In the early 1940s and 1950s, this rivalry meant everything.
“It was kind of like the Civil War,” recalls George Walmsley, who played in the game from 1940-42. “Baytown closed down when the teams played, and Port Arthur did the same thing. It was a community focal point and everyone supported the team. It was a release from the tensions of (World War II); people vented a lot of emotions in these kinds of things.”
To become a rivalry, a game must be competitive. In the 1930s, the game was anything but, including a Port Arthur 100-0 win in 1934. Other scores in the decade were 44-0, 28-0, 27-14, 27-0, 52-6 and 44-0, all for Port Arthur. The Ganders were outscored 408-20 in the first nine meetings between the schools.
“I think in maybe four or five years, they’d decide on the bus what kind of score they would run up on us, and they’d do it,” said Victor Cook, who played from 1939-1941.
When Dan Stallworth took over the Lee program in 1940, things changed. Port Arthur beat Lee 20-0 in 1940, but in Stallworth’s second attempt, on Saturday, Nov. 15, 1941, the Ganders pulled the shocker, winning 21-20.
“There were a lot of ill feelings,” said Walmsley, a sophomore on the 1941 team. “You’re irritated like all hell that someone could beat you like that. There comes a time when you have to turn the page and start wining.”
The contest kicked off at 2:30 p.m. in Port Arthur because the threat of war kept games from being played at night on the Gulf Coast.
Fred Hartman, the sports editor of The Baytown Sun at that time, had to wait until Monday to describe the game because The Sun did not publish on Sunday. The front-page article read like this:
“Nine down and nobody caring what happens in the tenth,” he led with.
“That, in 10 words records the 1941 Robert E. Lee Gander football season.
“The greatest victory a Tri-Cities athletic team ever turned in has been stamped into the records. And stamped so indelibly that the ravages of Father Time himself can never erase its brilliance.
“Robert E. Lee 21, Port Arthur 20.
“Trying to pick one person, above all others, most responsible for the win in Port Arthur would be like a drop of rain trying to retain its identity in the ocean.”
Only 17 Ganders played in that game, including Walmsley and Cook. John Kubik tied the game with a 20-yard reverse, and John Allman kicked the extra point that put the Ganders ahead with four minutes remaining.
Walmsley, who was voted the Ganders’ best back on the Sun’s All Century team released in 1999, played the game with a broken hand. He held the ball on the extra point.
“I think people were like, ‘What is going on? Why are they letting a kid with a broken hand hold the ball?’” Walmsley said. “But it all worked out.”
The game was far from over as Port Arthur drove deep into Ganders territory, but Claud Hill intercepted a pass that silenced the 14,000 Port Arthur fans.
The Jackets from Port Arthur had a deep, talented team.
“They had about four full teams, and we didn’t have but 25-30 kids,” Cook said. “You didn’t realize how much effect it would have ’til the middle of the second quarter. We didn’t know if they had the first team or their fourth team, because they were all fresh and we were playing both ways. They were all big, believe me.”
Cook was a 147-pound center for the Ganders, blocking off 230-pound Jacket lineman.
After 1941, the Ganders went on to win the next two games in the series, 12-0 in 1942 and 7-3 in 1943.
The Ganders also won three straight in the early 1950s under coach Stallworth.
Sherwood Hensley, who played on the teams in the early ’50s, said the 1941 win set the tone for future Gander success.
“It was the most important thing that ever happened at Robert E, Lee,” he said. “To get us to that next level that we would have never gotten to had we not had that example set of the fact that it could be done. Later on, that would be invaluable in getting to the higher playoff games and getting to the next level. We would have never been able to get there had we not had that springboard.”
While working at Shell Chemical for 32 years, Hensley began a life of researching Gander football history, and his scrapbook contains articles from five decades of Lee football. Nothing compares to the Port Arthur rivalry, Hensley said.
“We admired them, respected them and hated them all at the same time,” he said, “because we wanted to rise to the occasion and win, regardless of their reputation.”
As the rivalry progressed, it turned from hatred to respect.
“It started as a rabid rivalry that came out of the depression in the years when the football team was the only thing to live for,” Hensley said. “It turned into a rivalry where the players respected each other and became friends after they went off to college. The Port Arthur players were all gentlemen on the field. It may have got rowdy in the stands, but it was clean on the field.”
Except after 1941, players recall, when Port Arthur players and fans were punching out the windows of the trains.
“They were mad,” Cook said. “They didn’t have good sportsmanship leagues set up back then.”
The Stallworth influence
So how did Stallworth turn around the Ganders program so quickly — from a decade of embarrassing losses to three consecutive wins?
By any means necessary.
Before the 1941 game, he (or one of his coaches) wrote a letter to the Ganders team, signed by players from Port Arthur. Stallworth drove to Port Arthur so the letter would have the postage stamp from the city he wanted his players to believe it originated from.
“I can’t remember exactly what the letter said, but (Port Arthur) was going to give us a hard time,” Cook said. “We were really hyped up for that game.”
“Sure he wrote it himself,” Cook would find out later. “He wanted to get us stirred up.”
Stallworth was a master motivator, according to players.
“He implanted in our minds that they were not some kind of superstar that could never be touched,” Hensley said. “They put their pants on one leg at a time, the same way we did. We were equals in our mind by the time we got to the game.”
Walmsley called Stallworth an obsessive, compulsive coach, who was very organized.
“He was a perfectionist,” the running back-turned-doctor said. “He would run a play over and over again. I thought I would die before he was satisfied.”
Stallworth touched many lives, but he wouldn’t win a popularity contest, Cook said, because he was tough on players.
“He would make us mad,” Cook said. “There was no way you could get a drink of water ’til after practice. We would learn three or four plays a week, and if we weren’t running them right, he would throw that cap down and run over and kick it. He had a daughter that was like 4 or 5 and he reminded us that she could run that play better than we could.”
Cook laughed when he read in The Sun that six Ganders were late for the bus to Beaumont for a district game this season.
“If that had been Dan Stallworth, he might have let them on the bus, but he would have tied a rope around them and drug them to Beaumont,” Cook said.
Despite the fear he struck, Cook respected Stallworth.
“I may have been a little scared, but I liked him,” said Cook, who played center.
One incident left a bitter taste in Cook’s mouth. With the Ganders trailing 21-0 at halftime to Beaumont, Stallworth was so angry with his team, he left.
“He said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, y’all don’t have a coach,’ and he walked out and we didn’t see him anymore until after the game (that the Ganders rallied to win),” Cook said. “He preached, ‘Boys, don’t ever give up ’til the last whistle blows,’ and that night in Beaumont, he quit. That turned my stomach, didn’t like it at all.”
What made Stallworth great, according to Hensley, was his preparation for games.
“We would know what they ate for breakfast before we even got into the game with them,” he said. “There was one (Jackets) guard that would always give away the play by the way he leaned. If you knew how to read them, you knew what they were going to do and that’s how we beat Port Arthur quite a few times.”
Stallworth shared his coaching philosophy in a story the United Press did on him in 1951.
“Catch ’em early, teach ’em to love the game, and then watch the dividends in the won-lost column,” Stallworth said in the article.
Stallworth won seven and lost seven games to Port Arthur, and there was a tie in 1956. There were two more ties that were broken because it was a playoff game, with the Ganders winning on penetrations in 1950 and Port Arthur returning the favor in 1953.
The Ganders will try to make more parents proud Friday at Stallworth Stadium when the rivalry renews at 7 p.m.
Note: Ganders won this game!!!!