By Mitch Stephens
MaxPreps.com
SOUTHLAKE, Texas - It's everywhere.
It's engraved above their vast locker room; scrolled across their elaborate website; stamped boldly in their lavish team program.
Most important, it's ingrained in the hearts, souls and back packs of 95 impressionable teen-age boys.
Protect the tradition.
This is the motto for the nation's top high school football team three years running, Southlake Carroll, located a long kickoff northwest or so from America's Team in the NFL.
Protect the tradition, supposedly, is the driving force behind how a team could somehow win 49 straight and 80 of 81 big-school games in a state with a long and storied tradition and generally regarded as the country's best.
Protect the tradition, is the backbone for three straight 5A titles and four in the last five seasons.
But what the heck does Protect the Tradition, really mean? What does it represent? How does it translate?
To unravel that mystery, MaxPreps.com Director Of Photography Todd Shurtleff and myself traveled halfway across country from California and with permission from coach Hal Wasson attended the team's final full practice on Thursday before perhaps the state's biggest regular season match-up.
The Dragons play what we've been told is arguably the country's most talented team, defending Florida 6A champion Northwestern-Miami, Saturday at 7 p.m. (EDT).
Just so you know: I've never seen a Texas high school football game/practice/barbecue/pep rally/honky tonk - you name it. I'm a West Coast native who has inhaled just about every high school sporting event in The Golden State over the last quarter-century, most notable to most is De La Salle-Concord football.
In fact, I covered both De La Salle showdowns with Long Beach Poly in 2001 and 2002, the first two times the nation's top two teams (supposedly. Do any of us really know?) faced off.
Saturday is the (supposed) third such occurrence.
What makes this vastly different for me is I've never seen a Texas or Florida team lace `em up. That's what made Thursday's trip into Southlake all the more riveting.
More challenging, and intriguing, was the fact we were mere flies on the wall.
We felt fortunate enough that coach Wasson allowed us access - two complete strangers - just a couple days before such a monumental tilt but the ground rules were no formal interviews with players and coaches.
We had conference calls with both teams and coaches the previous day, so this was a photo shoot and observation session only.
So, without further ado, here is Todd and Mitch's Excellent Southlake Adventure.
OK, I'm nervous.
Not only because it feels like we're intruding on someone's wedding rehearsal, but these Texas freeways/highways/interstates/exchanges/bypasses/loops - whatever they're called - got me feeling like a rookie quarterback in the NFL.
I can't make the reads.
Our map from the rental car agency looks like my daughter Sofia's "Where's Waldo" series.
There's exit numbers combined with highway numbers combined with the Wizard Whitebeard combined with Ws, Es, Ns, Ss, NEs, NWs, SEs, NxNWs, SxNxSWs.
Hut, hut, hut, hut.
Anyway, even though I'm navigating, Todd gets us to the Wall St./Southlake Blvd. exit. Now we just need run a streak pattern 4.4 miles up the yellowbrick road to observe the wizards of high school football.
The path reminds me of a wider and cleaner and more suburbanite Rodeo Drive without windows. Instead the squeaky clean architecture is tiled and brick to absorb the heat, on this day mild (84 degrees) under partly cloudy skies.
Retail, boutiques and eateries, chain and home grown, line both sides of the street. In California, we unaffectionately call them strip malls, but here they are pretty and sprawling. It feels safe and grounded and secure.
Off to our left is Shangri-Lai, tipped off by a monster green and white billboard that pops out the Dragons' seven state football championships and current fall athletic schedule. The school colors are bright and abundant throughout the campus as are posted traditions and school activities.
The parking lot is busy - school is just out - with SUVs, monster trucks, BMWs, Volvos and other upscale vehicles. It reminds me of school parking lots in the Bay Area like Monte Vista-Danville and De La Salle. The only difference - much like all I've seen in Texas - is that this is larger and wider.
Even I could find Waldo on this campus.
We're fuzzy on where to find coach Wasson so we ask an unsuspecting student, senior Trent Roberts, hidden behind his open hatchback. He politely wraps up a cell phone call to direct us. We ask him if he's going to Saturday's game.
"No sir," he said. "I'm going to watch it on TV."
Sounds odd considering it's a high school game, but indeed it will be telecast live on ESPNU.
It will compete on the airwaves with another Texas showdown, this one pitting nearby Euless Trinity at Odessa Permian of Friday Night Lights fame in a Fox Sports Net Southwest telecast.
Trinity appeared in a national television ad for Gatorade recently.
Man, these Texas teams are rock stars.
Anyway, parking at Southern Methodist University is a bear, according to Roberts and everyone else we've quizzed. Plus, Roberts says, he has family commitments.
"It's a big deal," says Roberts, a varsity soccer player. "Everyone is talking about it. It's probably the most hyped game we've ever had in the regular season. But our guys have had a lot of big games. The most important thing for us is to keep the win streak alive."
That's 49 straight win, which ties Abilene for the state big-school record.
It pales to De La Salle's 151-game streak, which I consider one of the most remarkable in sport at any level. But Southlake's, the second-longest currently in the nation, is comparable considering the quality of 5A play in Texas.
Equally impressive is another green and white billboard right in front of the Dragons $3.4 million indoor practice facility. It highlights their championship seasons starting in 1965 when it won a class B District title. The board tracks 22 seasons including seven 16-0 campaigns and seven state crowns.
"Wow," Todd says.
I echo the sentiments when we enter the football field house. Pictures, plaques and quotations fill every wall and team and individual trophies are jammed into several cases.
The action pictures, matted in 16x20 frames, are sharp and large and display supreme effort or camaraderie. Mug shots of 90 different players, mostly current, are also matted in 8x11 frames, each with mini bios.
Three more giant posters highlight 11 goals each for offense, defense and special teams. Seven are checked off on defense, six on offense and four for special teams in last week's 42-10 win over Lake Highlands.
They'll have to check off at least eight in each category if they expect to beat this Northwestern squad, which has six potential All-Americans according to recruiting guru Tom Lemming.
Then again, I sense these Dragons overcome physical limitations and spotty play through deeper routes.
There's a picture of an older gent with a strong jaw that reads: "Our inspiration Charlie Stalcup. A true measure of a man."
Inspirational quotations are everywhere, some anonymous, some trite, many rich.
Most deal with behavior and action and character and destiny. The messages are as eclectic as the sources themselves: Abe Lincoln. Anne Frank. Richard Bach. George Bernard. Byrd Baggert.
"The will to win is everything."
"Passion: Winners love and live life to the fullest."
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence."
"Compassion: Winners have a genuine care and concern for others."
The last one perks my interest. A football program pushing compassion? Wait a minute, this is Texas right? That's a touchy, feely California concept.
Adjacent to the quote was a short story about a young nerdy kid who had moved into town and who was bullied and beat up. A fellow student and stranger picked the boy up from the beating and be-friended him that day. The two went on to be pals and the story detailed their separate paths through school. The bullied boy eventually became the top student at a major college institution and during his commencement speech revealed for the first time that he was just thankful to be alive, that one day many years previous he had planned to take his own life. But another boy befriended him that day and that small act of kindness kept him alive.
I literally well up reading this tale when a tanned, fit 50ish something gent with a kind face shuffles quickly through the hall. We make eye contact. Great, an assistant who can lead us to coach Wasson.
The man extends his hand.
"Hi, Hal. Hal Wasson," he says.
I fumble with an introduction but he couldn't be more pleasant or patient. He seems hurried but relaxed.
"I hear you have a football game coming up on Saturday," I say jokingly.
"That's what they tell me," he says.
Wasson, as everyone knows around these parts, replaced Todd Dodge, who in seven years turned Carroll from a nice state 3A power to a national juggernaut, thus landing at the University of North Texas last spring.
Wasson, the team's offensive coordinator in 2001 and 2002, is no stranger to the program but the last four years he's been at nearby Fossil Ridge, where he went 28-15 in four seasons including a District 6-4A championship last season.
I assure him Todd is just there to take photos and that we won't be conducting interviews. Todd and I then proceed to interview him, accidentally of course.
I don't get the feeling he minds us being there or would even care if we talked with his players, but prep sports these days - especially at Carroll - is at another level.
A little different than Fossil Ridge, eh coach, we ask?
"This is a whole new ball game," he acknowledges. "It's as different as Italy, Texas, to New York City."
Italy, a town currently of 1,993 in Ellis County, is where Wasson first started coaching 29 years ago.
"I thought I knew everything back then," he says. He then recollects back to simpler times, the good folks of Italy and the good cooking, recalling a special diner.
"Umm, those buttermilk pies," he says. "Can still smell `em."
Well, it isn't exactly chalkboard material for Northwestern, but it tickles me. Guess that's what they call Southern charm.
Wasson excuses himself and invites us back to the practice facility in the northwest corner. Or is that the southeast corner? Where's my Waldo map?
Anyway, as I leave the field house, there it is. One last plaque and quote.
"Protect the tradition." Right next to it is a variation: "We protect it. You expect it."
Darn, I still need to get to the bottom of this.
The two-level field, like everything around here, is pristine and manicured. Beautiful million-dollar houses border the west end zones.
With almost 100 kids on the team, the first string offense plays the second string defense on one field and the second string offense challenges the first string defense on the other.
Practice runs like clockwork, efficient, smooth, with little hitch or hollers. Once in a while you hear, "C'mon men!"
Every 10 minutes, a loud buzzer goes off, seemingly from the heavens triggering a water break or shift of teams. The coaches barely need to direct as players shuffle between spots.
It seems relaxed just two days before a big game, but we've been reminded all week by Carroll coaches and players to treat this like any other contest. Still quarterback Riley Dodge's passes are right on the mark. His receivers make all the catches. Snaps are crisp. The Dragons look sharp.
Wasson approaches and rekindles more Italy memories. He said he weighed 217 back in those days. Now he's 187, having lost most of the weight the last couple of seasons.
"I used to run the power I formation," he muses. "Now that they have us running the spread I got to stay in shape with the boys."
In the southeast (I think) corner of the lower field is six older gents, presumably parents, observing, chuckling and generally commiserating. They've each pulled up their own lawn chairs. This seems a familiar practice.
Turns out none are dads of current players. Some had boys play years ago.
"It's just what we do," says Bob Morgan, whose son Charles played on the first state championship team in 1988. His daughter, Krissy, graduated from the school in 1994. "It's Southlake. We're Dragons."
So, you think they're ready for Northwestern?
"We're always ready," Morgan says. "It's just another big game."
I ask about Stalcup, his picture and his influence. There's a short silence and they tell me he was the school's longtime defensive coordinator who died two years ago from cancer.
"They dedicated (the practice facility) in his name on Monday," Morgan said. "The defense would have knocked over that brick house for him."
More silence.
I ask how the coaching transition has gone from Dodge to Wasson.
"What transition?" Morgan asks rhetorically. "If you didn't know all the coaches and just watched them practice all day you would never know there's been a change. They're doing all the same things."
I didn't know the old coaches and other than my short chat with Wasson, didn't know the new ones either. But after a few hours I sure got a good sense about them and the Dragons.
Especially after talking to one of the team managers, senior Jack Biehunko, also the school's student body president and starter on the lacrosse team. Like every other kid we talked to during our short visit, Biehunko is respectful.
He says "sir" and "yes" and "thank you."
"Nobody around here thinks their big stuff," he says. "Everyone treats each other with respect, even the managers. We're all just kids and we're all just trying to do our best."
Now there's a tradition worth protecting.
E-mail Mitch Stephens at mstephens@mpreps.com.
