Phantom Stang
08-31-2006, 09:30 AM
Legends of the Fall: Texas' greatest schoolboy player
By Carlton Stowers / stowersc@reporternews.com
August 27, 2006
The old stadium sat at the far end of a tree-shaded street drenched in the sweet, nostalgic scent of lantana and honeysuckle, the focal point of the community's social activity.
In the early '50s, the 2,000 residents of this slow-paced community owned two loyalties: to the Imperial Sugar Company, which paid most people's salary, and the green-and-white-clad Sugar Land High School Gators, a Class B schoolboy dynasty of the time. During a three-year stretch it won 34 of 36 games and, said retired coach L.V. Hightower, ''People from all over came to watch our games.''
And they entered the stadium with the same question: ''What's his number?''
Their question was regarding No. 31, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound tailback named Kenneth Hall; a gifted, multi-talented athlete many still call the greatest schoolboy football player in Texas history. The proof to the argument can be found in the national high school record books where from 1950 to '53, he climbed to the top in a dozen categories.
The numbers seem more fantasy than fact:
Most scored points in a career - 899; Most points in a season - 395; Most career touchdowns - 127; Most touchdowns in a season - 57; Most yards rushing in a career - 11,232; Most yards rushing in a season - 4,045; Rushing average per game - 337.1; Most 100-yard games in a career - 38; and Most consecutive 100-yard games - 21.
He also kicked 137 extra points and passed for 3,326 yards during his freshman-to-senior statistical binge. His 520 yards rushing in a single game stood as a record until 1974 when John Bunch of Elkins, Arizona rushed for 608. Bunch's performance, it should be noted, came after 38 carries in a game which saw him on the field until the final gun. Hall, on the other hand, accomplished his 520 yards (and seven touchdowns) on just 11 carries - that's 47.3 yards-per-carry - and retired to the bench after just two quarters.
When he wasn't breaking for long distance runs from scrimmage, he was adding to his total yardage with a 64-yard kickoff return, an 82-yard punt return, and a 21-yard return with an interception. By the time the Gators had claimed their 73-14 victory over an outclassed Houston Lutheran High, Hall had amassed 687 total yards - all, again, before halftime.
The following morning, trumpet in hand, young Hall joined fellow members of the Sugar Land High band as it traveled to Austin for a marching competition.
''There's no telling how many points he would have scored or yards he might have made had we let him play the whole game against some of the weaker opponents we faced,'' said Hightower. ''We had to take him out just to keep from humiliating some of the schools we played.''
Bobby Williams, a former Rice assistant coach who played against Hall while a schoolboy at rival Missouri City, calls Hall the greatest schoolboy player he ever saw.
''I've seen a lot of outstanding high school running backs, but none I'd even put in Hall's league. You had to have seen him to believe the things he could do. He was a big Doak Walker with 9.7 (100-yard dash) speed.''
It was Williams and his determined teammates who managed a 12-12 tie with Sugar Land in Hall's senior year. ''We just put up a nine-man line, hoping to stop him. Even at that, he broke for two long touchdowns.''
The Gators' lone defeat came when Hall, having suffered a neck injury the week before, was unable to play.
''There are people quick to assume that Kenneth's records were made against a lot of inferior teams,'' Hightower said, ''but that was hardly the case. Hall could make a very good team look bad.''
He told of a game against Orchard High, a better-than-average team that had taken the opening kickoff and marched downfield for a score. Moments later Sugar Land had the ball on its own 20.
Hall swept to his left and went 80 yards for an apparent touchdown. Except for the fact officials ruled a Gators lineman had been offside. Hall ran the same play and went 85-yards for an apparent touchdown. But there had been another penalty flag.
Hightower recalls that one of the officials called for a time out after Hall's second run. ''I need a break,'' the referee explained. ''That Number 31 is running me to death.''
In addition to his football heroics, Hall was also a starter for the Gators basketball team and twice led Sugar Land to the state track and field championship, scoring 38 points at the meet his sophomore year and 36 year in his junior season. He ran the 100-yard dash in 9.7, the 220 in 21.4 and the 440 in 49 flat. He long jumped 23 feet and put the shot 53 feet, handled the anchor leg on the 440 relay and occasionally threw the discus and high jumped.
In his senior year, in fact, Hall's coach was convinced that with the proper training he could become an outstanding decathlon performer and, perhaps, represent the U.S. in the 1956 Olympic Games. Alas, a hamstring injury that spring not only put the dream on the back burner but also cost Sugar Land a third straight state track title. Though he qualified for the 100 finals, Hall re-injured the leg and was unable to finish the race. Earlier, however, he'd placed second in the shot put.
When Hall's school day records are recited, Hightower points out, one of the most impressive is often overlooked. In four years, he scored 83 points at the state meet.
And, so, whatever happened to the boy known as the Sugar Land Express? Why no collegiate records after receiving a scholarship to attend Texas A&M, no All-American citations, no Heisman?
If the judgment of the legendary Paul (Bear) Bryant is to be believed, Ken Hall couldn't - or wouldn't - play defense at a time when all Aggie starters were expected to be two-way performers. In Bryant's scheme, his fullback was also his middle linebacker. When he and the Sugar Land youngster couldn't agree on the matter, Hall left college.
For a time he played professionally for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian League, then later played briefly with the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL and returned kicks for the Houston Oilers for a season.
Today, he rarely speaks of those days when he was deemed the greatest high school running back in the country.
''Really, it's just a blur to me now,'' he insists. ''There comes a time when you put all those things behind you.''
Unless, of course, you were among those sitting in the stands a half century ago, watching him do things no other teenage player had done before. Or, for that matter, has done since.
© 1995-2006 The E.W. Scripps Co. and the Abilene Reporter-News.
All Rights Reserved.
By Carlton Stowers / stowersc@reporternews.com
August 27, 2006
The old stadium sat at the far end of a tree-shaded street drenched in the sweet, nostalgic scent of lantana and honeysuckle, the focal point of the community's social activity.
In the early '50s, the 2,000 residents of this slow-paced community owned two loyalties: to the Imperial Sugar Company, which paid most people's salary, and the green-and-white-clad Sugar Land High School Gators, a Class B schoolboy dynasty of the time. During a three-year stretch it won 34 of 36 games and, said retired coach L.V. Hightower, ''People from all over came to watch our games.''
And they entered the stadium with the same question: ''What's his number?''
Their question was regarding No. 31, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound tailback named Kenneth Hall; a gifted, multi-talented athlete many still call the greatest schoolboy football player in Texas history. The proof to the argument can be found in the national high school record books where from 1950 to '53, he climbed to the top in a dozen categories.
The numbers seem more fantasy than fact:
Most scored points in a career - 899; Most points in a season - 395; Most career touchdowns - 127; Most touchdowns in a season - 57; Most yards rushing in a career - 11,232; Most yards rushing in a season - 4,045; Rushing average per game - 337.1; Most 100-yard games in a career - 38; and Most consecutive 100-yard games - 21.
He also kicked 137 extra points and passed for 3,326 yards during his freshman-to-senior statistical binge. His 520 yards rushing in a single game stood as a record until 1974 when John Bunch of Elkins, Arizona rushed for 608. Bunch's performance, it should be noted, came after 38 carries in a game which saw him on the field until the final gun. Hall, on the other hand, accomplished his 520 yards (and seven touchdowns) on just 11 carries - that's 47.3 yards-per-carry - and retired to the bench after just two quarters.
When he wasn't breaking for long distance runs from scrimmage, he was adding to his total yardage with a 64-yard kickoff return, an 82-yard punt return, and a 21-yard return with an interception. By the time the Gators had claimed their 73-14 victory over an outclassed Houston Lutheran High, Hall had amassed 687 total yards - all, again, before halftime.
The following morning, trumpet in hand, young Hall joined fellow members of the Sugar Land High band as it traveled to Austin for a marching competition.
''There's no telling how many points he would have scored or yards he might have made had we let him play the whole game against some of the weaker opponents we faced,'' said Hightower. ''We had to take him out just to keep from humiliating some of the schools we played.''
Bobby Williams, a former Rice assistant coach who played against Hall while a schoolboy at rival Missouri City, calls Hall the greatest schoolboy player he ever saw.
''I've seen a lot of outstanding high school running backs, but none I'd even put in Hall's league. You had to have seen him to believe the things he could do. He was a big Doak Walker with 9.7 (100-yard dash) speed.''
It was Williams and his determined teammates who managed a 12-12 tie with Sugar Land in Hall's senior year. ''We just put up a nine-man line, hoping to stop him. Even at that, he broke for two long touchdowns.''
The Gators' lone defeat came when Hall, having suffered a neck injury the week before, was unable to play.
''There are people quick to assume that Kenneth's records were made against a lot of inferior teams,'' Hightower said, ''but that was hardly the case. Hall could make a very good team look bad.''
He told of a game against Orchard High, a better-than-average team that had taken the opening kickoff and marched downfield for a score. Moments later Sugar Land had the ball on its own 20.
Hall swept to his left and went 80 yards for an apparent touchdown. Except for the fact officials ruled a Gators lineman had been offside. Hall ran the same play and went 85-yards for an apparent touchdown. But there had been another penalty flag.
Hightower recalls that one of the officials called for a time out after Hall's second run. ''I need a break,'' the referee explained. ''That Number 31 is running me to death.''
In addition to his football heroics, Hall was also a starter for the Gators basketball team and twice led Sugar Land to the state track and field championship, scoring 38 points at the meet his sophomore year and 36 year in his junior season. He ran the 100-yard dash in 9.7, the 220 in 21.4 and the 440 in 49 flat. He long jumped 23 feet and put the shot 53 feet, handled the anchor leg on the 440 relay and occasionally threw the discus and high jumped.
In his senior year, in fact, Hall's coach was convinced that with the proper training he could become an outstanding decathlon performer and, perhaps, represent the U.S. in the 1956 Olympic Games. Alas, a hamstring injury that spring not only put the dream on the back burner but also cost Sugar Land a third straight state track title. Though he qualified for the 100 finals, Hall re-injured the leg and was unable to finish the race. Earlier, however, he'd placed second in the shot put.
When Hall's school day records are recited, Hightower points out, one of the most impressive is often overlooked. In four years, he scored 83 points at the state meet.
And, so, whatever happened to the boy known as the Sugar Land Express? Why no collegiate records after receiving a scholarship to attend Texas A&M, no All-American citations, no Heisman?
If the judgment of the legendary Paul (Bear) Bryant is to be believed, Ken Hall couldn't - or wouldn't - play defense at a time when all Aggie starters were expected to be two-way performers. In Bryant's scheme, his fullback was also his middle linebacker. When he and the Sugar Land youngster couldn't agree on the matter, Hall left college.
For a time he played professionally for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian League, then later played briefly with the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL and returned kicks for the Houston Oilers for a season.
Today, he rarely speaks of those days when he was deemed the greatest high school running back in the country.
''Really, it's just a blur to me now,'' he insists. ''There comes a time when you put all those things behind you.''
Unless, of course, you were among those sitting in the stands a half century ago, watching him do things no other teenage player had done before. Or, for that matter, has done since.
© 1995-2006 The E.W. Scripps Co. and the Abilene Reporter-News.
All Rights Reserved.