One of the first decisions Gordon Wood made when he came to Brownwood in 1960 was not received real well. Of course, the Lions back then played in the old stadium off Austin Avenue and it wasn’t exactly a beauty. Functional? Yes, but not nice. This was way before artificial turf and Gordon wasn’t real happy with the old grass at the old stadium. So, right after he got here, he organized a bunch of people to load their trucks with natural fertilizer and bring it in to fertilize the old stadium’s turf. It was covered – totally covered!

Now, had the stadium been out in the Camp Bowie area like it is now, probably no big deal – but it wasn’t. On the north there was a close neighborhood. On the west there was another close neighborhood. And, it would be an understatement for me to tell you that those neighbors were not happy! You talk about SMELL! At that time I lived in a neighborhood maybe three blocks away. And yes, it would get your attention.

Needless to say, the Brownwood Independent School District got a barrage of complaints and Gordon Wood spent most of his time trying to handle them. In other words, just keeping people at bay and trying to start a football program at the same time. By the time the season started in September, the uproar kind of settled down. The smell got a whole lot better and the grass was a WHOLE lot better – fact is, it was beautiful turf at the old stadium that lasted until we left. By the way, after we won State that year, no one even remembered the smell!

Fast forward to 1972 and we had the new stadium out in Camp Bowie. It’s hard to believe that was fifty years ago and I still refer to it as the “new” stadium. Now it has artificial turf. Back then, it was just grass. But the best turf in town was still off Austin Avenue at the old stadium. The Junior High, the freshman, the JV, whatever, played sub varsity games over there on probably the best turf in this part of Texas. Eventually, even those games moved out to the new stadium, and then there wasn’t anything left to do but move out of the old stadium.

It was torn down and after a lot of dirt work, construction began on what is now our 6th grade campus. All of that dirt and turf from the old stadium was dumped into a huge pile at Northwest Elementary. Enter Steve Freeman. Steve was our coach from 1997-2008 and he loved to find ways to motivate his players. So, he decided to not only save the old turf, but use it. Trucks took loads of that turf out to the high school. Steve then got on a tractor and leveled it out over our two practice fields on Slayden Street. To this day, that is still the turf that the Brownwood Lions practice on and that field is a great part of the history of the Brownwood Lions. Teams that played on that turf won State Championships in 1960, ’65, ’67, ’69, ’70.

That turf now has kids from this generation working hard on it trying to produce Brownwood another State Crown in the future. And, truth be known, Brownwood’s practice fields probably have more history than most team’s football stadiums! That’s not bragging, that’s just fact.

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].