For the E.J. Campbell Dragons, 1965 was a football season for the ages.
The Dragons reached the finals of the Prairie View Interscholastic League Class 3A football championship that season, and along the way, went 10-0 through the regular season, giving up only six points (which came against Kilgore in the finale).
E.J. Campbell then went into the playoffs, beating Houston Elmore, 36-34, in a wild semifinal before matching up with Wichita Falls Washington High School in the championship game. Washington was too much, pulling away for a 31-0 victory to win the state title.
That team was coached by the legendary Clarence “Bo” McMichael Sr., whose name today is on Nacogdoches ISD’s McMichael Middle School.
McMichael’s involvement in public education went back to the 1940s. After returning from the war, McMichael attended Texas College in Tyler where he played football. He then came back to Nacogdoches where he was a teacher and coach at E.J. Campbell High School, which served Black students in Nacogdoches prior to desegregation.
In 1971, when Nacogdoches ISD integrated, McMichael became the athletic director at the district’s junior high before later joining the staff at NHS. In 1984, McMichael was inducted into the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor.
In May 2003, NISD trustees voted to place McMichael’s name on the new middle school that was then under construction on SE Stallings Drive. McMichael Middle School opened a year later. McMichael died in 2015.
As for the PVIL, it played a role in developing Black students in Texas in the arts, literature, athletics and music from the 1920s through 1967 and served in much the same capacity as the University Interscholastic League.
In addition to the 1965 team, E.J. Campbell qualified in football for the PVIL playoffs in consecutive years during the 1950s. The Dragons lost 25-19 to Baytown Carver, the eventual champion, in the Class 2A playoffs in 1955. A year later E.J. Campbell qualified again for the playoffs.
The 1965 team is shown in this photo, which comes courtesy of the E.J. Campbell Alumni Association:
Players, standing, back row, from left: Delbert Washington (#22), Harold Thomas (#83), Earl Handy (#16), Joe Earl Flanagan (#17), Horace Acrey (#81), John Arthur Benton (#15), Henry Malone (#84), Bob Moore (#86), Eddie Berry (#33), Don Mills(#24), George Terry Whitaker (#25), Robert Terry Whitaker (#20), Coach Bo McMichael.
Sitting, middle row, from left: Claude Flanagan (#64), Ferley Bruton (#65), Benny Lee Washington (#70), Charles Lee Page (#77), Dewey Rogers (#76), Harvey Rogers (#72), Robert Randle (#71), James Rogers (#60), Bobby Watts (#61), Cleophus Lewis (#62).
Squatting, front row, from left: Curtis Randle (#35), O'Neal Garrett (#44), John Simon (#42), Horace Flanagan (#55), Archie Rison (#50), Isaac Culbreath (#40), James "Butch" Weaver (#51), Elvin Page (#30).