Holding his pants ...

From: Bette Robison

To:

Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 10:56 PM

Subject: Coach Ward

scotty...thanks for starting this,,,have loved all the old stories,, really enjoyed the one about Jerry that J. Fortner told,,,,I can remember him running a touchdown on Pudor Field...holding his pants with one hand and the ball with another....didn't ya'll have shoe strings to hold your pants in the "old days? whatever, Jerry's had broken that night../will never forget how Coach Ward would polish shoes with that old wheel thing every Fri. afternoon before pep rallys and try to mend uniforms ,wish more players would share theirs and had a way of knowing about the blog. I'm so glad that I had one last visit with him in the hospital altho it broke my heart to see him in the fragile state he was in....I'm sure he had every nurse in that hospital hopping!! .....is charlie rhodes, david's older brother.... i don't know him, but he is a wonderful story teller!!

From: Scott Portis
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 3:35 AM
Subject: Fw: Coach Ward

Bette, welcome to the blog and you are the first female to contribute. Coach Ward would be happy, I am sure. I guess "Pee Wee" was running so fast his shoe string just broke. Maybe he was running so fast it caught on fire. I can't tell you how much I enjoy standing out in your mother's back yard and relating old Mustang stories with your husband. Jerry and I just tolerate your brother-in-law Lynn Brandon. By the way he promised us a blog. Be sure to email him and Harriet and get him on the ball. So glad you went by to see Coach before he died. Paul Allen and I were on our way when we got the word that he had died.

Charles is David's brother, and yes he is a great story teller. If you have not read his other stories on life in Huntingdon let me know and I well get you the addresses.

Again, Bette, thanks.

Welcome Lynn Brandon

Scotty Portis

Wed, Dec 26, 2007 at 3:27 PM

To: Lynn Brandon

Cc:

All, we have a new "blogger" with us. None other than that famous field general, play caller, and belly series master of fakery "whose got the ball" Lynn Brandon. Lynn was with the infamous "head hunting, Jackson Highway Gang during his early years before becoming the famous Mustang QB. Lynn and I had a good time out in his mother-in-laws back yard this afternoon recounting old Mustang victories and retelling old Coach Ward stories. Lynn said," Portis, what was your longest run. I said Lynn you go first (realizing the trap I was entering). Lynn said "I ran a 69 yd TD on Savannah on a right 44 flat pass. We had run the play previously and I had thrown a TD pass to Weldon Bennett. He said this time Savannah was ready for the pass, so I just tucked the ball and ran the 69 yds for the touchdown. I said "Brandon, as slow as you were they probably had time to get the National Guard out to escort you". Anyone who has knowledge of this run please verify it. I told Brandon that I had run the opening kickoff back 85 yds against McKenzie my junior year and "by George" Brandon changed his story about his run first to 79 yrds and then before we left it was 89 yds. What a guy. Anyway, Lynn welcome aboard and please feel free to add a story about Coach Ward. Also, I know there are others of you out there just waiting to "let loose" now that the holidays are drawing to a close. Scott Portis walterlbrown < > Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 6:11 PM To: joe fortner ; Scott Portis …. All Fortner’s runs are greatly enhanced by a conveintently good/bad memory from the day he moved to McKenzie. Or as my maternal grandfather always told me "You know Walter the older I get the higher I could jump when I was a Boy. Scott Portis < > Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 4:46 PM Walter is right. The older we get the better athletes we all become. The TD runs longer and tougher, the tackles (always for loses) more viscous, the blocks that opened the holes cleaner with the opponent always on the ground. Time heals all short comings.

Jackson Highway Gang

From: Scott Portis

To

Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 1:57 PM

Subject: Re: Coach Ward

Joe, thanks for the blog. We all know the prowess of Coach Robinson, not only as a player but a very savy former Coach of the Mustangs. I am proud to be a next door neighbor of his mother-in-law and get to see Coach quite often, along with his brother-in-law and another former famous Mustang QB Lynn Brandon, when they come to visit. We stand in the back yard and talk Mustang football and often relive some of our old games.

Joe, I am reminded of the "Jackson Highway Gang" as we were known, a rough bunch of uncouth "country boys" as our city slicker friends called us. As I remember, the city boys would come calling to our field on Saturday for a little game of tackle football. Jimmy and Joe Fortner, Lynn Brandon, Mike "The Toe" McLemore, the Lumpkin boys, Donald Blankenship, Roy "Geno" Dill, the Chandler boys, Ralph Joyner, Chandler Peeples, Tommy and Bobby Crews, Scott and Tommy Portis, Ray Ivy, John Mitchell Smith, and least we not forget the female persusion- Ms Becky Presson and Ms. Betty Ann Portis made up the team. Geno Dill's mother looked out the window once and called her son over and said "Roy, you boys must take it easy on Betty Ann and Becky". Roy's reply "Mom, Betty Ann and Becky need to take it easy on us. Have you seen them hit?". As I remember, Betty Ann was a vicious tackler and was probably the second fastest runner on the field. Betty Ann was a little "salty" even when she got to high school. She went in the Lexington dressing room after a basketball game one night and "punched out" one of the Lexington players who had been holding her during the game. She probably could have made the high school football team. Anyway, you will remember that we broke Carl Holiday's arm one Saturday and Johnny Pitts fell victim to the brutality of the "Jackson Highway Gang" the very next Saturday-he got the same treatment and wound up in Dr. Douglass office for a cast. There was no third Saturday as word had gotten around and the white "arm bands" these guys were wearing was proof enough.

I am sure that these early days of playing football grew out of our love for the game but the town of Huntingdon has been a "football town" as long as I can remember. People like Coach Pudor, Coach Ward, Coach Bobby Hays, Coach Robinson, Coach Sturdivant, and Coach Mansfield have all been great leaders and motivators and have helped propel this love for the game. Football is such a character builder-it demands much, but the rewards in self esteem, self worth, team work, and respect for others in victory or defeat are worth the price.

Joe, thanks again for a good story and for remembering a great football player, Jerry Robinson, and his coach, Coach Ward.

Scotty Portis