In Texas: The Only Game in Town

By Gregory Jaynes

Two hundred and fifty million years ago (is this not the way James Michener would begin?), a depression that would come to be known as the Permian Basin developed in what would come to be known as West Texas. Then, to make a long story short (the demands here are somewhat more telescopic than those Big Jim labors under), there would be dinosaurs and much later there would be fossil fuels. Cow towns called Midland and Odessa would be established, their commercial cornerstones eventually to shift from cattle to the petroleum that lay beneath the desert pocked by what the Spanish speakers called playas and the English speakers called buffalo wallows. This would be known as the oil business, pronounced locally "thawlbidness."

For some reason, the oil companies set their headquarters in Midland, giving the town a white-collar image, while the field hands clung to Odessa, lending it a blue-collar air. When high school football came along (to continue our ton of history in a thimble), it meant that every Thanks-giving the bosses' sons played the sons of the laborers. Through the years things changed--both towns now sport enough alabaster shirts to have a lot of ring around the collar in the summertime--but the deep and abiding rivalry over high school football remained white hot.

In the old days it was Odessa High vs. Midland High. But as the towns grew they added new schools. Odessa opened Odessa Permian in 1959. Midland opened Midland Robert E. Lee in 1961. The new schools stole the thunder from the old schools. An alumnus of old Odessa High said the other day, "Nobody wants to hear about our merit scholars or that our chorus went to Wales last year. All they talk about is Permian football." Today Odessa-Midland football means the Permian Panthers and the Midland Lee Rebels.

When the annual competition commenced one beautiful night last month--the Thanksgiving play date was the old schools' schedule--the local NBC television affiliate pre-empted the National League baseball playoffs to carry the action live, so great was the area's interest. To boot, the station paid $4,500 to each school for the broadcasting rights. It was believed to be the first live telecast of a regular-season high school football game in Texas, and where it lacked polish (an assistant coach: "One thing we'd like to do is get that sucker in the end zone"), it made up in enthusiasm (the play-by-play announcer: "That'll make it third and a country mile!"). During the broadcast, you could have fired a cannon down the main streets of either town and not hit a living soul.

"This deal was sold out before the season started," Gil Bartosh, athletic director for the Midland Independent School District, was explaining the day before the game. Outside, fat drops of rain fell in sheets that turned the streets to rivers and flooded the stadium just beyond Bartosh's window. Just then a dripping grounds keeper came in to fetch a slicker. "It's gone," he said of the field. "I been out there. I got water plumb out." Bartosh canceled the junior varsity game that had been scheduled for that night, saying, "We don't want to tear up the field for junior varsity."

"We'll be all right," he went on. "We've got a lot of sand here. The water sinks. It's not like a gumbo deal."

An assistant principal at Midland came in and shook himself off. "I got a three-quarter-ton pickup truck, and I flooded out," he said. "It's just the condensation in that distributor. I ought to go out there and dry it out, but I'd drown doing it."

You do not need drains if it seldom rains, and it scarcely rains in West Texas. Dry lakes have been known to catch fire here. So precious is water that many people loathe lawns; others ostentatiously show their wealth by the look of their grassy places (still others, sensitive to criticism, sneakily install root-system watering devices, eliminating the telltale arc of an aboveground sprinkler). In any event, there were three feet of water standing in some streets of Midland and Odessa the day before the game.

Bartosh returned to the subject of the intensity of feeling for high school football. He said there were not "a whole lot of distractions in West Texas, like mountains or lakes or anything, and most communities are centered around their schools." When the tickets for this game went on sale, the school's booster club gobbled them up before any could be offered to the general public, which got cross. The Midland Memorial Stadium seats 10,750. Odessa has a new stadium that seats 19,500, but district rules say the game has to alternate sites each year. "When we go out of town [to play] in West Texas, we'll carry 3,000 to 7,000 with us on the road," said Bartosh.

Such loyalty is highly lucrative. Bartosh reports that regular-season gate receipts plus the revenue from the state playoffs netted the school about $320,000. It costs $92,000 to run the entire football program, seventh through twelfth grade. The extra money pays for the school's other sports, known to some in these parts as "the lesser sports."

"It's the only game in town," explained Scotty Alcorn, a geological engineer for a Midland oil company. "You take pride in your football team. We call this district the Little Southwest Conference. It stretches from Odessa to Abilene, 165 miles. Why, back East in some places you'd be out of the state."

As for West Texas, Alcorn boasted, "It's a deal where you can walk down the street and people will speak to you even if they don't know you, even the women." Truer words were never spoken about these warmhearted citizens, except when it comes to football. For example, just that morning a Midland sports columnist had used his forum to accuse a genial visiting correspondent of "worming a ticket."

The rain slacked off the day of the game, and the field sucked down the moisture with a Saharan-like thirst. In the parking lot, Odessans in recreational vehicles relished barbecue. In one, Stan Pulley, Marge Pulley, Claudeane Sublett, John Sublett, Mike Carter and Jan Jones addressed an inquisitor all at once, making it difficult to record who said what.

"This is great. Put this down. The '65 team got the state championship--the first one Odessa won. They just had their 20th reunion, and 70% of 'em graduated from college. Did you get all that?"

"We got the greatest band too. You just listen."

"You wait till after the game. Win, lose or draw, they'll hold hands with the coach and say a prayer. They always do, and we don't leave till the prayer is over."

"We were in England one time, and John was checking the world news and got mad cause they didn't give the Permian scores."

Outside the RV, a young man selling programs, Midland's center last year, Keith Ward, asked, "Do you know what Mojo stands for?" A visitor said he understood it was the name of the Odessa mascot, a student in a panther costume. "No," said Keith, "it stands for Most Obnoxious Jerks in Odessa."

Pretty soon the sun, an orange gob, slid down the cobalt sky, and the field lights came on. Slab-sided referees took their positions. The combatants appeared, 17-year-old Texans big around as the bole of a sequoia born when the local mail came by Pony Express. The Midland band played Dixie. Young drill teams strutted: the dancers had the tendony legs of Appaloosas--and orthodontia that cost the earth. A student gave the prayer over the loudspeaker: "Thanks for getting us here O.K., Lord, and I just pray you let the boys play without any harm to anyone, and I just pray everyone plays to the best of their abilities with the talents you've given them, and I just pray you give everyone a safe journey home."

Odessa Permian 13, Midland Robert E. Lee 7. --By Gregory Jaynes