The Sugar Land Gators claimed their 4th regional championship with a blow-out win over a highly tauted Barbers Hill team. In fact, Barbers Hill hadn't lost a game since the '53 season.
The Eagles were a perennial foe for the Alligators. They'd soundly beaten the Gators in their '55 bi-district match, so this was a grudge game for the Gators. Here's a pregame article that appeared in a Houston newspaper. (I've just noticed that The Chronicle got the headline wrong over this article. It was a regional championship, not bi-district.)
The final score was 45-13. I've posted several newspaper accounts because each is a little different. One may mention players not covered in other articles. I figure granddad may want to show his grandchildren what he did when he was a callow youth.
This first one appeared in The Texas Coaster, (I think) about a week after the game. Note the reporter is Billy Cason, a SLHS grad ('54).
I can tell from the type face that this next article appeared in a local paper. I don't have a date, but I believe it was soon after the game.
Two more similar articles, but notice in the first one that a Barbers Hill player, Donnie Myers, was ejected from the game. (See the 8th paragraph.) Actually, the reporter says he was 'asked to leave the game.' No other account mentions this incident. Maybe some can fill us in on what happened.
(Update) I got a note from Leon Anhaiser ('57) who played in this game. He watched the film and noticed a Barbers Hill player give a violent & unnecessary twist to Butch Boyd's head & shoulders as he tackled Butch. The film shows a ref escorting the Barbers Hill player (Donnie Myers) off the field. My thanks to Leon for finding this in the film. I had noticed Myers was a guard, so I wondered if he objected to H. G. Bossley (the Gator center) leg-whipping him when Sugar Land had the ball! I'll have to ask H. G. about this when I see him.
You may have noticed that the game was played in Rosenberg even though Sugar Land was the home team. Sugar Land began using Lamar Consolidated's larger stadium for play off games in the 1952 season. The Gators had attracted many fans from a wide area. For example, George Salmon has said his father-in-law used to drive from Beaumont to see the Gators play.
I have a complete film of this game. The link below gets you to a 10-minute clip of the film. It doesn't have a sound track because I've wanted to interview former players about this game & use their recollections in the video. (Maybe we can do it next spring.)
