1978 Stratford Spartans

Growing up in this area, I've heard the stories about the 78 team...back when there was no 5A classification. My dad, who has always been a high school football freak, would tell you that Craig James was the greatest HIGH SCHOOL player he ever saw. And that this team was the best he saw as well.

The part I bolded below was the part my dad always said. These guys amassed incredible numbers...and yet the starters rarely ever played even a minute of the 4th quarter, because they were blowing teams out so bad. He was always impressed with that...and James, I believe, is STILL Greater Houston's all time scoring leader, despite rarely playing the 4th quarter.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/sports/hso/6170576.html

History’s mystery
Stratford’s 1978 state champs put together a dominating season but usually are overlooked among Texas’ all-time best teams
By DAVID BARRON Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 18, 2008, 8:25AM

Running back Craig James, who set a state record with 2,411 rushing yards in 1978, thinks his relative lack of success in the NFL has kept his Stratford team from getting its due for a 15-0 season in which it beat the schools that had won the three previous state titles.

As they walked off the Astrodome floor on the afternoon of Dec. 23, 1978, with their Class 4A state championship trophy in hand, the Stratford Spartans had ample reason to believe they would be remembered as one of the best teams Texas football had to offer.

In a 15-0 season, the Spartans scored 532 points, second-best at the time in the history of Texas’ largest high school classification (now known as Class 5A), and held nine opponents to a touchdown or less. They ran the wishbone to perfection, totaling more than 7,000 yards, and their best runner set a 4A single-season rushing record.

However, 30 years later, as Houston prepares to host Saturday’s 5A title games at Reliant Stadium, the 1978 Stratford team rarely is among the first mentioned when it comes time to call roll for the very best of Texas football. Even in Houston, teams from Katy or Yates or North Shore probably have more adherents among those who parse numbers and compare statistics.

And their most accomplished player thinks he knows why.

As hard as it may seem to anyone who saw him at Stratford or SMU or with the New England Patriots, Craig James, the record-setting running back turned broadcaster, to this day wonders if the quality of his performances in the 10 years he played after leaving high school was good enough to ensure that he and his teammates would receive their just desserts from history.

And here’s the thing.

He may have a point.

“If I had gone on to two or three more Pro Bowls and a longer career in the NFL, I think we would be considered one of the best ever to play in the state of Texas,” James said. “To be considered among the best, you have to have a bellcow like Earl Campbell who had a great pro career, because that makes people think that, wow, his high school team must have been great.

“That is unfair to the 1978 Spartans. I had a good career, and I played in a Super Bowl, but I wasn’t a Hall of Fame runner. Injuries kept me from that. If I had not gotten hurt, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Some of James’ coaches and teammates, of course, scoff at the notion that greatness is defined by such shallow parameters. But the fact remains that rankings of this sort often hinge in large part on the career-spanning résumé of a Hall of Fame player, like Campbell, or a memorable game, like Yates’ 37-0 title game win over Odessa Permian in 1985.

Left past champs in wake
Take, for example, Campbell’s 1973 Tyler John Tyler team, which invariably takes the top spot in any review of Texas large school teams from the 1970s. Stratford outscored John Tyler by more than 100 points, and Campbell, who set a single-season record with 2,030 rushing yards, by far accounted for a larger percentage of the Lions’ total offense than did James, who broke Campbell’s record by rushing for 2,411 yards five years later.

And while the Spartans didn’t have a catchy nickname for its defense to rival John Tyler’s Wrecking Crew (yes, the Lions held the title before the Aggies borrowed it in the 1980s), it had a solid unit led by Wayne Harpold, who later played at Rice. Its turnover ratio was plus-14, which is no small feat for a wishbone team that, on occasion, was fumble prone.

Stratford also holds a unique distinction among 5A/4A schools: It beat 1976 state champion San Antonio Churchill 24-7 in the semifinals, 1977 champion Plano 29-13 in the title game and 1975 winner Port Neches-Groves in the regular season. It also beat Memorial, which advanced to the 1979 state final and lost to Temple, in the 1978 regular season.

Among schools in the top classification since 1951, only two boast a similar trifecta. San Antonio Roosevelt en route to the 1994 Division II title beat Division I winner Converse Judson, 1996 Division II champ Austin Westlake and 1997 Division II winner Flower Mound Marcus. Corpus Christi Ray’s 1959 state champs beat former champs at Highland Park (1957) and Wichita Falls (1958) and 1960 champion Corpus Christi Miller.

“There was no better team than ours,” James said. “You can say that some may have been as good, but none were better. I played for a Southwest Conference champ ( SMU in 1982) and for an AFC champ (1985 Patriots). I know what good teams are, and we were as good as it gets.”

Another of Stratford’s more enthusiastic proponents is Houston businessman Bob King, who played tight end for the Spartans. Six years ago, he wrote the editors of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine inquiring whether any team had beaten three previous state champs in the same year. That conversation evolved into a larger discussion about how to judge the quality of high school teams and the degree to which college and pro success figure into the mix.

For the record, King noted James was hardly the only 1978 Stratford player who enjoyed success after high school. Eight other players also played for Division I-Acolleges, and three played for smaller schools. Linemen Chuck Thomas and Chris Jackson won all-conference honors at Oklahoma and SMU, respectively, and Thomas played in two Super Bowl wins with the 49ers.

“Everybody knows about Craig,” King said. “But what people forget is that we had a quarterback and two other guys who ran for more than 800 yards and a quarterback who threw for more than 1,000. I look at guys today like Sam McGuffie (the former Cy-Fair back who played at Michigan this season), and they account for 70 percent of their team’s offense.

For those who tout the 2003 North Shore team or the Katy teams of the last 20 years, it should be noted Stratford (and Campbell’s John Tyler team) also played in an era that shunned mediocrity rather than rewarded it. Only one team advanced to the playoffs per district, compared to the current four per district, so seven of Stratford’s 15 victories came against district champs.

“It was a world where there was no margin for error,” King said. “Look at teams like Katy. They can afford to lose a game and still keep going.”

Also, in an era when Texas Tech and Oklahoma are still chucking it into the end zone in the final minutes of blowouts, the 1978 Spartans knew when to call off the dogs.

“If the most points determine who the greatest team is, you lose sight of the most important thing, which is the players in the game,” said Oscar Cripps, the Spartans’ coach. “Our backup middle linebacker, who is now a policeman here in Spring Branch, probably played as much as our starting middle linebacker. We had nine games where our first team didn’t play in the fourth quarter.”

Few close calls
Stratford’s closest call came in its season opener against Port Neches-Groves, which had beaten the Spartans four years in a row. As quarterback Mark Gabrisch recalled, all three of his backfield mates had succumbed to heat-related cramps by the fourth quarter, and he was the only starter in the backfield as Stratford marched 57 yards to a fourth-quarter score in a 30-28 victory.

Stratford totaled 471 yards in a 27-7 win two weeks later against La Porte — the top-ranked team in Greater Houston. Aside from a 14-6 squeaker against Spring Woods, the Spartans were not seriously challenged until the semifinals, when they broke a 7-7 halftime tie en route to a 24-7 victory over Churchill, and the 29-13 title game win over Plano in which James, who was suffering from a 24-hour virus, put the game away with an 80-yard scoring run in the second half.

“It’s been 30 years, and I can still remember standing there in the Astrodome with a bunch of college coaches, including Barry Switzer,” said Bob French, the team’s offensive coordinator. “They’re making their own adjustments and reacting to things I’m telling them, and Barry says, ‘That’s unbelievable. I have a hard time getting my guys to do these things.’ ”

It was a smart, successful team, and its members enjoyed success after high school as well. Most live in the Houston area, according to King, and about two dozen are members of a fantasy football league, the Couch Potato Football League, whose members meet in Las Vegas each summer for their draft. They also hope to have a team reunion next spring at their 30th class reunion.

But how do they measure up against the greats? Bill McMurray, the Chronicle’s longtime high school editor, rates them only behind the 1985 Yates Lions and the 1973 John Tyler Lions among teams he saw play from the 1950s into the mid-1990s.

Retired Plano coach Tom Kimbrough, who coached the 1978 Wildcats and was an assistant in 1973, when Plano lost 34-6 to Campbell’s John Tyler team in the playoffs, opts for John Tyler but said Stratford “was right up there with them.”

“I always felt like you had to avoid the super team if you were going to win it, unless you were really super yourself,” Kimbrough said. “Stratford fell into that super category, and if you’re a coach, you’ll run into a few of them, no matter how good you are.”

Aldine’s 1990 team was one of the best of its decade, as was the 2003 North Shore team. Both, however, benefited from the watered-down competition of post-1990s 5A football (North Shore beat two teams that entered the playoffs at 6-4), and both may lose points for the same scheduling quirk that works against Stratford. Aldine never had to play outside Greater Houston, and Stratford and North Shore did only once (Stratford in its opener against PN-G, North Shore in a semifinal in San Antonio against Austin Westlake).

Comparing teams of different eras, of course, is an exercise in futility. No one knows that more than King, whose son, Will, backed up Andrew Luck at Stratford last year and now plays for DePauw University in Indiana.

“When we played it, the game was real simple,” Bob King said. “You blocked the guy in front of you, and if you did well, you won, and if he shucked you, he won.”

Give credit where due
They were, and are, said Gabrisch, today a Houston oil company executive, overachievers.

“We weren’t that flashy. We didn’t have a lot of people go to the pros,” he said. “Maybe as time went by, people moved on and forgot about how solid and consistent we were. We had a complete, well-balanced team. We had a goal as freshmen to win a championship, and we did it.”

French, who is retired after a coaching career that included a stint as head coach at Northbrook, conceded James’ point that, perhaps, the Spartans’ relative lack of post-high school star quality may work against them.

“But Craig might be putting too much blame on his shoulders,” French said. “Our offense didn’t dictate Craig being an Earl Campbell, but he could have been. We had kind of a no-name football team except for him, but they overachieved.”

Cripps, though, is content to let Stratford’s résumé speak for itself.

“You can look at teams today and compare them to teams that played different systems years ago and ask who is better,” he said. “But they can’t play each other. So let’s give them credit for the season they had.

“I know that our team ranks up there with John Tyler and the others. As to who is the best, I would never say. But I know what we did.”

Stratford’s Road to the 1978 Title


Regular season


Stratford 30, PN-Groves 28: QB Mark Gabrisch leads late game-winning drive.


Stratford 27, La Porte 7: RB Craig James runs for 208 yards, two TDs.


Stratford 48, Lamar Cons. 6: Spartans total 604 yards, 41 first downs.


Stratford 42, Elsik 6: Defense stops six drives inside Stratford 25.


Stratford 14, Spring Woods 6: Defense allows 36 rushing yards, 7 first downs.


Stratford 31, Memorial 0: 17 fourth-quarter points clinch victory.


Stratford 49, Hastings 7: James totals 29 points.


Stratford 34, Spring Branch 6: FB Greg Koch runs for two TDs.


Stratford 52, Northbrook 12: James totals 238 yards, 30 points.


Stratford 41, Westchester 22: James has 280 yards, 23 points.


Playoffs


Stratford 44, Madison 6: Spartans outgain Marlins 503-99.


Stratford 31, Kashmere 9: Spartans overcome six first-half turnovers.


Stratford 35 La Porte 14: James tops 2,000 rushing yards, 200 points.


Stratford 24, SA Churchill 7: James sets 4A season rushing record.


Stratford 29, Plano 13: James has 133 yards in second half, 80-yard TD.

 

there were 17 D-1 scholarships from the 78 Stratford team, according to my father...i don't know if that's right or not. 4 pros, i think...craig, chuck thomas, and 2 others who i don't know.

i remember seeing that Yates team...of course I was in the 5th grade. I was 4 when this Stratford team was playing.

the comments to this article on the chronicle's website are interesting. lots of people who played against them talking about it.

 

they were the first team from houston to win the state title since lamar did it in 1955!!

 

get back to me when memorial wins a state title!

(there's nothing cooler than you and me, as thirty-somethings, trash talking the other's high school! we're kind of a big deal.)

 

early 80's. 81 i think.

 

I was in 8th grade in 87..and a freshman in 1988. Aside from the Rockets 95 playoff run, I've never seen any games more exciting than the playoff games that Stratford played in over those two seasons.

The Forest Brook game was won on a punt return, 39-33, on a cold night at Rice Stadium...the Chronicle called that the greatest high school football game of the 1990's.

The Willowridge games were crazy. Great, great games.

Also an incredible game against LaPorte at Rice Stadium where they were going in to win the game, but fumbled out of the side of the end zone, giving Stratford the ball on their own 20.

The 1987 state final game was a rematch of the 1978 game. Except this time, Plano had a running back named Craig James and this time Plano won!


by the way: Westchester was closed in 1985

 

yep, stratford lost to judson that year, 19-0. after the game against willowridge, the judson game was the ultimate trap game. they didn't have anything left.