10-25-24 CLEBURNE
The Scots travel an hour southwest this Friday to battle the Cleburne Yellow Jackets in a contest that features an undefeated 7-5A team versus a team that is winless this season. The Alpha and the Omega.
After dropping their first four games this season, the Yellow Jackets were competitive in their first three district games, losing to Burleson Centennial (38-28), Midlothian (28-9) and Tyler (45-22) before the wheels came off last weekend as Red Oak rolled up a 72-0 win. Following the Highland Park game the ‘Jackets have a bye and a final game against Joshua, in which they have a realistic chance to finish the season on a winning streak.
The Cleburne quarterback, Luke Stewart, and running back, Hayden Leifeste, are both top-notch skill athletes. As juniors, Stewart threw for 1,360 yards and Leifeste had five one-hundred-yard games. The team’s top receiver is Malachi Cunningham, who caught 21 passes for 303 yards last season. The team is averaging a healthy 337.8 yards per game. The Scots are averaging 378.4 yards per game. Both teams have balanced offenses and tough, athletic defenses. Highland Park is averaging 34 points per game and Cleburne is averaging 12.8.
HP’s sophomore quarterback Buck Randall has passed for 1,719 yards and 20 touchdowns through seven games, ranking him fourth in Dallas area 5A schools.
If you are undecided about going to Cleburne for the game, let me try to persuade you to make the trip. It’s about an hour drive (on top of negotiating Dallas rush hour traffic) but once you break free of the Metroplex, it is a pleasant drive through the countryside. From Dallas take I-35E south from downtown. When it splits with Hwy 67, take Hwy 67 southwest to Cleburne. Then take the Business 67 exit and go into town and look for stadium lights. If you wind up in Marfa you missed your stadium lights. However, maybe you’ll catch the Marfa lights while you’re down there.
Actually, the star of the road trip is Cleburne’s Yellow Jacket Stadium, one of the oldest and most unique high school stadiums in Texas. It is a WPA (Works Progress Administration) stadium which began construction during the Great Depression in 1939 and finished in 1941 before the bombing at Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War II.
Very few high school stadiums have its own historic marker but Yellow Jacket Stadium does.
Here’s what it written on the plaque:
“In 1939, work began to replace Rhome Field, where Cleburne high played home football games for twenty years. The works projects administration (WPA) provided most of the funding for the new $80,000 stadium built from concrete and rough cut Somervell county limestone. It opened in fall 1941, with ivy-covered stands, pilasters, seating for 3800, ticket windows, and dressing rooms. The stadium has hosted football games, other sports, and community events. The 1959 state co-championship team, coached by Brooks Conover, played on this field.”
The stadium was featured in the movie, “Twelve Mighty Orphans” which starred Luke Wilson as Coach Rusty Russell of the Masonic Home in Ft. Worth. Ironically, Coach Russell eventually left there and became the head coach at Highland Park from 1942 to 1944. Then when SMU offered him an opportunity to coach on the college level he took it and he brought Doak Walker with him.
Coach Russell was a legend for his coaching the team of orphans. He was also successful at Highland Park and SMU. But his greatest feat was recruiting Doak Walker to the Hilltop where Walker won the Heisman Trophy in 1948.
Russ Walker, a captain on the Scots 1977 team, is Doak’s son and is named for Coach Russell.