TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - The year, 1975. Michael Jackson was still singing with his brothers, Tom Landry was still coaching the Dallas Cowboys, and Big Sandy was claiming a third straight high school football championship.
“To be the smallest class school in Texas, and to be rated as a number five team in the nation, there are no words to explain it,” said Gary Chalk, the team’s quaterback. “We were related and we were positive enough. We felt like we were probably number one.”
Hard to argue, holding their opponents to just 15 points while they would score 824 points. Gary Chalk was the quarterback of the ’74 team too, which also won a state championship. He obviously had more hair back then, but the memories don’t get erased.
Here is the secret sauce.
“I think we became a family; all of us have been together from at least the fifth grade up, and we practiced against each other, studied together, we played flag football and new together,” Chalk said.
Friday night it was Big Sandy’s 50th anniversary.
It was homecoming, and many came back home. Though the outcome wasn’t what they wanted, as Big Sandy lost to Elysian Fields, it was not a total loss, as the warriors from yesterday came home to reminisce.
Also, in attendance was the widow of David Overstreet, Johnnie. They were high school sweethearts. Their son is now coaching with the Dallas Cowboys, and she has her memories also.
“And all I could hear was David Overstreet, David Overstreet, running touchdowns, David Overstreet, so it’s a journey,” said Johnnie.
Of course Overstreet would go on to play for the Miami Dolphins, a first round pick 1981, but sadly three years later he’d die in a car accident.
Also on that team was Richard Norman. His father, Jim, was the coach
“He had a philosophy that we were going to have fun,” said Norman. “He wanted to bring something to all the young people trying to be, to grow up.”
From 1971 through 1975 Coach Norman’s record at Big Sandy was 64-1-1 including three consecutive state championships.
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