Thanks for all your work with this mythical tournament. I played for P-W '63 and although we lost to Carlisle, it was a trip down memory lane. Laughed out loud noticing the officials were Duke Maronic (who actually had our state title game against Norwin), Steve Honzo, etcetera. You made it seem almost real.
Thanks for the memories. I am passing your site and tournament on to all my teammates and Coach Stofko who is 80 years old and will certainly get a kick out of it.
Jim Moore (Plymouth-Whitemarsh '63)
Jake Shaw
@ Texasfootball.com
3/13/07 BLOGTexas All-time Football Tournament Field of 16:
'56 Abilene
'59 CC Ray
'61 Wichita Falls
'68 Austin Reagan
'71 SA Lee
'73 Tyler John Tyler
'78 Houston Stratford
'85 Houston Yates
'87 Plano
'88 Dallas Carter
'90 Aldine
'91 Odessa Permian
'96 Lewisville
'99 Midland Lee
'03 GP North Shore
'05 Southlake Carroll
Doing anything I can to glom onto the upcoming NCAA tournament (and yet have it relate to football in Texas), I came across a tournament that declared the best high school football team ever to play in Texas.
And it was decided by a man in Michigan who -- to my knowledge -- has never seen a live Texas high school football game.
No, I'm not to the point of desperation for blog-worthy material.
This All-time Texas tournament is worth checking out. The research, remarkably, is quite exhaustive.
Steve Clark, the man behind the madness, told me via e-mail "it did take about a year-and-a-half to gather everything." He scoured microfilm and talked with players from teams among the field of 16 to get his facts straight.
From there, he inserted the teams into a "football board game that I invented when I was younger (long before Play Station) where I would create as realistic as possible 'team charts,'" he said.
Clark gives detailed play-by-play and analysis from each game of the fictional playoffs. Each game has full box scores, scoring summaries -- anything you'd expect from a real game.
He previews the final game between 2003 GP North Shore and 1991 Odessa Permian. He said he didn't see Permian's 9-3 win coming.
"I don't know if many would agree with 1991 Permian as the best ever ... but that's the way it played out this time," he said.
Clark admits the results from his creation shouldn't be placed in cement.
"The game is not for public consumption," he said, "but I thought it would be a different way to present the great teams other than just listing them. I can't emphasize enough that this is not meant to belittle or endorse one team or era over another; hopefully it will just create dialogue."
Clark said the experience was somewhat tiring, "but, it was a labor of love learning about some of the great teams in Texas' history," he said.
And now it's ours to chew on. Give it a look, but a warning, you might end up spending hours looking it over.
Kevin writes:
The simulation that you shared with me looks pretty cool! Thanks for including the link in your e-mail. I have been coaching HS baseball in Michigan for some 20+ years and have had over 150 players go on to play at the collegiate or professional level. Currently, I have at least half a dozen former players playing D1, 9 in the minors and one in the major league--JJ Putz. Needless to say, I am in agreement that the '99 CC team was the best HS baseball team to ever play in Michigan. While a number of guys from that team played on the collegiate level, four are still playing in the minor league today.
