Chapter Thirteen
Football
The notable score of 9 wins and 2 losses for the Sebring High School Blue Streaks football team led one enthusiastic booster to observe that 1975 was one of the most successful seasons in the history of the game in Sebring. This remark sparked a search of previous school team records and revealed the fact that 1937 was probably the banner year. That year, the squad was invincible in regular season play and, had they been content with the conference schedule, they would have finished with a perfect record.
Reference to the newspaper files gives a very clear picture of the prowess of the 1937 team. After each of the games, the results were proclaimed in headlines on the front page with full columns and spilling over in other pages with complete play-by-play accounts. They were so graphically recounted that little was left to the imagination.
The first string players were:
John Freeland Amos Freeland Junior Bates Milton Parnell Lamar Hancock
Leonard Cholette Judson Twitty Malcolm Watters Frank Pollard Eddie Albritton
Howard McDonald Ike Hart Lewis Butler Paul Thomas Fred Pollard
William Young Bob Bever
A recap of the scores show:Sebring 20, Arcadia 6; Sebring 7, Ft. Pierce 7; Sebring 6, Mulberry 0;
Sebring 6, Brewster 0; Sebring 6, Lake Wales 0; Sebring 32, Frostproof 7;
Sebring 12, Avon Park 0. Season totals: Sebring 89, Opponents 20.
Fired up with their successes, the team took on a post season game with Plant City - a member of the then “big ten.” Sebring went down to defeat 21 to 6.
Practically all of the members of this remarkable team graduated in June of 1938 and only a very few of the “stars” carried over into the 1938 season. Contrast with 1937 can be described only by use of superlatives. Of the seven games played in 1938, none were shown in the win column. In fact only two touchdowns were put on the score board (both by Clarence Campbell - an end) one in a game with Frostproof in a 7 to 6 loss and the other in a 38 to 6 contest with Lake Wales.
Most disappointing was the loss to Avon Park in the annual feature with these arch-rivals, 18 to 0.
Statistics for the 1938 season are available only from the memories of the players of that year because, aside from the preseason article in the newspaper, announcing the year’s schedule and the roster of prospective players, not a single word appeared giving results or accounts of the games.
(This article is reprinted from Bulletin Number Twenty One.
Sebring Historical Society, January 1976. Pages 659-660.)