Texas high school track champions, 1905-2012 Updated, April 22, 2012 by Dr. William (Billy) Wilbanks Self-Published by Dr. Wilbanks on Computer Disc in 2005 & 2006 Placed on Internet website in May

TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL TRACK CHAMPIONS, 1905-2012

Updated, April 22, 2012

by Dr. William (Billy) Wilbanks

Self-Published by Dr. Wilbanks

on Computer Disc in 2005 & 2006

Placed on Internet website in May, 2008

Some of material below is not

updated to 2012
Website may be searched by keyword, name,

school, event, record, etc. in Word & Excel

Author seeks corrections and additions

as website is constantly updated.
William Wilbanks

281 Whispering Wind

Georgetown (Sun City) TX 78633

[e-mail]

DrBillyWilbanks.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABOUT THE AUTHOR……………………………………………………………………………….. 4
INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………… 5

UIL ARCHIVES

RESEARCH FOR THIS VOLUME
CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY OF STATE TRACK MEET………………………………………… 7

THE ACADEMIES VS. THE HIGH SCHOOLS

GIRLS ADDED TO STATE MEET

CHAPTER TWO: TEAM CHAMPIONS…………………………………………………………..… 9

THE ACADEMY CHAMPIONS

THE FIRST STATE HIGH SCHOOL TEAM CHAMPION

BOYS CHAMPIONS, 1905-2010

GIRLS CHAMPIONS, 1972-2010

SCHOOL RANKINGS FOR 101 YEARS
CHAPTER THREE: GREAT INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS………………………………………… 14

MOST CAREER GOLD MEDALS

MOST GOLD MEDALS AT ONE STATE MEET

MOST POINTS SCORED AT ONE STATE MEET

CHAMPIONS WHO HAVE WON SAME EVENT FOUR TIMES

“ONE-MAN” & “ONE-WOMAN” STATE TEAM CHAMPIONS

CHAMPIONS WHO HELD/HOLD STATE RECORDS

CHAMPIONS WHO BROKE NATIONAL H.S. RECORDS

TEXANS HAVE DOMINATED SEVERAL EVENTS

H.S. CHAMPIONS WHO BECAME OLYMPIC MEDAL WINNERS

CHAMPIONS WHO BECAME FAMOUS IN OTHER FIELDS

NARRATIVES OF 39 SELECTED MALE CHAMPIONS… ………………………………. 27

NARRATIVES OF 17 SELECTED FEMALE CHAMPIONS……………………………….. 62
CHAPTER FOUR: TRACK AS ”FAMILY AFFAIR”...................................................................... 79

SIBLING CHAMPIONS

PARENT-CHILD CHAMPIONS

LEADING TRACK FAMILIES
The remaining 11 files in this folder/website contain the following:

“2. BOYS CHAMPIONS BY YEAR”---includes individual & relay champions by event

& year (1905-2009)

Ex: 2008 2A 100 meters San Antonio Cole Evans, R.J. 10.65
“3. BOYS CHAMPIONS BY SCHOOL & YEAR”—includes individual & relay champions

by school & year (1905-2010)

Ex: 2002 4A 110 hurdles Lancaster Jones, Courtney 13.78

2003 4A shot put Lancaster Wafford, Greg 58’ 05”

“4. BOYS RELAY CHAMPIONS BY SCHOOL & YEAR”---includes names of four members

of each relay champion by School & Year (1905-2010)

Ex: 1985 2A 1600 relay Woodsboro 3:19.2 Avery, Robert Avery, Royce Lewis, Ricky Zabel, Matt

1992 2A 400 relay Woodsboro 42.30 Friar, Victor Deslonzy, John Anderson, Ray Lewis, Shawn

“5. GIRLS CHAMPIONS BY YEAR”---includes individual & relay champions by event

& year (1972-2010)

Ex: 1983 4A 800 meters Waco Midway Wiese, Paula 2:10.1

“6. GIRLS CHAMPIONS BY SCHOOL & YEAR”—includes individual & relay champions

by school & year (1972-2010)

Ex: 1975 3A Team Waco Midway over Mexia, 56-54 56

1980 3A 1600 relay Waco Midway 3.54.4
“7. GIRLS RELAY CHAMPIONS BY SCHOOL & YEAR”—includes names of four members

of each relay champion by School & Year (1972-2010)

Ex: 1974 B 880-relay Sundown 1:44.5 Phillips, Dorothy Parker, Marva King, Alma Jones, Lucy

1974 B mile relay Sundown 4:03.3 Jones, Lucy King, Alma Parker, Marva Phillips, Dorothy
“8. RECORDS IN 2010”—includes current record in each event for boys and girls

Ex: Boys 100-meter dash National Record 1990 Henry Neal Greenville TX 9.9—10.14

State Record 1990 Henry Neal Greenville TX 9.9—10.14

Conf 1A Record 1985 Stanley Kerr Snook 10.34*
“9. PROGRESSION OF RECORDS, 1905-2010 BY EVENT—includes “history” of records for

each event (current and defunct) for boys and girls (1905-2010)

Ex: 180-yards Low Hurdles ---1952-1966

STATE RECORD

1952 Herod, Bob Brownsville 20.0

1952 Amonet, Eldon Haskell 20.0

1962 Roderick, John Dallas Highland Pk 18.0
“10. HOW RECORDS WERE “CONVERTED”—Notation explains how yards were converted

to meters (440-yd dash to 400 meters) and how hand-timed meters were converted to F.A.T. times

(37.3 to 37.44*)
“11. CLASS B MEET AT DENTON, 1931-1932---There was a separate Class B state track meet from

1931-1942 in Denton. These results are incorporated into all files but are listed here separately

since the results were “lost” for many years and are unknown to most fans.
“12. SCHOOL LISTS OF CHAMPIONS---Selected lists of champions by school suitable from display

but lists for all schools can be taken from files #3 & #6—No updates after 2006


About the Author
William Lee (Billy) Wilbanks was born in Temple TX on May 30, 1940. He graduated as valedictorian of Belton H.S. in 1958 and was an all-state basketball player and the leading scorer (21.6 ppg) on Belton’s State AA state championship basketball team. He played in the Texas H.S. Coaches All-Star Game and the Texas-Oklahoma Oil Bowl Game and went on to play as a freshman at Texas Tech and at Abilene Christian College. He was also a two-time district champion in the 880-yd dash and in tennis (singles) at Belton. He never ran in the state track meet as he finished only 4^th in the region in the 880 in 1957 & 1958.
Wilbanks received a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from the State U. of New York at Albany and taught criminal justice for 27 years at Florida International University in Miami FL. He wrote twelve books including several books on homicide (e.g., The Make My Day Law; Murder in Miami) and on police officers killed in the line of duty (e.g., Forgotten Heroes: Police Officers Killed in Early Florida, 1840-1925 and True Heroines: Police Women Killed in the Line of Duty in the U.S., 1916-1999). He also appeared more than 20 times on national television (e.g., 60 Minutes, Nightline, CrossFire; Today Show; NBC, CBS & ABC News) as a crime expert. He retired in 1999 and returned to Belton. He moved to Georgetown (Sun City) TX in 2006.
While researching the history of Belton H.S. sports Wilbanks discovered the lost story of the 1909 Belton track team that won the first U.I.L. state high school track team championship. He made the forgotten heroes of 1909 the centerpiece of the Belton H.S. Wall of Honor which he built in 2001 and which includes over 88 individual plaques and 5 team plaques from 1909-2006. The Wall of Honor is on the internet at: www.beltonwallofhonor.com
Wilbanks has created a website---www.TexasTrackChamps.com----that contains all of his research on boys and girls track and field at the Texas state UIL track meet from 1905-2012. Wilbanks also has a website on the history of the state boys & girls basketball tournament which includes an index and narratives on 707 boys and girls championship teams from 1921-2012. The website includes a breakdown of the 707 teams by counties; more than 3,000 all-state tournament players for boys (1921-2012) and girls (1951-2012) by year and school; all-state teams for girls (1973-2012) and boys (1955-2012); teams and coaches with most championships, etc. See: www.TexasBasketballChamps.com Dr. Billy Wilbanks was elected to the TX H.S. Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012 as a “contributer” and as a player.
Wilbanks added all-state football listings to his “archives” in 2012 with more than 20,000 all-state listings from 1921-2012. The listings are sorted by year and by school and thus one can see all of a particular school's listings from 1921-2012. See: www.TexasAllStateFootball.com
Those with corrections/additions to this track & field website should contact the author so that later versions of the website will contain the correct or additional information. The website will be updated each year after the state high school track meet held annually in mid-May.
Dr. Billy Wilbanks, [e-mail] 512-864-4756 website: DrBillyWilbanks.com


INTRODUCTION
UIL ARCHIVES
I first visited the University Interscholastic League’s state track meet archives in 2001 to see what information I could find on state track champions from my hometown of Belton. I discovered that the first UIL record holders in the 220-yd dash (“Holcomb”) and the 880-yd dash (“O’Connor”) were from Belton but had been forgotten by the town and high school. I searched and found numerous newspaper articles about the 1909 Belton team which became the first high school (not academy) to win a UIL state championship and wrote articles about the “forgotten heroes” of 1909 for the Belton Journal and Temple Daily Telegram. The 1909 Belton track team became the centerpiece of the Belton H.S. Athletic Wall of Honor which I built in 2001.
I have contacted more than 400 schools to present them with lists of their track champions over the past 104 years. Few were aware of their school’s (early) history of track and field success and none had a list of all their past state champions. The UIL does have a “computerized” list ( see www.uil.utexas.edu/ath then click on “track” and “state tournament champions/records”) of state track champions from 1909 that can be searched via a key word such as “Belton” or “Holcomb.” However, the UIL file does not contain the names of relay members and is not amenable to “sorting” by school and thus “school lists” of track champions in both individual and relay events were not available before this book.
RESEARCH FOR THIS VOLUME
I decided to build a new data base in EXCEL that could be sorted by school and that would include earlier UIL meets (since the first in 1905) and information that was not in the UIL file (e.g., the names of relay members as well as individual champions; the first names of champions before the late 1930’s; the total number of gold medals won by individuals and schools; and “later career update” information on as many athletes as could be obtained). The EXCEL file also allowed the computation of rankings for all Texas schools in most championship “points” won over the 104 years.
The EXCEL file does not include information on those who placed rather than won their event at the state meet. That information is available for most recent years in the UIL archives (generally in “yearbooks”) but not for earlier years when newspaper articles (not generally available at the UIL ) about the state meet are the only source to give such results for each year. UIL state track meet programs available for almost all years do list athletes who qualified for and participated in the state meet and thus those with an interest in compiling a school list of all state qualifiers could create such a list but only with considerable time and effort at the archives.
Some have expressed an interest in locating the records of the state track meet for African-Americans held at Prairie View before the UIL meet was integrated in the 1960’s and in the state meets for girls held before the UIL’s first girls state meet in 1972. Unfortunately those records are not available at UIL or elsewhere. Some Prairie View records can be found in local newspapers and one book (State Championship Track and Field Events for Blacks in Texas, 1940-1969 by Walter E. Day of Ft. Worth) includes scattered and incomplete newspaper records from 1940-1969.
Another focus of my research was the progression of state and conference records which are available in annual UIL programs but not compiled into progression lists. This book also contains some information on national records available from the National High School Sports Record Book and from newspaper articles for the UIL meet from 1905-2012. Also, results from the National Scholastic Meet in Chicago were added to the later career information of champions who placed in that event held from 1902-1933.
Also, an effort was made to identify some of the greatest stars of the state track meet in the 104 years since the first meet in 1905 with a special focus of many of the “early” stars of the state meet who have been forgotten by their own schools as well as by track fans. Narratives of 54 great champions are included in this volume. An NFL encyclopedia was searched to locate former pro players who had also been high school track champions. The “discovery” that Fay (Mule) Wilson of Honey Grove was the first former (1922) Texas track champion to play in the NFL was shared with Honey Grove and Texas A&M where he is enshrined on the Aggie Wall of Honor. Over 100 other former track champions have played in the NFL.
One chapter is devoted to Texas high school track champions who won Olympic gold medals. The first such champion---Morris Kirksey of the Waxahachie Academy—was a state champion in 1914 and an Olympic champion in 1920 becoming the first Texan to win a track and field Olympic medal. Kirksey had been forgotten by his own hometown of Waxahachie and was unknown to Texas sports historians since he attended Stanford and lived the rest of his life on the west coast.
My research and this book are not an attempt to write an official record book for UIL or to replace the UIL archives. It is intended to provide additional information that is not readily available from the UIL archives. I received great cooperation from Dr. Charles Breithaupt, Peter Contreras, Beverly Linder, Peter Contreras and Cheridah Vaughn of the UIL who encouraged the research and provided total access to all UIL records. They gladly accepted additional information that I found. For example, when I discovered that there had been a UIL State Class B track meet in Denton from 1931-1942 that had been forgotten and was not included in the UIL archives & file, the UIL readily accepted the results I obtained (from newspaper records) for that meet and added them to their data base.
The research for this book included visits and/or mail contacts with more than 400 towns/high schools to obtain additional data. Many schools were given “frameable” lists of former champions for their trophy case and asked to suggest townspeople and former coaches who might have “later career” information about athletes on their list of state champions. In many cases local libraries had microfilms of early local newspapers that provided such information as first names of champions as well as the names of relay members which were not given in UIL records. Also, alphabetical listings of past track letter winners from university track media guides were cross-checked with the listing of Texas high school track champs.
Also, many former state champs were located and contacted to obtain information about their later sports “career” and/or information on their later occupation/career. The UIL provided the author with a “booth” at the 2004-2006 state track meets where numerous ex-athletes and coaches were contacted and asked for information.
The lack of such later career information on many of the former champs in the EXCEL data base should not be construed as meaning that those champions were less successful but that no information was found for them. Hopefully, those with later career info on others will contact the author so that later versions of the website will include this data.
Chapter One: The History of the State Meet
THE ACADEMIES VS. THE HIGH SCHOOLS (not updated after 2008)
The first Texas statewide high school track meet was held in Austin on April 29, 1905. According to the Austin Statesman, the meet was organized by the Texas Interscholastic Association of the University of Texas which had been created by its first president, Prof. F. Homer Curtis. The association invited all high schools and academies/prep schools in the state to send representatives and delegations to Austin for a meeting that included the first track meet. More than 60 athletes from the high schools at Austin, Dallas, Ft Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Denison, Corsicana, Itasca, Taylor, Belton, Bryan, Galveston, Alvin, and Brownwood participated, some at the expense of the Athletic Association. The meet also included athletes from academies/prep schools such as Allen Academy, Peacock Academy, and the West Texas Military Academy.
There was no separate division for the high schools and the academies as all athletes participated in the same division. In this era many academies included boys who had graduated from high schools and were preparing for college (thus prep schools) and were thus older than many high school athletes. For example, Clyde Littlefield (the UT track coach from 1921-1961) graduated from South Park High School in Beaumont in 1909 at the age of 16 and then competed at the state “high school meet” for the Peacock Military Academy in San Antonio from 1909-11 and for the Marshall Training Academy of San Antonio in 1911-12 at the age of 19 before attending the University of Texas from 1912-16. At this time there were only 10 grades in high school and thus high school seniors could be as young as 15. Not surprisingly the older academy athletes dominated the first statewide track meet with Allen Academy winning the first meet in 1905 with 54 points to 23 for Itasca H.S., 13 for Austin H.S. and 10 for Ft Worth H.S.
The 1905 meet had 14 events including seven (standing broad jump; standing high jump; 50-yard dash; 75-yard dash; hop, step and jump; three broad jumps; and the hammer throw) that were soon discontinued and 7 (120-yard hurdles, 100-yard dash, 220-yard dash, 440-yard dash, high jump, shot put and pole vault) that have been held (with some modifications) for 104 years.
The Texas State High School Track Meet has been held continuously from 1905 through the present with the 2008 meet marking the 104th anniversary of the event. The first meet was held at the athletic fields of the University of Texas on April 29, 1905; the second in Ft. Worth on May 8, 1906; and the third at Arlington on May 15, 1907. Since 1908 all of the state meets have been held at the University of Texas in Austin except for the Class B state meet held in Denton from 1931-1942. During the early years of the state meet at UT in Austin there were several state-wide high school track meets held each year at various universities (e.g., SMU, Baylor, A&M) but only the UT event at Austin was recognized as the state meet and was generally the last high school meet of the year and the meet (now) recognized as the state championship meet by the U.I.L. By 1911 the UIL reported that 405 boys from 167 schools participated in the state meet and by 1928 there were 801 boys from 311 schools.
From 1905-1908 the state meet had only one division and thus academy and high school athletes competed together at the annual state track meet at UT’s Clark Field in Austin. In 1909 two divisions were created with all of the academies in one division and the high schools in another. The 1909 state meet was comprised of a “final four” of high school teams who were regional champions and competed for a state high school team championship while all of the academies in the state competed in the academy division. The academy champion (Allen Academy) and the high school champion (Belton) then held a dual meet for an overall state championship (with Allen defeating Belton).
From 1910-18 there were two divisions--high school and academy--with individuals and teams competing for two separate state championships. The academies were eliminated from the state track meet after 1918. High school individuals and teams began competing in divisions determined by size of school beginning in 1915 when Conference B and Conference 1A were created. Conference B was eliminated after 1924 and all boys competed in the same division thru 1925-1930 & 1943-1947. A State Class B meet was held in Denton from 1931-42 with the 1A meet remaining in Austin. Multiple conferences began in 1948 (B, 1A & 2A) and continued with some variation in 1949-50 (B, 1A, 2A & City), 1951-1958 (B, 1A, & 2A), 1959-1980 (B, 1A, 2A, 3A & 4A) and 1981-2008 (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A & 5A).

GIRLS ADDED TO STATE MEET
Girls were added to the state track meet in 1972. Girls track and field first became a part of U.I.L. sports in 1914 but competition was limited to a few events (e.g., 30 yard dash, 140 yard relay) and never advanced beyond the county level during the six years of its (early) existence. (See Historical Survey of High School Girls Athletics Sponsored by the U.I.L.) A 1971 M.A. thesis at Texas Woman’s University by Norma Carole Harter Thronburg.) Before the U.I.L. introduced the girls state track meet in 1972, there were local track meets in Texas for girls. In 1929 Victoria County sponsored a girls track meet for its area. In 1964 the First East Texas Girls’ Track and Field Meet was held in Talco. The Texas H.S. Girls Track Association held its first and second state track meets in 1965-66 at Midway and then at Abilene. Bill Bradley, Robinson’s superintendent and coach helped get U.I.L. to adopt the girls state meet beginning in 1972. An unsuccessful attempt was made to locate the results from these early state-wide meets for girls and thus this book includes only results beginning with the UIL sponsored state meet in 1972.
Some girls did compete in track and field beyond the school or county level but did so with little organizational support. Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the greatest woman athlete in the history of Texas (and perhaps the U.S.), graduated from Beaumont High School in 1929 and had little track and field experience before she entered the U.S. Olympic Trials in 1932. She made the U.S. team in three events (the javelin, the 80-meter hurdles and the high jump) and won three gold medals at the 1932 Olympics held in Los Angeles.
Chapter Two: Team Champions
THE ACADEMY CHAMPIONS
The academies and high schools competed in the same division in 1905-1908 with Allen Academy of Bryan Texas winning three of the four state championships held in the combined (Academy and High School) state meet. Allen defeated runner-up Itasca H.S. by 54-23 in 1905, runner-up Ft Worth H.S. by 63-38 in 1906 and runner-up Carlisle Academy by 51-38 in 1908. In 1909 a new format was adopted (as it turned out for one year only) in which academies and high schools competed in separate divisions with the winner of each meeting in a dual meet for the overall state championship. Allen Academy defeated runner-up Thomas Arnold of Salado (the only other academy entered) by 94-9 and then defeated the state high school team champion, Belton, by 58-55. The Marshall Training Academy of San Antonio won the Academy state championships five times (1910-12 and 1914-15) and Allen Academy won its 5^th and 6^th state championships in 1916 & 1918. St Edwards Academy won its only state title in 1913 and Hardin Academy its only title in 1917. All academy championship teams from 1905-1918 are included in the “T-Champ” annual listing in the Appendix .