Home of the Mythical Unicorn - New Braunfels, Texas

It’s Friday night and the Winston Churchill Chargers came to the home of the New Braunfels Unicorns. The first thing I noticed on arriving at the stadium was the terrible parking situation. They do provide a shuttle service from a nearby church parking lot but it is still bad. The parking for the buses is very tight. The second thing that I noticed is that both bands had 18 wheelers to haul all their junk from event to event. That’s nice but it adds to the parking problem at Unicorn Stadium. Did I say that parking was bad…?

Other than that, the stadium was a pretty nice place to watch a game. The crowd was a respectable estimated 5,000 fans. The game opened with recognizing Unicorn players for coaching a flag football league in the community. The flag football players were on the sidelines with their suited up coaches. The school songs were played, the national anthem was sung by all in the stands and we were ready for the kick-off. Then I realized that I never saw the unicorns do any warm-up drills. Did I miss it? I don’t think so, I get to the game very early.

The game did not go well for the Chargers so I did something I seldom do. I had arrived early so I was park deep in the bowels of the New Braunfels High School campus. I didn’t know how long it would take to get out of this parking quagmire; the score was mounting up against the Chargers so I left early.

Final score? Unicorns 23 – Chargers 0

Did I mention that the parking was bad?

Six-Man football in Penelope, Texas.

I try to make a six man football game every year. It’s exciting, it’s different and it is a refreshing view of life in the smallest of Texas towns. This year I had a trip planned to Waco for another football game and I used that opportunity to find a six man game to attend. There are a lot of six man football teams around Waco so I went to sixmanfootball.com and looked through the schedules. I decided to go to the Penelope Wolverines – Abbott Panthers game. It was reasonably close to Waco and I had heard of the Penelope from Carlton Stowers book, Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town And Its Six-Man Football Team .

I arrived in Penelope about an hour before kickoff and it didn’t take long to find the school and the stadium behind it. There were already a lot of cars and activity. The FFA was having a fund raiser selling sausage on a stick and burgers right off the grill. Inside the field house was the added bonus of an ongoing volleyball game between the Lady Wolverines and the Lady Panthers. I could write a book on the funny adaptations of masculine Texas high school mascots to girls’ sports teams but I’ll save that for a later time.
I sat in on part of the volley ball game and enjoyed a sport I have to confess I know very little about. I can tell you it is hard played and competitive.

I left the volley ball game and went out the back of the field house to Wolverine Field located directly behind it. I bought a couple of cookies and a program from the student council. As I headed for the stands I kept looking for a ticket seller, actually that’s how I ended up with cookies because I thought they were selling tickets. Apparently games at Penelope are free. This is in stark contrast to Katy ISD that currently charges $12.00 for tickets purchased at Rhodes Stadium.


The stadium has stands for about 125 fans on each side. Before the night was over I would estimate that the crowd swelled to about 400 sitting in the stands, in lawn chairs in the south end zone (Next to the FFA Barbecue pits), and of course along the fence on both sides.

The pregame activities were interesting. The first thing I noticed when the Penelope cheerleaders entered the sideline was, “I know these girls” that’s when I realized that for the most part the volleyball team and the cheerleaders were one in the same. Next the visiting teams school song sung unaccompanied from the far side stands. Then in turn the Penelope school song sung in the same manner by the home town fans. Then to top off the pregame program the PA announcer led the crowd in Frances Scott Key’s “Star Spangled Banner” with gusto.

Six man football by nature is exciting and this game was no exceptions, but unfortunately this was not the game to win for the Wolverines. With the scoreboard clock only 1:31 into the third quarter of play the Abbott Panthers scored leaving the final score: Panthers 58 – Wolverines 13. In six man football if one team is 45 points ahead after half time the game is over. Even with the game ending with a 45 point deficit I never felt that the Wolverines were out of reach of a victory.

TexasBob

One More Stadium Picture

I never drive through Texas without my list of football stadiums. Included in that list is a check box, do I have a picture of this stadium or not? With 1100+ stadiums listed and only 750+ pictures I have 300+ pictures to take.

On this day I was driving to Corpus Christi and passed through Odem and checking my list I knew I did not have a picture of "Owl Stadium".

A quick trip to the parking lot, find an open gate, take a few shots, count the rows, measure the length of the bleachers, estimate the capacity, check for Soccer lines, track, back to the truck and on the road in 20 minutes.

This is the life of a football fanatic.

TexasBob

Football Season is Over

I follow High School Football especially the Katy Tigers from Katy, Texas. This year they had a 16-0 season. That is a long season for a high school team. The perfect season ended December 22nd at the AlamoDome in San Antonio, Texas when Katy beat a tough Pflugerville Team 28 to 7 in the 5A Div II Texas State Championship Game.

Game Story

With all the games, maintaining the Texas Football Stadium Database , a couple of major holidays, and my real job, I have had very little time to blog. Look for more blogging in the coming months.

TexasBob

Texas High School Football Stadiums

Several years ago I was trying to find out what Texas High School football stadium had the largest seating capacity.

In a state where High School football is king, what school district had doled out tax money to build the most bleachers to seat the most high school football fans in the state of Texas? Was it the famed Ratliff Stadium in Odessa? Made famous not only by the success of the Odessa Permian football team but by the best selling book “Friday Night Lights” Ratliff holds only a mere 19, 302 fans. No it was Alamo Stadium in San Antonio with a capacity of 23,000. The stadium, built in 1940, was Civilian Conservation Corp project, a depression era program to employ young men during the depression.

This search for the largest High School Football stadium took me down many roads and in the end I had collected a lot of stadium information. TexasBob.com, my alter ego webpage, had been on line for several years and I decide to publish the information that I had collected. Over the years this has grown into a massive undertaking.

I now have a listing for every football stadium used for regular season games for every varsity high school team, every college team and both professional teams in the state of Texas. This amounts to 1140 stadiums, each listing has a map link to the stadium and other important information. Of the 1140 stadiums I have pictures of 550 stadiums. I have picture of all the majors stadiums but I take special pride in having a picture of most of the six man football stadiums. A good example of this is the one pictured above in Loop, Texas.

This has also created an amazing number of Texas football stadium facts and figures. For example: currently 46 High School Football Stadiums in Texas have full video scoreboards with replay capability.

Here are some selected stadium links:

Texas High School Stadium Facts

High School Stadiums with Video capability

Ratliff Stadium – Odessa, Texas

Longhorn Field – Loop, Texas

Texas Football Stadium Database