I’ve been doing Brownwood football – well, Brownwood everything, since 1963 and then I got pushed out by Father Time in 2021. But, in all of those years, Brownwood has only had three real rivals – three.

The first was Breckenridge. We beat them in 1942 I think, probably because most of the kids had gone to fight for their country. That is the only time prior to 1960, and I think they started playing in the 20’s or maybe the 30’s. Breckenridge won every cotton picking game, every one of them until 1960. One game we won! I wasn’t in school when we won. I wasn’t in school when we stop losing, so I never saw Brownwood beat Breckenridge from that time period, from the 30’s or 20’s until 1960 and then I was out of high school.

It happened in 1960 and Gordon Wood came to Brownwood. Believe it or not, when we played them fairly late in the season they were struggling to stay alive. They didn’t have a good season, something like four and three maybe and we were six and one. You would think, all things considered – they didn’t have rating services back then so we didn’t know who was number one and all of that – but we had the record and we also had a problem. We just couldn’t beat Breckenridge. The year before my senior year in 1959, we had the biggest offensive line in the State of Texas. That’s pro, college, high school. We were huge and had great athletes! We went into that ballgame with one loss. Breckenridge had none. We went over to play them and it was 30-0 Breckenridge at the half. 44-6 was the final.

Until Gordon Wood came along, the first thing they wanted to ask any coach was, “Can you beat Breckenridge?” Gordon said, “I don’t know if we can beat anyone”. Breckenridge came to town in 1960 and it was a huge ballgame – a huge game! It was Lion Stadium at that time, although after that night they could have renamed it. Brownwood trailed 14-6 in the fourth quarter, but came back with two late touchdowns to win it.

The next big rivalry, the Cleburne Yellow Jackets, and I mean we had a rivalry. We won some of them and they won some. They were all great ballgames, including one before close to 40,000 people at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth on a Saturday night. Some people said that whatever Brownwood had – that magic – disappeared on that night. Cleburne won the ballgame and the final score was 9-3. It was 9-0 at halftime and we got a field goal in the second half that made it 9-3. We got the ball back one more time with about three minutes to go and here we went. Down the field we went as precision as you could have a football team go. Then, on a first and goal at the Cleburne three with the seconds ticking off, we fumbled the ball. Cleburne recovers and I’ve had sports writers tell me we never won a big game after that – I don’t agree. But, we’ve never won a title, though.

Then there was one other but I’ve run out of time. I can’t remember who it was -Oh, it was Stephenville! Oh yeah! Oh me! Well, that’s the rivalry and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it because it’s still going on. And I, for one, hope that it never, ever, ever, disappears.

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].