UNDEFEATED FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP MARKS MILESTONE
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 notequal. 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.
