Pampa Football Began in 1909

Eloise Lane

The first recorded football game for Pampa was in 1909 with Miami defeating Pampa 20-13. The boys on the team had to make their own padded uniforms using quilts or anything else that would give protection. Football became important in 1919 and some old timers (in 1986) remembered 1920 as the first time in several years that football was played at Pampa. The main competitors were Perryton and Miami. W. A. "Billy" Greene was about eleven years old in 1919 when he saw his older brother Bob returning with the Pampa football team from a crushing defeat at Miami, As he looked at the bloody, battered players in their ragged homemade "uniforms," he wondered if he would ever want to be on the Pampa High School football team. But he was -- from 1926 until 1928 when he gradu- ated from Pampa High School. Ewing and John Williams, sons of James Ewing and Lucy (Wilks) Williams, played on the Miami football team that gave Pampa its crushing defeat. The next year the Williams family moved to Pampa, and Ewing and John helped Pampa to defeat Miami with the score 100-0. The Pampa boys were determined to get revenge. The Pampa boys came out of that game all tattered and torn, and Lewis Meers was not sure he wanted to play football anymore. But he stayed with it because it took nearly all of the high school boys to make a team. The remainder of the eight games that year were fun -- particularly the defeat over Amarillo 20 to 6 in favor of Pampa. The old timers (in 1986) presented a starting lineup with coaches Scoggins and Smith: team captain, Lawrence Barrett; assistant captain, Eddie Crow along with Lewis Meers in the backfield: quarterback, Ray Wilson; ends, Charles Duenkel, Hulen Cooper and Clarence Barrett; tackles,Tom Henry and Everett Adams; guards, D. B. Jameson and Jack Vincent; center, Harry Wilson. Other teammates included Alton Scoggins, Kermit Vicars and _______ Brown. One of the group who was remembered as a "big flirt" later became a city commissioner. Clyde Carruth, Pampa High School graduate of 1922, remembers playing football when the boys wore their own clothes instead of uniforms and made their own shoulder pads. Their practice field was west of the red brick build- ing (309 North Cuyler) where the tan brick building (126 West Francis) was later constructed. Herman Whatley played fullback on the Pampa Harvester football team in 1923 and 1924. The games were played on the open prairie at a location about where the city warehouses and shops are presently located, between the railroad tracks and Brown Street. Since there were no seats, the spectators stood or walked up and down the sidelines to observe the games. About this time Pampa had to play Amarillo three times because the first two games resulted in ties. The Pampa Harvesters had a long running rivalry with the Amarillo Sandies.

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