Today is AC Giving Day! I always like to give a story, in the hope of encouraging Roos to give to Austin College. In addition to AC Giving Day, it’s also time for nominations for the Kedric Couch Award for AC Alumni Coach of the Year. See the comments for the links to AC Giving Day & the Kedric Couch Award nominations. Today’s AC Giving Day story is about Austin College Kangaroo Kedric Couch.
Kedric Couch, born in 1931, was raised in poverty. He grew up in Depression-era Georgia, attending school by day and working full time for meager wages when not studying. Those good habits earned him admission to Austin College, where he played football and earned a degree in education. After Sherman, Couch devoted himself to a career in Texas coaching and administration that would span half a century.
Anglo Americans from the South who knew the pain of Great Depression poverty often followed one of two roads: insist on perpetuating the injustice of segregation, or sympathize with the plight of their Black American compatriots. Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson, like Couch a Southern man born into poverty, was uncompromisingly in favor of the latter. LBJ backed the civil rights movement, while famously describing the alternative path. From LBJ: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” On the topic of race, Kedric Couch and Lyndon Johnson were made from the same cloth.
Texas athletics is often defined by race. It colors our perceptions and opinions. And one Texas football season in particular is associated with race: 1988, the year I first stepped on campus as a freshman at Austin College.
1988 was the year of the Odessa Permian Panthers. The season of this predominantly white juggernaut, which ended in a painful loss deep in the playoffs, was documented in the best-selling book “Friday Night Lights” by H. G. Bissinger. Bissinger did not shy away from critically writing about Odessa and race, something which made him a persona non grata in the town. But one Odessa resident prominently embraced him: former Permian lineman and AC International Studies professor Dr. Shelton Williams. Shelly invited Bissinger to the Austin College campus to speak during my days on campus after the book’s release.
1988 was also the year of the Dallas Carter Cowboys. The season of this predominately black juggernaut ended in a state title. That 1988 Carter title included a dramatic playoff win against Odessa Permian, a win which also concludes the movie version of “Friday Night Lights.” A final Odessa play stops just short of the end zone; the Permian Head Coach (played by Billy Bob Thornton) can only watch in disbelief as Carter jerseys celebrate around him. For Carter, the playoff road to Permian first had to go through Lufkin (shoutout to my AC fraternity brother Jason Willis) and Marshall. Marshall’s squad, led by Odell Beckham Sr., had dispatched Huntsville (shout out to my AC fraternity brother Michael Dickens) one week prior.
The 1988 Dallas Carter state champions, considered one of the best of all time, had their state title stripped by the UIL for a debatable “no-pass, no-play” infraction in the classroom by one player. Was the decision to revoke the title related to robberies committed by six team members after the season was over? Likely. Were the prison sentences for those robberies excessive? Maybe. Did the misguided hero worship of the state of Texas towards football stars lead to a false sense of entitlement for those who committed the crimes? Surely.
What is clear is that the opinions of most Texans on the matter of Dallas Carter in 1988 are heavily influenced by the race of the opinion giver. Even the movies about Carter differ wildly. The 2004 “Friday Night Lights” movie is sympathetic to the predominantly Permian perspective. The 2015 film “Carter High,” featuring Charles S. Dutton of “Rudy” fame, is sympathetic to the Carter point of view. An ESPN 30-for-30 documentary entitled “What Carter Lost” lies somewhere in between.
And yet, despite all of this unpleasantness, there’s also a heartwarming movie which tells a story almost identical to that of Dallas Carter High School. The movie is “Remember The Titans,” starring Denzel Washington. “Titans” tells the tale of the 1971 football team at T.C. Williams High School in Virginia. Recently integrated, the formerly all-white high school is multi-racial by 1971. Black & white members of the team must overcome their own differences & prejudices to form one unit and win. Titans Head Coach Herman Boone, played by Washington, helps the team do just that after a long run to a Gettysburg cemetery at dawn:
Boone: “Anybody know what this place is? This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fightin’ the same fight that we’re still fightin’ amongst ourselves today. This green field right here was painted red, bubblin’ with the blood of young boys, smoke and hot lead pourin’ right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men: ‘I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.’ You listen. And you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together, right now, on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed — just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not. But you will respect each other. And maybe — I don’t know — maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”
Dallas Carter was founded in 1967, at first a predominantly white high school south of downtown. For its first ever Head football Coach, Carter hired an Austin College Kangaroo who had over a decade of experience: Kedric Couch. Over the next four years, Couch led Carter to a very pedestrian 18-19-1 record. The team photos of the Carter Cowboys in the late 1960s look remarkably similar to the team photos of the early Odessa Permian Panthers: squads that are overwhelmingly one ethnicity.
But that all changed dramatically in 1971. The 1971 team photo of Couch’s Carter Cowboys might as well be the team photo of Herman Boone’s 1971 T.C. Williams squad from “Remember the Titans:” a racially diverse team clouded by suspicion and distrust. Kedric Couch could have taken flight to the suburbs and avoided emulating Herman Boone. But instead, he stayed. He coached. He molded his team. And he produced a winner.
From 1971 to 1975, Couch’s Dallas Carter squads went 52-8-3, qualified for the playoffs each year, and reached the state semifinals twice. One of those semifinal losses was due to bad luck: three starters were injured in a car wreck just days before the 1971 game. Another of those semifinal losses was also due to bad luck: historically foggy weather in a 1974 defeat slowed down his high-flying squad. Nevertheless, the foundation for Dallas Carter’s 1988 title was built on the shoulders of Kedric Couch, who didn’t care if his integrated squad “liked each other” but demanded that they “respect each other, and learn to play this game like men.” Kedric Couch was named Coach of the Year in Dallas twice while at Carter, and National High School Coach of the Year in 1972.
Couch retired from Carter in 1976, becoming Athletic Director for the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). The accolades began to flow after his retirement in 1988, the year of the infamous Carter-Permian clash. Kedric Couch was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1998 and was named an All-American Football Foundation member in 2003. In 2006, DISD named the field of Loos Stadium after Couch. That same year, Couch was named an Austin College distinguished alumnus. The AC Alumni Coach of the Year award was established in his name soon thereafter.
But those awards all pale in comparison to the one which came next. It’s one which Titans Coach Herman Boone and former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson would probably be most proud. The Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame (TBSHOF) lies within the African American Museum of Dallas next to the Cotton Bowl. Every year, the best black Texas athletes and coaches are inducted into its Hall. But the TBSHOF also votes on an award for a non-black Texan. The Hall’s “Rube Foster” award is presented annually to “a non-African American for unselfish dedication and contributions to the success of those in black sports history.” The first Rube Foster award was given in 2007, to Kangaroo Kedric Couch.
Former Kedric Couch AC Alumni Couch of the Year recipients include:
Today is AC Giving Day! I always like to give a story, in the hope of encouraging Roos to give to Austin College. If you enjoyed this AC Giving Day story, why not toss AC a dime on Giving Day? See the link in the comments. Special thanks to Colin Dunnigan for kicking off this story.
