This year marks a century the Taylor Independent School District has been the home of the Ducks and some folks are only too happy to quack about it.
Tim Crow, the school district’s communications and community liaison, recounted the history and legacy of the web-footed namesake and some of the district’s successful educators and graduates during a Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce luncheon Aug. 19.
“The Ducks is a school district thing, but the city embraces it,” Rachael Westerman, the Chamber membership and operations director, told the Press. “All these people coming and wanting to be part of our community, you got to know this thing about the Ducks first. We’re more than a mascot.”
After spending his school days and now 40 years of work as a Duck, Crow is known for his dedication to the district, as well as being its historian.
“His passion, his love for the school district and the Ducks and what he does. That man is a wealth of knowledge,” Westerman said. “I have heard Tim speak at many, many presentations over the last nine years. I’ve never heard the same thing twice.”
Before his history lesson began, Crow shared that for many, being a Duck is a family tradition.
“Now, those kids were 10 at the time,” he said, showing a picture of students from when his employment started at Taylor ISD. “So, they’re getting close to 50. I’m seeing their grandkids in the school now.”
To begin the history lesson, Crow gave recognition to the former O.L. High School Panther and Legacy Early College High School Phoenix mascots.
He then took the audience on a trip down memory lane, illustrating how the Ducks came to be, the stories of notable Ducks and what the district was like before the
Ducks. “There are many stories about Taylor … our history and our heritage, about people from Taylor who took life, were soaring high and did amazing things in the world,” Crow said. On Nov. 5, 1924, the Taylor football team was first referred to as “Drake’s Ducks” after Coach C. R. Drake led the players through a rainy game.
“People began saying they looked like a flock of ducks,” Crow said. “We have been known as the Ducks ever since.”
According to Crow, this story was preserved for the school district by T. H. Johnson when he became Drake’s assistant coach in 1926.
In addition to saving this piece of history, Johnson established his legacy in the district in many other ways.
Under Johnson’s leadership, the Ducks had several unbeaten seasons and a 30-day winning streak, leading him to be inducted into the Texas High School Coaches Association’s Hall of Honor in 1986 and for the team to be featured on Robert Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” newspaper panel in 1935.
Johnson also got recognition from the creator of one of the most famous ducks — Walt Disney. While he was superintendent of the school district, Johnson had Disney’s autograph hanging in his office and a picture of another duck — Donald Duck — congratulating Taylor ISD.
He told the Cotton Boll, the former Taylor High School student newspaper, the autograph was sent to him when a San Antonio reporter contacted Disney about the highly successful Taylor Ducks team in 1941.
“As successful as Drake was, T.H. Johnson took it way above that,” Crow said.
Other “local legends” Crow mentioned included: “Mama Duck” Naomi Pasemann, Coach Larry Safarik, who was known for his duck caps, and former Austin American-Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls, whose status as a Taylor alumnus was highlighted when he left the publication. Bohls now writes for the Houston Chronicle.
While the Ducks have been around for a century, the school district was established 40 years prior in 1884.
“Forty years without being the Ducks,” Crow said. “What was life in Taylor like in B.D. times — Before Ducks?”
There was no mascot. The school district was referred to by the school colors or as “wearers of the T” and utilized the cotton boll as a symbol due to Taylor’s reputation as the world’s largest inland cotton market.
The first mention of a mascot was in 1936, portrayed by a young student dressed as a football player.
While documenting Johnson’s legacy, Crow interviewed 1945 team captain Phil Pierce about his experiences, not realizing until later Pierce was that young student mascot.
Crow spoke to him again, needing to know how it had come about.
“He wanted to be on the team so bad as a second grader, but he had to wait till high school,” Crow said. “He would go watch them practice. … One day at practice, they took a break, and he went up to Coach T.H. Johnson, and he said, ‘Coach Johnson, I want to be the mascot.’ And Coach Johnson looked at him and said, ‘Okay, you’re the mascot. Now, go sit down and don’t say anything.’” Crow also sprinkled his presentation with trivia questions.
“I am an educator, so I want to see where you are at the beginning, and we’ll see where you are at the end,” he said to the luncheon crowd.
He asked everyone to complete the school district’s catchphrase, “Once a Duck, always a Duck”; tested listeners’ knowledge about where some well-known Ducks such as Drake went after leaving the school district; and asked if his audience could name the different versions of the Duck mascot. Hint: There are at least two — the costumed mascot named Waddles and the illustrated mascot named Drallum (“Mallard” duck backward).
“Let’s get our quack on,” Crow said.
