By Pete Kendall/reporter@trcle.com
It was a game that time forgot, strictly because it wasn’t the least suspenseful.
But it was plenty exciting — if you were a Yellow Jacket.
Behind the heroics of Stephen Hafford, Brent Jones, Carlton Liggins, Al Smith, Randy McKinney and Alvis Scott, et al, Cleburne blew away Brownwood 30-3 at Gordon Wood Stadium in 1984.
It was notable as one of the worst career losses for Wood, the late Brownwood legend. It was also notable as one of the best wins ever for Robert Dagley, a first-year defensive coordinator for Cleburne.
Everything he called worked. As it should have.
He scouted the Lions to a fare-thee-well on film. He charted tendencies to the point he knew what Brownwood assistants Morris Southall and Kenneth West had for breakfast.
On the two-hour bus ride to Brownwood, he reviewed everything in his scouting folder and knew he was about to roll a gem, marred only by a 27-yard field goal by the Lions’ Armando Salanzar early in the first quarter.
The Yellow Jackets scored the last 30 points. They intercepted the Lions five times and allowed only nine first downs and 158 yards total offense.
When Dagley rides off into the sunset and into retirement next month, that will be one of his greatest memories.
“I took my game plan and stuck it in my briefcase,” Dagley said last week. “I took it out on the bus and went through every bit of information I had. I looked at down-and-distance and hash-mark tendencies, goal line situations, everything. I redid the game plan. When I compared that game plan to the one in the briefcase, they were almost identical.
“Brownwood had some tendencies that were pretty set in stone. Gordon and Morris were doing the same things over and over again. I thought, ‘I’ve got it.’ What was it, 30-3?”
Hafford, the senior quarterback, threw for 214 yards and four touchdowns.
“Fred [Sarchet, offensive coordinator] did a masterful job that night,” Dagley said. “He saw things he could exploit, so he was able to keep their offense off the field.”
That game eliminated any doubts that Dagley should be Cleburne’s defensive coordinator.
He had been something of a surprise choice in the off-season after Jerry Cunningham got the head coaching job.
The previous defensive coordinator, Jerry Durling, had been as visible as any assistant in Texas while calling defense for Chuck Curtis, the previous head coach.
Durling was something of a contradiction, a big man with a deep voice but with the hands of an artist and the heart of a poet. He’d been a big-time football player at the University of Wyoming.
Dagley was far less complicated, a country boy from Walnut Springs with rural ways and values.
Durling and Cunningham had both applied for the head job when Curtis departed for UT-Arlington.
Curtis recommended Cunningham, who became one of the winningest coaches in Cleburne history.
“The first time I remember seeing Durling, he was holding a film projector about 11 at night, flashing an image on the wall,” Dagley said. “The coaching staff was at an old cabin in July getting ready for the season. He was already getting ready for Brownwood. Durling was intense. Not only was he a big man but he was also a big-time coordinator. He was so meticulous about how he did his game plans. I learned a lot about game planning from him.
“Coach Cunningham had told me there would be a place on his staff for me if he got the head job. Durling had told me the same thing. When Coach Cunningham told me I was his defensive coordinator, I don’t know if I was surprised, but I was ecstatic. It was neat because I had coached those kids in some capacity at the junior high, and I was going to be the defensive coordinator with the same group.”
Dagley was one of three former head coaches on Cunningham’s staff. He had been at Meridian, Gerald Hayworth at Granbury and Ronnie Galbreath at Joshua.
Cunningham “made me feel I had an opportunity to be as good a coordinator or better than Durling,” Dagley said. “He made you feel you were a good coach. He gave me that confidence I could do the job. I appreciate that. He knew how much I cared about football. He knew I cared a lot more about the kids than I did my career.”
Game-planning under Cunningham began on Saturday. It did not continue through Sunday.
“We would watch our film on Saturday morning, then start working toward the next opponent,” Dagley said. “By 2 on Saturday afternoon, we were through, and we never worked on Sundays. That was taboo. Jerry wanted us to be home with our families.”
Little time was wasted at the field house.
“He knew I was going to take care of my end of the job,” Dagley said. “About the only thing he’d ask was whether I’d have the game plan ready at a particular time, usually Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, he’d ask me, ‘Can you stop ‘em?’ I’d say, ‘Yessir, I know exactly what to do.’ About the only thing he asked me on Friday nights was, ‘Have you blitzed anybody lately?’”
If ’84 was a Cleburne-Brownwood footnote, ’85 was a banner headline. The Yellow Jackets won at home, 15-14, when Wade Daniel scored on a trick play, a guard-around, and Duff Cunningham ran for a two-point conversion. Lions fans still argue that the touchdown play was illegal and that Cunningham didn’t reach the end zone.
“My biggest recollection of that game was Gordon Wood standing out in the middle of the field yelling at the officials that [Daniel’s TD] was an illegal play,” Dagley said. “The officials told him it wasn’t illegal because we had run it before [the previous year against Wichita Falls Hirschi]. I think it was after that year when that play was outlawed.”
Other high points of the ’80s, Dagley said, were “trips to Texas Stadium in ’82 and ’88. I remember the last game of the season in ’81 when we moved all those young kids up for the Crowley game. They got to show they could play at that level.”
Community support played a major role in the Yellow Jackets’ success. In ’85 in the first round of the playoffs against Hirschi, they even had a palm reader on their side. She didn’t predict a Cleburne win in the Times-Review that week, but she predicted a tie. A tie was good enough, since the Yellow Jackets ended the game with more penetrations than the Huskies. Back then, there was no overtime.
The palm reader said, “You’re not going to win, but you’re not going to lose. It’s not going to rain, but it’s going to be wet.”
She didn’t know what a football was, but she nailed the prediction.
“Those were fun times,” Dagley said. “I remember Roy [Holland] and I and Ronnie and Jerry and Dr. [Robert] Shaw flew out to Lubbock to scout in a blizzard. That was the day after we played the Fog Bowl against Everman at Arlington Lamar. We beat Hereford at Sweetwater that year. Roy did a good job calling plays. It seemed like everything was working. Chance Scott [the fullback] was running over people. That was a fun time.”
Cleburne’s ’89 team was 4-6 but was in the playoff running until the final week.
The Yellow Jackets’ two-year slide began in ’90, when Cleburne was promoted to 5A and a league with Arlington Lamar, Arlington Sam Houston and Arlington High.
“I think it hurt a lot for the young kids to have to play in that 5A district,” Dagley said. “We would play well for a half, maybe three quarters. Then the numbers game caught up with us. We had too many kids going both ways. And as Vince Lombardi used to say, ‘Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.’ We got burned there for a little while.”
Generally speaking, the Cleburne field house was a happy place for a coach to go in the ’80s, even when losses outnumbered wins.
“We enjoyed each other,” Dagley said. “We kidded with each other. We had a great deal of respect for one another. We respected Jerry and the things that he stood for and the life he led and still leads. We all understood our roles. We were willing to do what it took to make things work.”
Dagley, who left after the ’90 season to become defensive coordinator at Crowley, reflects fondly on the ’80s.
“Every once in a while I see those kids or hear from them,” he said. “Those were years when I was young and full of vim and vigor. I was ready to go fight anybody for those kids. And I felt those kids were ready to fight anybody for me.”
