A very special team
• Monument honoring ‘85 champs will be dedicated at Mustang Bowl
It’s been nearly 38 years since the 1985 Sweetwater High School football team made history by being the first to bring home a state title with a 17-7 victory over Tomball at Fort Worth’s Amon Carter Stadium.
It remains the only team in the school’s over 100year history to achieve that feat. And on May 27, the team’s longtime home field — Mustang Bowl — will unveil a new monument to the achievement on the south end of the Bowl in a dedication ceremony which begins at noon. The monument unveiling will be preceded by remarks from several speakers, including former Sweetwater mayor Rick Rhodes; current SISD superintendent Dr. Deidre Parish, former superintendent David Welch; and the 1985 team’s head coach, W.T. Stapler, and some of his former players, as well as other speakers.
The monument, which is five feet tall and five feet wide, is being sponsored by the Sweetwater Mustangs Booster Club. Planning for the project began several months ago, and it received a unanimous vote of approval from the SISD board earlier this year. “Dr. Parish and the board were very supportive,” said Welch, who was assistant superintendent to Dr. Drennon Daves in the 1985-86 school year and became the superintendent a few years later.
Rhodes, who now lives near Austin, said he was “very honored” to be asked to emcee Saturday’s ceremony and he has very fond memories of the 1985 football season.
“It was a just a very galvanizing and exciting thing for the community,” he said. “It was really a special group of guys. They had quite a run. The excitement and the enthusiasm for the football team that year pulled everybody together.”
The victory over Tomball in the Class 4A title game four days before Christmas capped an impressive sixyear run as the head coach at Sweetwater for Stapler, who revived a struggling program when he took the job in 1980.
When Stapler arrived, the program had gone nine years since its last winning record. When he left, it was a state champion.
In addition, Sweetwater ended a 20-year postseason drought in 1984, when the team made the state semifinals, and had a winning record all six seasons when Stapler was coach.
Tomball — ranked No. 1 in Class 4A — was held to one score and 142 yards by a Mustang defense that also forced five turnovers, including four interceptions.
Sweetwater finished 13-11 and had eight shutouts, including five in a row. The tie on its record — 21-21 vs. Austin Westlake in the semifinals — was for all intents and purposes a win as the Mustangs had a 6-4 edge in penetrations, which at the time was used as the first tiebreaker to decide playoff games.
So the “win” gave Sweetwater just its second ever trip to the finals. Unlike the ‘57 team, however, the Mustangs won the title. They were a very special team.