L a m a r Fo otbal l with Amarillo Junior College in the championship game which they lost 34-7 despite being in a 7-7 tie at halftime. Early that season, the Cardinals won backto-back games against the Texas Shorthorns (the University of Texas’ freshman team) by the scores of 7-0 and 16-0, and they also tossed shutouts of 32-0 and 19-0 over St. Mary’s University and Victoria Junior College. The 1935 Cardinals slumped to a 4-2-1 regular-season record and lost their state playoff opener 20-0 to Schreiner Institute. The season was highlighted by a six-day railroad trip to Mexico City to oppose Mexico Poly in the first of several games played between the institutions over the coming years. Although the Cardinals posted a so-so 2-3 regular-season record in 1936, they qualified for the playoffs and came within 15 yards of winning a state title. Kilgore College held off a late Lamar drive at the 15-yard line to preserve its 10-7 championship win on Dec. 5, in Greenie Stadium. The 1937 Cardinals went 5-3 during the regular season and lost their playoff opener 14-6 to Schreiner Institute. They then hosted Mexico Poly in an exhibition game that they won 27-13. The final two seasons of the 1930s decade saw the Cardinals dip to records of 2-6-1 and 2-7. They suffered four shutouts in 1939 when they scored more than seven points in only one game – an 18-0 win over Texas Lutheran College. The 1939 season marked the end of the John Gray Era as football coach. In an article in The Houston Post, sports writer L.R. Goldman wrote, “John Gray always performed miracles with the material he had. He had the ability to get 110 percent from his players.” The 1940s R.M. (Monk) Hodgkiss moved over from South Park High School to succeed the popular Gray as head coach for the 1940 season. The Cardinals failed to even register a first down in his debut – a 27-0 loss to Kilgore College, and the Cards suffered three more shutouts during a lackluster 2-4-1 season. With victories in the last two games, Hodgkiss coaxed a break-even 4-4 season out of the Cardinals in 1941. Among the Cardinal players that year were Oail (Bum) Phillips and Theo (Cotton) Miles, both of whom went on to establish great reputations as football coaches – Miles at the high school level and Phillips at the high school, college and professional levels. With World War II escalating overseas, Lamar played the 1942 season with only 23 players, and the team went 2-6-1 under new head
coach Ted Dawson. The school then discontinued football for the remaining war years of 1943, 1944 and 1945. In 1946, Lamar College joined Tarleton State, Kilgore College, North Texas Agricultural College (the forerunner Bob Frederick to UT Arlington), Paris starred in football, Junior College, San Anbasketball and gelo JC and Schreiner Inbaseball at Lamar. stitute in creating the Southwestern Junior College Conference. Each school was obligated to field teams in football, basketball, track, tennis and golf, so thusly, Lamar’s first all-round intercollegiate athletic program developed. The Cardinals returned to the football field with resounding success in 1946, carving an 82 record under new coach Ted Jefferies, who won a state championship at Wichita Falls High School in 1941. As did many other hard-nosed veterans, Bum Phillips returned from the war and captained the 1946 team that launched its season with an 83-0 dismantling of Decatur Baptist College. The Cardinals registered five other shutouts in 1946, and they outscored their opponents by a combined 241-37. Chick Forwald joined Lamar as head coach in 1947, and the Cardinals slipped to a 4-6 record. Stan Lambert became Lamar’s head football coach in 1948 and promptly guided the Cardinals to a 7-4 regular-season record and the school’s first berth in a bowl game. Playing before a home crowd in the season-ending Spindletop Bowl, the Cardinals easily disposed of Hinds (Miss.) Junior College 21-0. Cardinal stars that season included quarterback Joe Westerman, end Bob Frederick, running back Jimmy McNeil and offensive and defensive back Francis (Smitty) Hill. Lamar made its swan song as a junior college football program a huge success in 1949 by roaring to a Southwestern Junior College cochampionship, a 10-2 record and two post-season bowl games. Along the way, the Cardinals scored a school-record 346 points. At the conclusion of the season, the Cardinals lost a 21-20 heartbreaker to Pearl River (Miss.) in the Memorial Bowl in Jackson, Miss. Back home in the Spindletop Bowl, the Cards rolled to a 35-14 win over Georgia Military Institute behind the running and passing of McNeil and two touchdown catches by Frederick.
The 1950s Although it remained a junior college for one last year, Lamar began its transition to senior college status by lining up an all-senior-college schedule for the 1950 season. Despite being outmanned by some teams, Lambert’s Cardinals managed a 5-4-1 record highlighted by victories of 34-7 over Southwest Oklahoma State and 75-0 over Daniel Baker College. The Cardinals intercepted six passes in the win over Southwest Oklahoma, and eight different Cardinals scored at least one touchdown in the rout of Daniel Baker College. Lamar’s name changed to Lamar State College of Technology for its first official season as a four-year institution in 1951 – one that saw the Cardinals go 6-4 overall and 2-3 in the Lone Star Conference. That season saw the emergence of wiry running back Sammy Carpenter, a 144-pounder from Orange, as Lamar’s first real superstar. He rushed for 607 yards and scored 54 points as a freshman. In his sophomore season of 1952, Carpenter set long-lasting s c h o o l records of 210 rushing yards vs. Sul Ross State, 1,005 rushing yards for the season and 13 touchdowns for 78 points in the sea- J.B. Higgins coached Lamar’s son. The 210 only undefeated team to an 8-0-2 record in 1957. yards stood until Burton Murchison broke the mark with 222 yards vs. Prairie View A&M and then 259 yards vs. Rice later in the 1985 season; the 1,005 yards stood until Murchison ran for 1,547 in 1985, and the 78 points in a season remain a school record. After winning two of their first three games in 1952, the Cardinals stumbled to six-straight losses and a 2-7 record marred by losses of 480 to East Texas State and 66-7 to Trinity University. When Lambert moved up to director of athletics in 1953, his top assistant J.B. Higgins took over as head coach and began what would become the most successful era in Lamar’s football history. Known affectionately as “Hig” by his friends,
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