bag-o-chips
05-24-2015, 07:21 AM
Along with some other friends we have started a Memorial page on Facebook. Our goal is to raise money for a Memorial to be placed at the stadium to Honor these two men who died in an electrocution accident starting the first ever team at Navarro HS. We feel it is an Honor long overdue from the tragic beginnings of Navarro Football. The field is named in their Honor however we feel a Memorial along with the story should be remembered by all who come to the field. I will provide the Facebook page and when we have the plans and a firm cost estimate it will be posted and the fundraising will start. Also here is a little background on what happened. This is a story from 2001 which marked the 30 year annivesary of the event. many Thanks to Scot kibbe who keeps all the Navarro records and writes te newspaper articles for each and every game. He is without a doubt one of the best writers around.
Erwin-Lee Story
In many ways, Navarro High School’s football program is just like any other. Players and coaches work hard for the goal of making the playoffs. Cheerleaders and a band are heard at all the games. Local fans often discuss the team’s prospects when they gather at area businesses or community events.
Yet it would be hard to imagine another program that had to overcome the kind of devastating tragedy that marked the beginning of Navarro football thirty years ago.
On August 11, 1971, Ruel Erwin was just two days away from the start of football practices. After a six-year layoff from coaching, the 40-year old Erwin had been named as the headcoach of Navarro High School’s first football team. He had spent the past year getting a schedule together, talking to boys about coming out for football, and deciding how to build a football team from scratch.
The afternoon of this day, Erwin’s task was building thegoal post. Helping him were Vocational Agriculture teacher Norman Lee,Assistant Coach Mike Martin, and students David Arriaga, Arnold Weston, andClint Niemann.
Niemann says he remembers that afternoon “like it was yesterday.”
“It was one of those old, H-type goal posts and we had it ina ditch,” he said. “We were going toflip it over to weld the crossbar. Abruptly, everyone was scattered. I was thrown about 50 yards. I couldn’t get up but I know right away what had happened.”
The goal post had come within the magnetic field of alow-lying, temporary power line. More than 14,000 volts of electricity shotthrough it. Erwin was pronounced dead on the spot. The 24-year-old Lee was pronounced dead on arrival at Guadalupe Valley Hospital. The four others all suffered burned feetand temporarily lost use of their arms.
Erwin’s 16-year-old son, Eric, was at home nearby around 3p.m. that day when he noticed the electricity blink.
“I thought that was unusual because it was an overcast daywith no rain in sight,” he said. “A few minutes later, someone came to our doorand I knew something really bad had happened from the look on his face.”
It was one of the biggest blows this tiny community had everbeen dealt. Lee was a very popular teacher who was engaged to be married. Erwin was also very well-liked.
“He was such a great motivator,” Niemann said. “He had alight, funny way of doing it that didn’t put you down but made you try harder.He is the one who got me into sports.”
Young Erwin said that what had happened did not hit him forseveral days. A rumor
circulating that the school board was considering callingoff the season roused him to action. The teenager still wanted to playfootball, just as he had before he lost his father.
“I went with three or four other guys and we told the schoolboard we wanted to go on with the season,” he said. “I told them I didn’t want the time that my father had put in to getting ready for the season to be wasted.”
The school board could not refuse Eric Erwin’s request. If he could go on, so could the community and the program.
Amazingly, Erwin not only played on that team but was its starting quarterback.
“I’ve played and coached ever since then but I never had a year when I had that level of motivation,” Erwin said. “I couldn’t vocalize it at the time but it was like I was on a mission.”
The team surprised many by going 5-2 that year, which isstill the second best season winning percentage in school history.
“We were just a bunch of country boys coming out forfootball and having a great time playing,” Larry Herrmann, a center and defensive lineman on that team, said.
Niemann would not play on that team. He stayed on crutches for 11 months and never returned to athletics. He has stayed in Geronimo and has children in the school, including one who is a varsity cheerleader.
Erwin would begin a coaching career that has rarely broughthim back to Geronimo. He has made only one trip to the stadium that is nowcalled Erwin-Lee Field. That was in 1980 when he coached the Smithson Valley junior varsity against Navarro. He admits it “felt kind of funny being on the other sideline.” He is now the head basketball coach at Wellman Union High School near Lubbock.
He continues to have ties to the school, however. His half-brother, Jay Lyles, played quarterback for the Panthers in the mid-nineties and now is the school’s head basketball coach and an assistant coach on the football team.
But all Panthers and their fans owe him and his teammates from 1971 a debt for their ability to overcome a tragedy that hit so close tothem.
“If we hadn’t played that year, football might have been putoff for years,” Erwin said. “A lot of good things that have happened since then that would not have happened.”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Erwin-Lee-Football-Field-Memorial/866582730080465
Erwin-Lee Story
In many ways, Navarro High School’s football program is just like any other. Players and coaches work hard for the goal of making the playoffs. Cheerleaders and a band are heard at all the games. Local fans often discuss the team’s prospects when they gather at area businesses or community events.
Yet it would be hard to imagine another program that had to overcome the kind of devastating tragedy that marked the beginning of Navarro football thirty years ago.
On August 11, 1971, Ruel Erwin was just two days away from the start of football practices. After a six-year layoff from coaching, the 40-year old Erwin had been named as the headcoach of Navarro High School’s first football team. He had spent the past year getting a schedule together, talking to boys about coming out for football, and deciding how to build a football team from scratch.
The afternoon of this day, Erwin’s task was building thegoal post. Helping him were Vocational Agriculture teacher Norman Lee,Assistant Coach Mike Martin, and students David Arriaga, Arnold Weston, andClint Niemann.
Niemann says he remembers that afternoon “like it was yesterday.”
“It was one of those old, H-type goal posts and we had it ina ditch,” he said. “We were going toflip it over to weld the crossbar. Abruptly, everyone was scattered. I was thrown about 50 yards. I couldn’t get up but I know right away what had happened.”
The goal post had come within the magnetic field of alow-lying, temporary power line. More than 14,000 volts of electricity shotthrough it. Erwin was pronounced dead on the spot. The 24-year-old Lee was pronounced dead on arrival at Guadalupe Valley Hospital. The four others all suffered burned feetand temporarily lost use of their arms.
Erwin’s 16-year-old son, Eric, was at home nearby around 3p.m. that day when he noticed the electricity blink.
“I thought that was unusual because it was an overcast daywith no rain in sight,” he said. “A few minutes later, someone came to our doorand I knew something really bad had happened from the look on his face.”
It was one of the biggest blows this tiny community had everbeen dealt. Lee was a very popular teacher who was engaged to be married. Erwin was also very well-liked.
“He was such a great motivator,” Niemann said. “He had alight, funny way of doing it that didn’t put you down but made you try harder.He is the one who got me into sports.”
Young Erwin said that what had happened did not hit him forseveral days. A rumor
circulating that the school board was considering callingoff the season roused him to action. The teenager still wanted to playfootball, just as he had before he lost his father.
“I went with three or four other guys and we told the schoolboard we wanted to go on with the season,” he said. “I told them I didn’t want the time that my father had put in to getting ready for the season to be wasted.”
The school board could not refuse Eric Erwin’s request. If he could go on, so could the community and the program.
Amazingly, Erwin not only played on that team but was its starting quarterback.
“I’ve played and coached ever since then but I never had a year when I had that level of motivation,” Erwin said. “I couldn’t vocalize it at the time but it was like I was on a mission.”
The team surprised many by going 5-2 that year, which isstill the second best season winning percentage in school history.
“We were just a bunch of country boys coming out forfootball and having a great time playing,” Larry Herrmann, a center and defensive lineman on that team, said.
Niemann would not play on that team. He stayed on crutches for 11 months and never returned to athletics. He has stayed in Geronimo and has children in the school, including one who is a varsity cheerleader.
Erwin would begin a coaching career that has rarely broughthim back to Geronimo. He has made only one trip to the stadium that is nowcalled Erwin-Lee Field. That was in 1980 when he coached the Smithson Valley junior varsity against Navarro. He admits it “felt kind of funny being on the other sideline.” He is now the head basketball coach at Wellman Union High School near Lubbock.
He continues to have ties to the school, however. His half-brother, Jay Lyles, played quarterback for the Panthers in the mid-nineties and now is the school’s head basketball coach and an assistant coach on the football team.
But all Panthers and their fans owe him and his teammates from 1971 a debt for their ability to overcome a tragedy that hit so close tothem.
“If we hadn’t played that year, football might have been putoff for years,” Erwin said. “A lot of good things that have happened since then that would not have happened.”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Erwin-Lee-Football-Field-Memorial/866582730080465