The year was 1929, only three years after the new El Jardin school building (located five miles east of Brownsville) was erected, that its football 11, the Comets, were fighting for their lives on the gridiron.
The rural school football title was on the line with Stuart Place and El Jardin having two games remaining against each other for the crown.
El Jardin had a formable starting lineup that included: H. Vicars, left end; Frazier, left tackle; Carl Vicars, left guard; Underwood, center; Kemper, right guard; Gendenning, right tackle; Adams, right end; Coy Vicars, quarterback; Lawrence, left halfback; Mathias, right halfback; and Triplett, fullback.
In their first encounter Stuart Place gained an advantage on the Cameron County Rural title by defeating the Comets in Brownsville, 13-12. The Herald described it as a nip-and-tuck affair, with neither team holding a decided advantage.
El Jardin’s inability to score points after touchdowns and a called-back score for being offside was the downfall for the Comets.
The second game was played at Stuart Place. where El Jardin was embarrassed. Coach Ryle’ team ended the season with undefeated record and the Rural Championship Title.
But wait a minute — according to Bruce Underwood, those three points the Comets scored “were the greatest three points in Rio Grande Valley Football. “The following is a reprint of Underwood’s story of that November afternoon game of 1929:
Eleven spirited but rather scrawny El Jardin High School football players were taking the most awful drubbing of their lives on that mild afternoon at Stuart Place High School in November of 1929.
The host team, it was proved later, had brought in five huge, over-aged, ineligible players to help insure a victory in this second of the three-game series against El Jardin. Such a victory would enable Stuart Place to win the Cameron County Class “B” Championship.
Stuart Place’s power was evident in the first play from scrimmage. El Jardin guard-center Bruce Underwood was knocked out for the only time in his 16 years of sports competition.
Coach Diltz’s El Jardin Comets tried everything they knew to hold the score down, since it seemed impossible for them to score. The Comets pulled a foxy play when Stuart was four touchdowns ahead.
Tackle Homer Vicars received the ball after a kickoff, but instead of returning it he amazed the home team by holding the ball a second, while the Stuart players thundered toward him. Just in time he punted the ball 35 yards back into Stuart territory. Even this unexpected reverse didn’t keep the home team from piling up a higher and higher score.
By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, the dog-tired Comets didn’t even bother to keep the score. The home team juggernaut kept on smothering the Brownsville boys. The little handful of spectators lost interest.
After El Jardin received the ball on the next kickoff, quarterback Coy Vicars tried three plays that got nowhere. He routinely called for a punt. (In those days the quarterback ran the game; his team executed the plays he called.) Just before the center snapped the ball, however, Coy shouted, “Signals check.” Quickly, he called the number for scrappy Bill Lawrence to do what he used to a lot on the practice field.
Bill was to try a drop-kick goal, no matter if the ball was almost 40 yards from the Stuart goal line.
As the viciously charging Stuart line poured toward him, unflappable Bill got off the most stunning drop-kick of his life. The 52-yarder was beautiful. The ball headed straight toward the uprights and spun end over end, high above the crossbar. An amazed referee thrust both of his arms toward the sky.
The Comets had always liked Bill; now they revered him. The final score of 84-3 was incredibly better than 84-0 would have been.
And yes, on this day, the Comets had a tough time holding that line and were repeatedly knocked down, but they repeatedly got up, to eventually score a moral victory by recording a blemish on their opponent’s side of the board.
In October of this year, a high school team made national news when it lost 91-0. After the game a parent accused the winning squad of “bullying.”
I guess the Comets could have done the same, but you heard no cries of “foul play” coming from them; instead, they took it on the chin and went on to recover much faster than the stock market crash of ’29.
When it comes to victories or defeats, we must remember the words of Michel de Montaigne: “There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.”
The following year, the El Jardin Comets would no longer sear their opponents; instead would claw ’em down. The student body voted to change their mascot name from Comets to Cougars. The boys wanted something on their lettermen’s blanket that suggested real flesh and blood fights.
Allow me to close with the El Jardin High School Alma Mater, as written in 1939. It is for those who proudly walked the halls of that once rural school that was then so removed from city life, that some rode their horses to school.
In this tip of Texas where bal-my breezes blow,
Palm trees and poinsettias and golden grapefruit grow,
The dearest spot of all, the school we love so well,
El Jardin High School, your glories swell.
(Chorus) We’ll fight, fight, dear Green and White
We give our best to you;
So true to thee we’ll ever be,
We’ll fight for you
Our banner is the peer, its colors may they shine,
Green for youthful vigor and white for honor or fine,
Now come, let us recall, those memories so dear,
Give us now, your classmates, and a lusty cheer!
