, it was 2019 and we played them and whipped them bad in Stephenville and they were a mediocre ball club at best. Then last year they got better. They still got beat by all the good teams they played, but still had a winning season. And then this year, they were simply outstanding, start to finish. I tip my cap to them, and it makes me realize that any team can be down, but any team can also get back up.

The most amazing story of the weekend concerns the Brad Bowden family. Brad used to be the head coach at Early and on two different occasions he was an assistant at Brownwood. He has two kids, Tommy and Major, Tommy being the older. Fact is, in Sammy Burnett’s first year at Brownwood, Tommy was the quarterback.

Then the next year, Brad moved to China Spring as the offensive coordinator and his son Major, who played freshman ball at Brownwood, left with him. He was good as a freshman and you could tell what kind of football player he was going to be. This year, China Spring went 16-0 and won the state championship.

But I wonder if this ever happened in the history of the world. That night, the same day that Major won a state championship, his brother’s team, Mary Hardin-Baylor, finished an undefeated run to the national championship. This should be a great Christmas in the Bowden household.

Now before I leave the subject of high school football, I want to touch on the Brownwood Lions because we had back-to-back four-win seasons and that doesn’t set well in Brownwood, and it shouldn’t. Gordon Wood told me the year he retired in Brownwood, when asked about the future, he said, “Dallas, let me tell you something. Brownwood will always have a good football team with good football players.” I think what he was saying without saying it was, the coaches may change but the kids will always be the same and Brownwood should always have good football teams. I believe we are about to be very good again. Fact is, I will be very disappointed if we are not very good, very quickly.

I have memories of two New Year’s Day bowl games when I was much younger, one of them from the 50s and one of them from the 60s.

The one from the 50s featured the Rice Owls against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Cotton Bowl and Rice had a running back named Dicky Maegle. He shakes loose in that ballgame and goes around right end and he is heading up the sideline. Suddenly, an Alabama player runs from the bench onto the field and KO’s him. Of course, flags were flying and I’m not sure the officials knew what to do. They go together and after several minutes they awarded Rice the touchdown. They went on beat Alabama.

By the way, back then all the bowl games were played on New Year’s Day – Cotton, Rose, Sugar, and Orange – and there were few others. Now you have a bowl game or two every night on ESPN.

My other game was the ’63 Rose Bowl between Wisconsin and USC. Southern Cal had a beast of a team. They led Wisconsin midway in the fourth quarter 42-14. Now those were the days when you didn’t throw the ball every play unless you absolutely had to, and Wisconsin got in a position where they had to. It was one of the great comebacks I have ever seen in college football.

The quarterback was named Ron Vander Kelen for Wisconsin. He got hot and all of a sudden, in the last minute of that ballgame it was 42-37. The onside kick didn’t work and Southern Cal won the game, but what a game it was.

I will close by saying this. No matter what your 2021 was like, I hope your 2022 is better.

Until next time, so long everybody.

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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].