In the aura of Juneteenth 2022, an anniversary of greatness on the gridiron is recognized.
Sixty years ago the Blackshear/O.L Price Panthers defeated Dayton Colbert 42-6 and won the 1962 Prairie View Interscholastic League (PVIL) Class A state championship. The Panthers finished an impressive 14-0 that season.
The Panthers led by Coach Edward Elder had already established themselves as a power amongst other segregated football programs but finally broke through in 1962. The Panthers recorded seven shutout victories that year and were only challenged by the Smithville and Elgin teams.
A survey of the scores tells the story of how good the Panther squad really was. Price defeated Luling 60-0, Cameron 72-20, College Station 48-6, Elgin 14-0, Rosebud 51-0, Caldwell 46-0, Belton 63-0, Rockdale 67-0, Gause by forfeit and Smithville 20-16. The capstone victory for the Panthers that season was an impressive 106-6 win over Belton Harris High School.
Playing quarterback for the Panthers that season was Lee Washington. Other players on the squad included Herbert Nance, David Henderson, Eugene Winn and Leroy Anderson.
In the postseason, the Panthers again defeated Elgin 20-14. El Campo yielded to the Panthers 22-0. In the third round, the Panthers again defeated Luling 45-8 on their way to defeating Dayton Colbert in the championship.
In the 1960s the players of Taylor Price were separate but not equal. The team didn’t know Friday night lights as their games were held on Wednesday and Thursday nights at Memorial Stadium.
It wasn’t uncommon for the cleats of shoes to push through the bottom of the shoe creating blisters on the feet of the players. Conditions were rough, but the Panthers persevered.
The PVIL was formed in 1939 as the Texas Interscholastic League of Colored Schools with 21 original members. Organized by Houston Yates coach Andrew “Pat” Patterson and administered by Prairie View A&M University, the PVIL governed athletic competition between Texas’ segregated black schools.
The league was disbanded in 1970 when membership dwindled after the desegregation of Texas high schools, but not before producing Pro Football and College Football Hall of Famers like Dick “Night Train” Lane from Austin Anderson, Charley Taylor from Grand Prairie Dalworth, Gene Upshaw from Robstown, Ken Houston from Lufkin Dunbar, Bubba Smith from Beaumont Charlton-Pollard and “Mean” Joe Greene from Temple Dunbar, as well as thousands of collegiate players.
The schools in the larger cities played their last football season in the PVIL in 1966. The smaller schools continued to play for a state championship in football through the fall of 1969. In 2005, the records of the PVIL were included with the University Interscholastic League records.
