Stallard: Still singing the blues 31 years later
Published 5:30 am Friday, November 28, 2025
Thirty-one years ago this past week (Nov. 26), John Tyler High School took on Plano East in a Class 5A Division II regional semifinal game at old Texas Stadium.
It is arguably the most talked about high school football game ever played, and I was there.
For one half.
It doesn’t haunt me like I’ve heard others who left the game early claim, but I am sorry I missed the ending that featured seven touchdowns in the final four and a half minutes and later won the Showstopper of the Year ESPY Award.
Most folks in East Texas know all about the game, but allow me to recap for anyone who has never heard about the time a local high school had a game won, faced certain defeat and then pulled off one of the most unlikely wins anyone can remember – all in the span of a little more than three minutes.
John Tyler (now Tyler High) built a 24-17 lead against Plano East heading into the fourth quarter, and then seemingly put things away with a field goal and a couple of fumble returns for touchdowns.
The second scoop and score (that term wasn’t even around then) gave John Tyler a 41-17 lead with just 3:03 left in the game. Plano East fans began heading to the exits, and John Tyler fans started making plans for the following week’s playoff game.
Then, things got crazy.
Plano East drove 70 yards for a touchdown, but missed the 2-point try and trailed 41-23 with 2:36 left in the game.
Three successful onside kicks and three Plano East touchdowns later, and John Tyler found itself trailing 44-41 with 24 seconds remaining.
Plano East elected to kick deep on the next kickoff, and John Tyler’s Roderick Dunn returned the kick 97 yards for a touchdown and a 48-44 JT lead with 11 seconds left.
It was the only touchdown of Dunn’s career, and it proved to be the game-winner when Plano East’s quarterback was intercepted two plays later.
All of this happened while I was sitting at a club on Greenville Avenue in Dallas listening to blues singer Lou Ann Barton belt out some tunes instead of watching perhaps the best finish in high school football history take place from the seat in the press box I had vacated an hour earlier.
In my defense, I wasn’t at Texas Stadium that day to chronicle the game between John Tyler and Plano East. I was sports editor at the Lufkin Daily News at the time, and had been there to cover Lufkin vs. Plano in an earlier game.
I wrote the story and filed it back with my newspaper in Lufkin about the time John Tyler and Plano East were finishing up the first quarter of their game.
The young lady who accompanied me to the game I was covering said it would be OK if we stuck around and watched the rest of the game. I was young and stupid back then, but I wasn’t dumb enough to fall for that trick, so we left and went to listen to Mrs. Barton do her thing.
Social media back then consisted of the daily newspaper or radio, and since the game ended after the deadline to make it into the local newspaper I didn’t hear about the crazy finish until I switched on a radio much later the following day.
If there is a moral to this story, I’m still searching for it 31 years later.
The whole episode sounds like a good blues tune if you think about it, and even though she’s 71 now, maybe Lou Ann Barton would be interested in recording it if I send her the words.
I figure she owes me that much for making me miss the end of the most exciting high school football game in history.
— Jack Stallard is sports editor of the Longview News-Journal. Email: jack.stallard@news-journal.com; follow on X @lnjsports.