“Untold Stories” are the Roo Tales yet to be written for a second book after the first book is finished and published. Hope you enjoy these untold story previews.
Here’s one:
“I’ve got to go, Rock. It’s all right. I’m not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.” – George Gipp
Infections were a serious matter during an era before anti-biotics; it was a throat infection that was the undoing of Notre Dame star George Gipp. Rockne used Gipp’s speech to motivate his troops during a 1928 game against Army, and former President Ronald Reagan played Gipp in the movies. The story is iconic American sports history.
Austin College Kangaroo Weldon Chapman had coached nearly 15 high school football squads since his Sherman graduation in the mid-1920s. As coach of Lubbock High School in 1939, all the pieces for a state championship were in place. But then, disaster.
Chapman got sick during the summer with a throat infection. It got worse. When the season began, he was weak and could barely talk. His Lubbock High Westerners struggled early on as well. By October, Chapman’s condition had deteriorated so severely that he had to be hospitalized. Meanwhile, the Lubbock High squad was 1-3 and going nowhere. The team headed to Plainview for a game on the road without their coach.
According to newspaper reports, Chapman’s deep sleep was broken by a nurse in his hospital room. Chapman asked if his Westerners had won the game; when the nurse responded “yes,” he smiled a fell back into a deep sleep again. He never woke up.
The Westerners returned to Lubbock, learned of their coach’s passing, and held a team meeting. They dedicated the rest of the season to their fallen coach.
And they never lost again.
Down one score in the 4th quarter of the state championship game at the Cotton Bowl, Lubbock High scored a touchdown to secure the title. Throwing a key block on the touchdown run was Pete Cawthon Jr., the son of Weldon Chapman’s football coach at Austin College.
If you decide to take in a Lubbock High Westerners football game in the future, head south from Texas Tech, take a left on 22nd street, and enter directly through the gates of “Chapman Field.” The Westerner stadium named for Lubbock High’s fallen Roo coach.
