The year 1969 was a great year for football fans in De Leon and Texas.  The Bearcats advanced all the way to the quarterfinals before losing to Honey Grove.  It was the best football season for the Bearcats since 1917.  On December 6, the entire nation watched the only college game being played that day as Texas and Arkansas met in Fayetteville, not only to determine who would reign as Southwest Conference Champions but also to determine who would claim the National Championship in the centennial year of college football.  Texas won 15-14 with President Nixon and future President George H.W. Bush in attendance.

   In between those two games on December 1, 1969, the second annual Texas High School Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held in Breckenridge.

   In many ways, Breckenridge had become the community which came to typify the excesses of the old Oil Belt District.  It was in that district that recruiting had become common practice with nearly every team; where players were paid for good tackles and great catches; where players were put up in boarding houses, lived over fire stations or with more prosperous families; where games, players and officials were bought off; and where some of the best, worst and toughest football ever played by high school teams occurred.  The Oil Belt was where the importance of football was elevated to far more than just a game.  And it was here that football came to be an inseparable part of the communities of west Texas to a degree unsurpassed elsewhere in America.

   Honk was one of the five to induced that evening.  Also selected were Kyle Rote of S.M.U. fame; Bobby WIlson, who played on the ’35 S.M.U. Rose Bowl team; Glynn Gregory of Abilene, who played for S.M.U. and the Dallas Cowboys; and Charles Daniel of Longview.

   Honk was inducted and introduced by Harold Ratliff, the noted sports writer who had selected Honk to his all-time, all-state football team picked in the 48th year of Texas UIL football.

   In his acceptance speech, which Jada Davis helped him write, Honk said, “Football is 100 years old this year.  If I could have chosen the time for this honor, it would have been this time, this year, in this place.

   I see here tonight many faces I know, respect and love.  But also, I see in my memory the faces of scores and hundreds of friends, teammates and football opponents who are not with us tonight.  I stand here for you and for them.

  I stand here also  for all the eager, bright youngsters who represent the high schools of Texas in the football centennial year.  Few of them will be installed the Texas Schoolboy Hall of Fame, but this is not important.  The Hall of Fame will be a goal...an objective...a recognition of the value of football.

   I believe football is more than a sport.  I doubt it would have lived for a century if it had not been more than a sport.  As trite as it may sound, I must say football does build character, and it does teach youngsters that first downs and touchdowns in life must be earned with individual and team effort.

   It would be hard to explain the love that Americans have for football.  The interest is not explained by love of brute force or strength, but they love skill and intricate team play.  They love strategy too, and they especially love to see  underdogs win.

   I have noticed that all of us like to identify ourselves with a team.  We follow our high school teams, and live with them when they win and die a little when they lose.  We follow the fortunes of our college teams and television allows us to become fans of the Cowboys or the Oilers or the Packers. There’s a togetherness about football and in this day and age we need to share common interest and ideals.

    All of us have our dreams, and I will tell you about mine.  I dream that someday in the future every nation will have a national football team.  No nation will have an army.  War will be bloodless--or almost bloodless--and conflict will be settled by a football game.

   There is a magic to football.  We don’t lose the feel of magic as we grow older.  It doesn’t matter whether we were large or small, tall or short, or whether we were on the starting line up or spent most of the time on the bench.  In our hears we were all stars.  And in my heart, every boy who wore a uniform is a star.

  I remember the magic names as do all of you.  Baugh and O’Brien, Layne and Walker, Rote and Kimbrough, Aldrich and Turner.  But I remember other names---Smith and Jones, Bill and Joe--and I remember the coaches who won and those who lost---but who, all joking aside, all did build character.

   I can’t explain the magic, nor will I try.  An old soldier remembers the fields of gray clad cadets and the muffed roll of drums.  Old football players remember the crack of shoulder pads, the grunts and groans, the stinging sweat, the cold dressing rooms and the long bus rides home.

  I remember all these things .  But now I will have this night and this signal honor to remember and cherish.  I thank all of you.”


 

Above:  clipping from the Abilene Reporter News.

Hall of Fame program.

Above: Texas Governor Preston Smith and Honk at the induction ceremonies.  Below: Congratulatory letter from Gov. Smith.

Irvin 5

National Football League, New York Giants, Gumshoe Game, Canvas Sneakers, Cavanaugh Game, Texas High School Football Hall of Fame, Governor Preston Smith, Providence Steamrollers, Southwestern University, De Leon Bearcats, Deleon, De Leon, Texas, DeLeon, Texas, NFL Championship, Detroit Lions, Cisco Lobos, Stanford, Texas., Davis-Elkins College Senators

THE GUY WITH THE GUMSHOES

CECIL “HONK” “TEX” IRVIN

HALL OF FAME