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TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) — When people think about football rivalries in Texarkana, the Texas-Arkansas high school games come to mind.
But for Texarkana's black community, the big game for roughly three decades was held on Thanksgiving Day. It was the place to be seen as their high school teams duked it out on the field.
From the 1930s through the 1960s_in the days before school integration_a fierce cross-town rivalry developed between the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Buffaloes on the Texas side and the Booker T. Washington High School Lions on the Arkansas side of town. For spectators, the game was a social occasion like none other.
The men Dunbar and Washington each achieved greatness in their respective endeavors, Dunbar as poet and writer and Washington as teacher and speaker. On the football field, students strove for such greatness, and even if they didn't win the game they developed qualities that could shape them into great young men.
Victory in the annual Turkey Day Game, as it was called, secured bragging rights and, in the eyes of the community, athletic greatness. Fans, say some of the players, could take the rivalry even more seriously than those who fought on the field.
O.W. Lollies was one of those standout players on the 1965 Washington Lions team, a '66 graduate who played football from his sophomore year onward. It wasn't until his senior year, though, that he played quarterback and led his team to the state title game, which they lost.
"We had an exceptional year that year," Lollies said, "as a matter of fact, we played in the championship ball game."
Winfred Hawkins was a stellar running back for the Lions in '65, one of the best in Arkansas, Lollies said. "We had a pretty well-balanced team that year. We had an exceptional defense. Our offense was pretty proficient. We had outstanding receivers. We had a real good line."
He felt the excitement generated by the Washington-Dunbar cross-town rivalry. On the field, the players greeted that fan excitement as top athletes who played classic, fundamental, hard-nosed football.
"Booker T. Washington and Dunbar had a lot of exceptional athletes," Lollies said.
One of them was Arthur James, dubbed "King Arthur," a Dunbar player who built a storied career for East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University-Commerce). "One of the most talented backs to come out of the area during that time," Lollies recalled of James.
He recalls, too, that in '65 they were able to play at the Arkansas High School football field. Their own field was located behind Carver Elementary, the Texarkana Gazette (http://bit.ly/1BVESKM ) reports.
"That was big deal. It was historic_first time any blacks had ever played there," Lollies said of the field traditionally reserved for white players. "All the white schools had better facilities than the black schools."
The Buffaloes and Lions were friends off the field, so he didn't sense animosity between opposing players. But "the competition was intense," Lollies said.
The stands were "overcrowded" for the Turkey Day Game. And fans could sometimes take the rivalry to the extreme, more so than players, he says.
"I think when you do have schools on each side of the state line, there's always competition about who has the best team . you have bragging rights from a ball game like that and you can walk around the whole next year talking about who kicked who's behind," Lollies said.
The Thanksgiving Day game was a time for graduates to return. Families attended. It was a place to see folks you hadn't seen in a while.
"It gave a lot of people an opportunity to come out and socialize," Lollies said. People came together to celebrate the game on both sides of the city. They prepared for this big social event.
"It was really important to a lot of people, especially those who had come before us," said Lollies, who went on to play at Mississippi Valley State University. He also played a couple years for the Texarkana Titans, a semi-pro team. He went on to became the first black science teacher at Arkansas High and first black department chair there.
That Turkey Day Game was significant for fans, players and community alike, significant in the way the Arkansas-Texas high rivalry was and still is.
"I think for the cross-town rivalry at that time we didn't get a lot of press, and I think for a lot of people it was an important event. It was an important event for the black community. It provided us with the same kind of identity as the Texas High and Arkansas High game," Lollies said.
Dan Haskins coached and, during the 1940s, played at Dunbar. After working in Belton, Texas, and Mount Pleasant, he returned to Texarkana in 1965 to be head football coach and math teacher at Dunbar for three years.
He went on to become an assistant coach and then an assistant principal at Texas High School. In 1973, he became principal at THS, a true pioneer, followed by assistant superintendent.
Haskins looks back fondly on those Dunbar teams, including the '65 team. "They had a good team, they always did," Haskins said. No matter the record, the Turkey Day Game was close. That was true when he was a player, too.
He played the Turkey Day Game in '46 and '47. When he was a smaller, younger kid, Dunbar football was suspended during World War II, he remembers. But when the war was over, the game was back on.
"We fought hard, and no matter what your record was it was never or very seldom if ever a runaway . the rivalry, it was on Thanksgiving Day. That's when we always played it when I was coming up as a boy," Haskins said. "We fought hard, but when the ball game was over the players did not have difficulty."
They got along, the players. They took the rivalry seriously but not to the extent any problems arose. After all, students went over the state line. They lived their daily lives on both sides.
"We crossed the line. We played basketball, we courted girls over there, they courted boys over here and vice versa," Haskins said. "Usually the rivalry was always because of the fans."
When he attended Dunbar, he remembers playing football on a baseball field. "We didn't have a park. They didn't either," Haskins said. So together they'd prepare the field.
"When we played we had to fit it for football. We had to line it off. However, the problems came not with the players, but the fans, when they lined it off, they didn't sit in the stands. They stood on the sidelines. Right there," Haskins said. That posed a problem.
"I've seen fans want to jump on the players," Haskins said.
For people who wanted to see the game, it was just part of the holiday. "That was what they wanted to do. It was a good tradition to be in," Haskins said.
As both a player and as a coach, he won some and lost some. He remembers Washington and Dunbar played early in the season, too, but the Turkey Day Game was the most important meeting. One year he beat Washington both games as coach.
He remembers that Arkansas-side Buhrman Field game, too. There was better turf, stands for the crowd_"something we didn't have," he said. "We just didn't have the facilities that the whites had. It was just that simple . it was what it was," he said.
Haskins recalled, too, that Dunbar's game against Washington was played at the Texas-side Grim Stadium his second year as coach, the '66-'67 school year. "What happened was my team won district and we got into the playoffs," he said. They played a team from Dallas at Grim in November of 1966.
"That was the first time we played in there_or anybody else black," Haskins said. The next week, after losing the playoff game, they played Washington High there, too.
At the time, they didn't really see the significance of the historic moment. "Some people did. I guess we did later on," Haskins said. They just wanted to play ball.
The Turkey Day Game brought something special to the players, even beyond the strong competition.
"As it turned out, it made them closer," Haskins said of the players. "Not while they were playing. They gave their hearts, both teams. But once it was over, it was a plus. I experienced this myself."
The rivalry instilled a pride in Texarkana, he said, a benefit in addition to the bragging rights bestowed upon the victor. It brought the community together_after the game, of course, which started at 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
"It's something we cherished, though," Haskins said. It was good for both schools. "It taught us to give our best, but it also taught us how to turn it loose. Don't hold it. Once that's over, shake hands and try to do better next time. And wish each other well in whatever area they're going to pursue."
Two Washington High football players back in those days were Earlie Haley, a member of the '65 team, and Lewis Thompson Jr., a 1956 graduate who worked for the Texarkana Arkansas School District for three decades as a teacher, coach, assistant principal and principal. They both played under Nathan "Tricky" Jones and Thompson himself served as a Lions assistant coach when Haley played.
"We played football at the old North Heights stadium out there. That's where it started," Thompson said. Then they moved to the Carver location, where they had to cut grass, put up lights and prepare seating for 75 to 100 people.
The '49 team at Washington High won a state championship. For a 2014 article in the Gazette about his '65 team, Haley said, "What the 1949 team accomplished was legendary stuff. They set standards that every team afterward would shoot for, but it hasn't been repeated yet."
With a small roster, they won the state championship, a credit to the man who served as their leader.
"It was amazing," Thompson said, "I think about him now as a mastermind coach, Tricky Jones . Tricky was a man of men. He made men out of boys. At that time, he didn't have the caliber of players or whatever like the other schools with 20 or 30 guys out for football, you know."
Haley played four Turkey Day games, so he knows the rivalry well. His '65 Lions had a running attack that he called "unstoppable."
One of the players he remembers was dubbed "Slow Train Through Arkansas." That was wingman Jackie Nash. "We never could figure out how Jackie was the slowest man on the team and he was always open," Haley said.
They had a top offense. Players played all positions. Jones favored a "run and gun" style.
Beyond being the game of the year, it also had social significance.
"If you haven't seen a person all year or in two or three years, you can look for them Thanksgiving Day," Haley said. "They're going to be there for that game. People come from miles around, everywhere. They come home for Thanksgiving for that one rivalry."
The winner of that game was "king of the hill." Thompson called it "the game of games." ''That was a feast," he said. With integration starting in 1968, the last Turkey Day Game was in 1967.
Thompson said they didn't have any particular sort of special prep for the big game. The football played used a fundamental approach.
"The way the coach taught it during that time was strictly basic fundamental-type game. He would stress end runs and that kind of thing. Very few passes," the '56 graduate recalled. That's how he taught the game when he coached, too, saying he never had any problems with this style of play, even during integration.
"Football is football," Thompson said. "It's rough, it's tough and the strong survive."
An AP Member Exchange shared by Texarkana Gazette
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