Facing Dallas Carter in Week 1 a big opportunity for Yates football team.
The elation from
Keith Martin and Jar’Michael Cooper can be felt from Scott Street in the Third Ward to West Wheatland Road in Oak Cliff.
The Yates seniors and their teammates were ready for Week 1 months ago. On Tuesday before the season opener, they were tired of hitting each other. So some of their excitement stems from knowing a real game is looming.
But much of the enthusiasm concerns Week 1’s opponent: Dallas Carter. It’s as big a marquee opener as Yates has had, and the Lions get to host it at Barnett Stadium.
Martin and Cooper describe what they believe Saturday’s scene will entail and then are asked if this could be bigger than Yates-Wheatley. They look at each other with a slight pause, almost like they know some may consider it blasphemous to say anything could be better than Third Ward versus Fifth Ward.
They then agree Yates-Carter has that kind of enormous potential.
“Both sides are going to be packed for sure,” said Cooper, a receiver.
The programs meet for the first time since 1994. Carter leads the series 2-1. Those games were at Texas Stadium and the Astrodome. That’s not happening now, of course, but it is a home-andhome series. Yates will make the return trip to Dallas next year.
Freddie James on one side. Luther Booker on the other. The spirit of Yates’ famed 1985 team behind the current-day Lions. The even more famous Carter 1988 team behind the latest version of the Cowboys.
‘A win-win situation for both’
It’s thought that last year’s ESPN 30 for 30 documentary “What Carter Lost” spurred the return of this game. Yates fans weren’t quiet about the publicity Carter was getting concerning the Greatest of All Time label.
But getting this game back on the schedule had always topped the to-do list of head coach and Yates graduate Michael Watkins.
Watkins speaks like a boxing promoter or a marketing executive for a pro franchise, saying Houston ISD football competes with movie theaters, HBO, cable and whatever else people might do other than going to Barnett or Delmar stadiums.
The seats aren’t filled like they once were. The spotlight on high school athletics is a little dimmer than it used to be. This is about reinvigorating the HISD and Yates brands, and it could do the same for Dallas ISD and Carter.
These two programs are steeped in history that has been passed over in favor of the suburbs. Both schools have been staples for predominantly black communities, and that alone connects them with history that transcends the gridiron.
“As blacks, we’re so easy to forget that, ‘Hey, we used to have powerhouses,’ ” said Robert Brown, the board chairman of the Prairie View Interscholastic League Coaches Association.
Brown spends his time keeping alive memories of the league, which disbanded in 1970. It was the governing body for academics and athletics in Texas’ black high schools before integration.
“Carter was a powerhouse, and Yates has maintained being a powerhouse, but maybe in basketball instead of football,” Brown said. “I look at it as a win-win situation for both schools and communities.”
Overcoming the finances
Indeed, Yates and Carter were still riding the tides of their 1980s success into the 1990s. Playing each other was a guaranteed headline, but eventually the series gave way to financial constraints.
Budget concerns were one of the top reasons Watkins received some push-back for adding the series back to the schedule.
His rebuttal: There are and have been other HISD schools with long trips on deck. Dallas couldn’t be that bad. At some point, it had to be less about the budget and more about the game’s potential.
“When we make the trip to Dallas next year, I’m going to have some student-athletes that travel with us … that will be their first time leaving the city of Houston,” said Watkins, who figures the same — only in reverse — will be true for some of Carter coach Patrick Williams’ players on this trip.
Watkins credits former Yates principal Kenneth Davis, now an assistant superintendent with HISD, for ending the back-andforth and helping from the administration side. Current Yates principal Tiffany Guillory and new HISD athletic director Andre Walker have facilitated the situation.
It’s just the start of revving the Yates’ brand if Watkins has his way.
He speaks of the Yates-Carter series going as long as it can. There is a documentary in the works about this game, with plans to land a big platform like Netflix or HBO.
Watkins speaks of rekindling a matchup against Willowridge. He wants an out-of-state game for Yates football, citing the basketball team’s trip to Hawaii in the 2009-10 season. He notes Yates’ alumni base across the country.
There is one advantage in play for the Lions. Many schools across the country share a name.
“You have one Jack Yates High School,” Watkins said.