Abilene High School

The 63-game history of the Abilene High-Cooper football rivalry is full of great games, great teams, and great players. Some of those teams and players have played the game under unusual circumstances. For example, the two teams faced off on Friday, Nov. 12, 1976, at Shotwell Stadium as snow fell, covering the field before the game started.

But none of the games played between the teams has been played under more somber circumstances than the evening of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. Just seven hours after President John F. Kennedy had been pronounced dead after being assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, the Eagles and Cougars kicked off in front of a solemn crowd of 10,000 fans at what was then called Public Schools Stadium.

Over the next couple of hours, what followed was one of the more entertaining games in the series as the Eagles edged the Cougars, 21-20, in the third meeting. Abilene High stopped a Cooper two-point conversion late in the game to preserve the one-point victory. It was a reversal of the previous year when the Cougars won 19-18 by stopping an Abilene High two-point conversion late in the game.

Remarkably, the Nov. 23, 1963, edition of the Abilene Reporter-News made no mention of the assassination in writer James McAfee’s game story, and none of the players from either side who sat down to remember the game could recall any conversation about postponing or canceling the game.

Most teams in the area played that night, although a statewide scores list in the newspaper from Nov. 23, 1963, Reporter-News shows numerous games around the state either canceled or postponed after the assassination.

The Abilene High head coach that night was Wally Bullington, who was in his fourth year as the Eagles’ mentor, while on the other sideline, Clovis Riley was the head coach at Cooper. Both men would have been in talks with AISD Athletics Director Chuck Moser about what to do regarding playing the game. Still, Bullington’s widow, Valerie Bullington, said she couldn’t recall any conversations with her late husband about the decision other than to say she was sure he wrestled with the best thing to do for everyone involved.

The players needed clarification about whether or not they would play that night, as described by Bob Bearden, the AHS quarterback. Bearden was in the Abilene High choir, and he and the other choir members were performing at a local club meeting when news of the assassination spread.

“We were singing ‘God Bless America’ at the Kiwanis Club meeting that afternoon at the old Wooten Hotel when the president of the club came out and told everyone that the president had been shot in Dallas,” said Bearden, who spent his career with Athletic Supply in Abilene. “No one said anything; we all just left. All of the Kiwanis people left, and those in the choir returned to our cars and went back to campus.

“I walked into the locker room at the fieldhouse, and (assistant coach) Ted Sitton was sitting there alone,” Bearden said. “I asked him what we would do, and he said he wasn’t sure, but he thought we would play.”

The players at Cooper were just as unsure as their counterparts from Abilene High about whether they would play the game. But once they arrived at the stadium and began warming up, it became like any other game. 

Almost.

“Everybody was kind of wondering what was going to happen,” said Jimmy Parker, a receiver for Cooper who caught three passes for 41 yards in the game and went on to a teaching career that included 30 years teaching physics at Abilene High. “No one knew what was happening or what might happen next, although nothing did. I do think people were worried about what might happen. The president of the United States was dead, so what might happen? Are we going to be fighting somebody? What are we going to do?”

Later that afternoon, the coaches and AISD administrators decided to proceed with the game, and it kicked off at 8 p.m., about seven hours after Kennedy’s assisination in Dallas.

Parker’s teammate, Charlie Jowers, admitted to having mixed feelings about playing in the game.

“I was excited about playing, but I was distracted during the game,” said Jowers, who caught one pass for eight yards and was a pharmacist after moving back to Abilene in 1985. “I kept thinking, ‘How important is this game in the grand scheme?’ We’re out here playing this game, and it didn’t amount to anything important because we didn’t know if we were about to be at war or what. We didn’t know if something else was going to happen. I had mixed feelings about playing; I did.”

Once the game started, the 10,000 fans in the stadium watched a back-and-forth contest that went to halftime tied 7-7. During the halftime show, the combined bands from Abilene High and Cooper played “Crusader’s Hymn” as the crowd stood in silent tribute to the slain president.

When the game got going again, the teams continued the hard-fought contest, with Cooper taking a 14-7 lead on a short touchdown run by Don Mayfield. Abilene High got to within 14-13 on the final play of the third quarter on a 54-yard touchdown pass from Bearden to Mike Murphy. Bearden and Murphy had hooked up for a 22-yard touchdown pass in the first half for
Abilene High’s only points in the first two quarters. The PAT was no good, leaving the Eagles down one point.

Abilene High took its only lead midway through the fourth quarter as the Eagles recovered a Cooper fumble inside the Cougars’ 10-yard line. Tommy Wilson scored on a 1-yard run and added a two-point conversion run to give the Eagles a 21-14 lead. But Cooper drove the field and scored on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Bobby McCraw to Bill McKinnon with less than two minutes to play.

Abilene High’s defense, however, deciphered the two-point play and dropped McKinnon short of the end zone, protecting the 21-20 advantage. The Eagles took the ensuing kickoff and made one first down to eliminate any chances Cooper had to get the ball back. Bearden finished with 82 yards rushing and 94 yards and two touchdowns passing. Murphy caught three passes for 85 yards and two touchdowns.

In all that excitement, Bearden said he never heard the crowd, although Parker, Jowers, and Murphy agreed the crowd was into the game.

When the contest ended with the Eagles on top, the usual commotion associated with a crosstown rivalry game wasn’t present. The teams shook hands and went to their respective dressing rooms on the stadium's south end. Neither team was in their locker rooms long before departing for their campuses.

“Usually after a game, everybody was asking, ‘Are we going to Mack’s?’” Murphy said, referring to Mack Eplen’s on North 1st, a popular hangout at the time. “There was nothing like that on the field or in the dressing room. Everybody just dispersed and went their own way. We went back to the fieldhouse, and from there, there was nothing. No parties. Nothing.”

The win helped Abilene High finish 6-4 that season, while the Cougars finished 2-8 in the school’s third season of varsity football. But that night, more important matters were on the minds of most in the stands and on the field.

More than 60 years later, the most unique, somber football game in the history of the Abilene High-Cooper series isn’t thought of every day by the men who played in it. But they each have enough reminders of that contest that it’s never far from their minds.

For some, it might be a pain in the lower back stemming from a hit taken from a friend and adversary in the game. Murphy's reminder came in the form of a vehicle he bought a few years ago after moving back to Abilene, taking him back to the play call on the 54-yard touchdown pass from Bearden.

“The play call for that particular pass was ‘9067 Deep,’” said Murphy, a Phoenix police officer for 25 years before moving back to Abilene in 1990. “But we just called it ‘9067.’ So I bought this truck and got the plates, and when I looked at them, I saw the number on the plate was 9-0-6-7. Seeing that number on the plate took me back to that night.”

A night none of them will ever forget.