I bet I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt where about – oh, I don’t know – 10,000 or so of you were on this day in 2004.
Have any idea what I’m talking about?
You were with about 10,000 to 12,000 of your closest friends, sitting at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco, Texas – at our little “anxiety party,” otherwise known as the UIL Class 4A state championship game between Kilgore and Dallas Lincoln.
That game occurred on December 18, 2004.
Yours truly had been the sports editor of The Kilgore News Herald for about 2 1/2 years at that point, and had done some freelance writing. Get this: I moved to Kilgore to up my freelance writing a bit and “slow down.”
Insert your own laugh emoji here.
Did we even have laugh emojis in 2004?
George W. Bush (just W., please) was the President of the United States. Facebook was founded (yes, I did say “founded,” and now many of you can’t live without it). “The Passion of the Christ,” “Spider-Man 2” and “The Incredibles” ruled at the box office. The actual week of the title game, here was the No. 1 song in America: (Drop It Like It’s Hot).
But there was nothing hotter locally than the Kilgore Bulldogs, who went into their showdown with Dallas Lincoln with a 15-0 record, coming off a 10-7 win over Pflugerville Connally in Fort Worth, and I think every player on that 2004 team would’ve ran through a brick wall for coach Mike Vallery. And you know what? I probably would have, too.
That season started off with an odd feeling, at least for a lot of us.
Kilgore was coming off its best season since 1987 – that 2003 season with Clint Toon, Briant Sanders, so many of that class of 2004 that graduated in spring of ’04 and had gotten the Bulldogs to a 12-2 record in the fall of ’03, only to lose to Highland Park at Tyler’s Rose Stadium… it was a tough loss, man.
I remember hearing Vallery tell me – actually in the game, tell me – “Mitch, we left him too much time,” he said. And the ‘he’ in this case was Highland Park quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Kilgore had scored to take a lead, but the Scots did come back, led by Stafford, the bleach-blonded Highland Park Scots did score and win the game that fall, crushing our hopes in December 2003.
And then Kilgore returned the favor in baseball 2004, with a swing of the bat of Toon, ending Highland Park’s 2004 baseball season. Revenge was sweet.
In the fall of ’04, we all thought the Bulldogs would be very good. But there were uncertainties.
There was a hole at quarterback. Toon was good, very good. And he had graduated. In his place would be Rudy Galvan and Chase Fisher, vying for playing time.
We had an offensive line coming back led by the likes of center Billy Slagle, who was just as likely to be a rocket scientist as he was to snap you the ball, and Jordan Moore, who was strong as an ox and just as big.
Another hole: at kicker, where Josh Majors had exceled the year before, and now Galvan would be stepping up.
Boy, before long, Fisher and Galvan would fill those holes, far better than we would ever dream.
A few places where there weren’t holes: the secondary and at receiver, where there were names like Trey Sands, Pat McCrory, Nick Sanders, Courtney Thomas, and more. And at tight end: Wayne Daniels, Britt Mitchell. On the defensive line: Daniels, and a young man named Eddie Jones, both of whom would come to terrorize opposing quarterbacks that year.
The season was to begin in Greenville, and offensive line coach Kenny Ferro had his hands full when the line had a few injuries. But things came together – to the tune of a 49-10 win.
Atlanta was next (42-13 Kilgore), and then a low-scoring win at John Tyler (7-6).
A home-game win over Nacogdoches (47-18) and then a heart-stopper (28-27, a win at Marshall) rounded out the first month of the season, and the annual thrashing of Pine Tree brought us to mid October.
That took Kilgore to what turned out to be the toughest game the Ragin’ Red would play in the regular season: a game at Hallsville’s Bobcat Stadium. Kilgore and Kilgore College alum Roger Adams would coach those Bobcats to a near-upset of KHS, and I say “near” because they almost pulled it off, but didn’t: the difference was a safety, and a 9-7 Kilgore win.
The Bulldogs finished up the regular season with wins over Whitehouse (35-6), at Jacksonville (20-17; the Indians were a salty bunch) and Henderson (49-0; the Lions were NOT a salty bunch).
And then came Brenham, and a trip to Waco, the first of a few trips to Waco that year.
The first half: a disaster, and Kilgore trailing 21-3 at the half.
The second half: a Kilgore blowout, with Fisher and Thomas connecting time after time, and that offensive line controlling the line of scrimmage. The defense didn’t allow Brenham a single second-half point, and Kilgore won going away, 38-21.
I remember asking Slagle after the game, right after the game, what Vallery said at halftime to motivate the team.
Nothing, Slagle laughed. He said Vallery walked in, told them if that’s how they wanted to go out, then that’s how they’d all go out, and that they’d do it together, and he walked out. That pushed the Bulldogs to beat Brenham’s – well, butts.
And that carried them throughout the playoffs.
The next week was the legendary game at Stephen F. Austin, the storm game against Port Neches-Groves where both teams were sent to their locker rooms while lightning popped for a couple of hours and it rained enough to make Noah proud.
I talked to the coaching staff at one point, and they told me they had to get the game in or risk a coin flip determining who would advance.
As it turned out, that would’ve been awful. The game finally started, played on turf but in inches-deep water, and PN-G didn’t show, seriously. We could hear them running their mouths through the locker room wall, but when the clock began, the game was all Kilgore, and I mean, ALL Kilgore, a 41-0 final.
The third playoff game was against El Campo and another trip to Waco ISD Stadium, where the comeback on Brenham had happened, although this one was a daytime game and the weather in this one was so windy – hats are probably still blowing around in the parking lot from that day.
Kilgore running back Keith Gilliam, who set all sorts of school rushing records that year, stomped a mudhole in El Campo and walked it dry, 18-0.
I asked Gilliam afterward what he had for breakfast. “Doughnuts,” he laughed.
The following week was a bit of a blur for yours truly, as Jenna and I had our youngest child, Ashtyn, on Dec. 2 – and then Kilgore was to play La Marque at Kyle Field on the Texas A&M University campus the next day.
La Marque, as it turned out, brought and extra dose of mouth with them that night. Luckily, we brought plenty of Keith Gilliam, plenty of defense and Kilgore won a 26-21 slugfest. But I spent a month there that night: my father-in-law and I had car trouble on the way home and wound up turning it into an all-nighter, sleeping in the car. And let me say, cell phones weren’t as reliable in 2004 in Navasota (or anywhere) as they are in 2023.
So Ashtyn came into the world and Pflugerville Connally was up next for the Bulldogs, and Kilgore’s defense was matched up against running back Keith Demby, dubbed “Demby the Diesel” by his teammates and community. The KHS defense won that battle, 10-7, and Kilgore was on its way to the school’s first-ever championship game, and a matchup with Dallas Lincoln.
Lincoln really did have the eyes of Texas upon them, a metro area looking for its first state title since the 1950s (remember: Dallas Carter’s 1988 state title was stripped due to an ineligible player).
So here’s the final sequence.
We’re in double overtime. Kilgore 27, Lincoln 27. Lincoln kicker Salvador Miriles prepares to kick a 42-yard field goal. No pressure or anything – just everyone in the stadium and the weight of Dallas on his shoulders.
Miriles came running forward, and made the kick.
But around the corner came Kilgore’s Nick Sanders.
Sanders, a defensive back for the Bulldogs who had made so many plays for KHS in his career, was about to make the biggest play of his life – and of the lives of all of his teammates, and maybe of mine, too.
He came off the edge and pounced on the ball, slapping it down.
Somehow, not only did Sanders get all of the ball, but it bounced right back up to him. And Sanders – escorted by some of his teammates like they were the highway patrol and he had just committed a federal crime — took off running, all the way down, 70 yards into the opposite end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
Then — as I said in the 15th anniversary column – there was silence, for just a moment, but for what seemed like an eternity as the crowd, Vallery, his staff, his players, all the Kilgore fans, all the Dallas Lincoln fans, and maybe even a few officials – scoured the field for a yellow flag.
But there was none, not one.
The Bulldogs had done it, claiming a 33-27 win and the 4A state championship, finishing the perfect season with the perfect 16-0 record, all those years ago.
Was it really that long?
Yes, it was. In some ways, it seems every bit of two decades.
In some ways, it seems like only yesterday.
I’m no longer the sports editor of the News Herald. Those days were great, but they are over. I’m the editor and publisher of ETBlitz.com, and of thefootballbeat.com, and I hope we can all have new sports journeys together.
But I can still see Nick run. Every time I look up at that smile, when I see him now, on the sidelines as one of Kilgore’s assistant coaches, I still see that young man, wearing that No. 3 on his jersey, taking off for the end zone with Sands and McCrory and all of his teammates around him – and then, what seemed like the whole city of Kilgore celebrating afterward.
We’re still celebrating, all these years later.
Do we have eight or nine, or whatever it is, like Carthage? No, we don’t. Do we have a ceremony every year, like the 1972 Miami Dolphins do, when the final NFL team loses a game?
We don’t do that, either.
But we do remember. We remember.
And as years can come and go, the faces and names might change, and one day, even mine.
But that feeling – that’s what keeps us all coming back, year after year, to R.E. St. John Memorial Stadium, or to wherever those red and white jerseys take the field.
That is Kilgore football.
And it will never change.
Kilgore High School – State Champions 2004
Kilgore coach Mike Vallery in 2004, talks to his team after the Bulldogs defeated Pflugerville Connally to earn a trip to the UIL Class 4A state championship game. Below: KHS defensive back Nick Sanders (3, right) with the block heard ’round Texas, blocking a field goal attempt by Dallas Lincoln and then returning the block 70 yards for a touchdown, the game-winner. Kilgore would beat Lincoln, 33-27, on December 18, 2004, to win the state championship and finish the season 16-0. (Photos by KATHY BOWDEN)
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Great memories Mitch!
But remember the Marshall game was 28-27 in overtime. Marshall went for 2 and we stopped them to win?
You’re right. My memory wasn’t bad; my research was bad! LOL. I scrolled at the wrong time. They went for the swinging gate and went for the win on the two-point play. I’ve corrected the story to reflect that! And I appreciate the catch, my man. Thank you, so much!