It was only the third year for football in De Leon, but for the first time De Leon would play for a possible championship.  James Dewy Daniell, son of one of the players, mailed a copy of a 1916 Free Press he found in his mother’s trunk which detailed many of the games.  Sadly, the paper never arrived and the information was lost in the mail.


ALBANY

    The Comanche Chief mentioned that De Leon lost to Albany 7-9 but no other details were given.


HICO

     “De Leon hit Hico in the neck with a football game to the tune of 68-0...” reported the Comanche Vanguard.  The Hico News-Review said, “the Hico high school football team sustained a defeat at the hands of the De Leon team last Saturday (October 7 in De Leon).  Because of the fact that at Gatesville and De Leon some of the boys were seriously hurt the school board has barred the team from playing football anymore and all future games have been called in.”

   One of those “called in” games was to have been a rematch with De Leon at Hico on October 27.

    The editor of the Comanche Vanguard later speculated that since De Leon won by 68 and then lost by 40 to Comanche, then undoubtedly Comanche would have beaten Hico by 108.  To that the editor of the New-Review replied, “Don’t know Brother Russell (the Vanguard’s publisher).  Since Hico went up against those “back to nature” fellows at Gatesville and the “goober grabbers” at De Leon and came out looking like soldiers from the front in Europe, the Hico school board has issued a decree against football; consequently, we have no way of proving that Hico can’t get the scalp of the Comanches.”

    Hico resumed football in 1917 with an opening game against Dublin.  But there is no further mention of playing De Leon or Gatesville.  The Hico school board would ban football again in 1923.

DUBLIN

    In Dublin’s previous season, the scores ranged from a 78-0 win over Hamilton to a 79-0 defeat by Comanche.  In 1916 they lost what is believed to be the first matchup with De Leon.  It can be verified that Dublin, regardless of when the first game against De Leon was played, did not defeat the Bearcats until 1928.

    The 1916 game was the fourth and final game of the season for Dublin.  Dublin’s annual The Trail said the game “was played on De Leon‘s sand hill and since our men were unused to sand we were defeated by a score of 29-0.  However, the sand was not the only reason for our defeat.  Haston Mayfield, our Captain was seriously injured in the first quarter and McLaughlin (the quarterback) was also laid out in the third.”

COMANCHE

     The natural rivalry between De Leon and Comanche really started to grow with the 1916 season.  By the time the two teams were to meet, the game had become more than a match for the County Championship.  The winner would face Brownwood to play for the mythical “Championship of West Texas.”  The Chief and Pioneer Exponent reported that “De Leon has defeated her opponents in preceding games around 50 points each game.”

    Game time was set for 3:00 p.m. Saturday October 14, as part of the Comanche County Fair.  However, kickoff was moved to 4:15 to prevent a conflict with the matinee at the Harrison’s Tent Theater.

    Use of the forward pass gave Comanche the win by a 40-0 score.  Dean Rippetoe, B.J. Pittman, Nabors and Euel Duke were the stars for De Leon.  Comanche went on to defeat Brownwood 28-0 to claim the Championship of West Texas.

TARLETON

On November 21, 1916, Phynis Pittman (Evans), sister of B.J. and Ralph Pittman wrote to her former college roommate, Inez Snodgrass (Heeter) of Desdemona.  She stated, “We had a big football game here last Friday (November 17) between John Tarleton College and our high school boys.  We won the game 7-6.  The girls are soon to play John T. girls a return game (in basketball) and we are planning to beat them again.”


Notes on Comanche’s Coach:

During the 1916, 1917 and 1918 seasons, Comanche was coached  Ewing Young Freeland.  Freeland was born in Turnersville, Texas on January 1, 1887, played football and baseball for Vanderbilt University.  He had been head coach at Texas Christian University in 1915.  After leaving Comanche he coached at Austin Colleger (1919-1920), Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi (1921), Co-head Coach at S.M.U. (1922-23) and became the first football coach, baseball coach and athletic director at Texas Tech in 1925 though 1928.  He is credited with designing the double T logo of Texas Tech. Against De Leon, his record was 1-2-0.

Top row (L-R):  Ben Nabors, B.J. Pittman, Milton Allgood, Euell Duke, L.E. Forrest Coach.

Middle row: Robert Weaver, Luther Haynes, Fie Moreland, Buford Hawkins, Lloyd Lee, Gaston Grisham.

Bottom row: Jim Tate, Willie Irvin, Dewey Daniell, Charlie Counts, Dean Rippetoe.


Photo from scrapbook of Lula Mae Smith Stone

Tate

Counts

Pittman

Nabors

Weaver

Daniell

Irvin

Rippetoe

Moreland

Haynes

Hawkins

Allgood

Duke

Grisham

Lee

Forrest

1916

DHS

OPP

68

@ Comanche

0

0

Hico

40

7

Albany

9

29

Dublln

0

9

Cisco

3

7

6

Tarleton