Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County, Texas
Football photo is both history and mystery
Editor's Corner - by Mike Brown
Rockdale Reporter - 2015-07-23
The photo that accompanies this column was recently sent to the Rockdale ISD.
It’s listed as the 1928 Rockdale High School football team and notes that one of the men
in the back row was George A. Harris, who coached the Tigers that year.
A little research in The Reporter files, and elsewhere, turns up a bit of a mystery.
Namely, the coach of the 1928 Rockdale football team was not George Harris, it was W. B.
Erwin.
There’s no doubt about that. A front-page Reporter story in September of that year
praises Erwin as being trained by no less than the legendary D. X. Bible and calling him
the “first real football coach Rockdale has had since the days of Bailey Hughes and Billy
Magee.” That turned out to be prophetic.
The 1928 Tigers won their first five games, the longest winning streak in school history,
up to that time.
Those included three shutouts, 28-0 over Thrall, 57-0 over Elgin and 37-0 over Thorndale.
Hopes for an undefeated season then plummeted with 38-0 and 44-6 losses to Georgetown and
Cameron respectively.
But those 1928 Tigers bounced back to win their finale, 12-0 over Taylor, and finish 6-2.
Those six wins would not be bettered by an RHS team for 28 years until the 1956 Tigers
went 8-2.
More mystery. Coach Erwin told Reporter Publisher John E. Cooke he was trying to schedule
one more, post-Thanksgiving, game against either Hearne or Holland.
But I can’t find any record it was ever played. Thinking perhaps George Harris coached
either the year before or year after 1928, I looked that up too.
The 1927 football coach was L. C. Evans. The 1929 coach was listed only as “Coach Guinn”
and that’s probably just as well.
Rockdale played only three games that year, losing them all by a combined 71-0.
But Coach Guinn did go down in history for one notable action.
He canceled the 1929 Rockdale-Cameron game — which was played on Thanksgiving and at Fair
Park when Rockdale hosted — saying he knew his team wasn’t strong enough to get on the
field with the Yoemen!
mike@rockdalereporter.com
.
All Credit for this article
goes to Mike Brown and the
Rockdale Reporter
goes to Mike Brown and the
Rockdale Reporter
