Mite-y Good Rusty Days...

So says a headline written when H.N. "Rusty" Russell was 76, with an editorial remark that the legendary coach's only flaw might have been not having a clear head at the beginning of games due to to the hardship of broken-down rusty equipment like Old Blue, the ancient scrap of a pick-up that ferried the team to games. Russell recalled that he'd felt half drunk by the time he arrived at games from driving the old Dodge truck with his team in the back bed. "Dern right I drove it," he said, "that ole truck nearly gassed me to death" with the fumes leaking into the cab.

David Castevens wrote, "Perhaps that's Rusty Russell's only flaw. He stayed intoxicated with football's aroma, from 21 years as a schoolboy coach to the hey-days of Doak Walker at SMU." Russell's indelible mark on football led him to be inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. His overall record as a head coach in 23 years of high school and 13 years as college head coach is 250 wins, 100 losses, 21 ties -- a 71% winning percentage. Russell coached 43 teams (he coached two high teams in one year) in 42 years total including his years as assistant coach at SMU before he became head coach and when started coaching at Temple High School as an assistant coach. As an assistant at SMU Russell enjoyed a 32-16-5 record where the Mustangs were nationally ranked, won two Southwest Conference titles, and made two Cotton Bowl appearances in 1947 and 1948.

Bear Bryant, referred to his friend Russell as being the greatest passing coach in the United States. Russell was called a "quiet and congenial" coach, the "man behind the guns" and "an innovator", a "football genius" and a legend.

"People called me a screwball because we did a lot of experimenting. You name it, I tried it, everything from a one man line to a 10," Russell says. He is credited with inventing the spread offense which is in bigger use today than it ever was. Originality of offense was considered to be one of Russell's biggest assets and it was written of him that "He thinks football almost the year around. It is reported that on many occasions he mulls over new plays and formations far into the night, many times getting out of bed in the early hours to diagram a play or work out new assignments. To any fan who has seen his teams in action there is little doubt but that he has some entirely new "stuff"... and they have some plays that only they can work. These plays call for expert handling of the ball back of the line and are so complicated that many times Russell himself loses site of the ball."

Many of his players are so small "as to be of little help" but they, like all Mighty Mites, refer to him not as "coach" but always as "Mr. Russell."

He was twice college coach of the week, retired in 1963, and after 42 years of work, Russell called his 16 football seasons at Masonic Home in Fort Worth "most satisfying." They produced a won-lost-tied record of 127-30-12 and eight of the more exciting teams in the history of Fort Worth. His 11 Mighty Mites Class A teams won seven district championships and tied for another. In all of his life-long career of full-time coaching, he never had a losing season.

The Impact of Mentors...

Marie Glick dedicated her life to teaching. Nearing 99, she had students gathering around her, above, when she attended the Twelve Mighty Orphans book event at the downtown Fort Worth Masonic Lodge in September 2007. She served over 34 years at The Masonic Homer as a teacher, counselor and principal. She attended events last year in honor of her 100th birthday.

Most all Home Kids will tell you that the impact of teachers, administrators and principals is a key to what made The Home a unique place and, because of her many years of service and her dedication to the students, many many students mention Mrs. Glick as an important mentor. She still shows up at Home events and is accorded the best seat in the house.

Glick holds a BBA and an MBA from the University of Texas. Five years after she started teaching at The Masonic Home she married Dr. Walter Glick, a dean at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. She often joked that her husband thought she was married to the students at The Home as that is where she directed much of her love and attention. After he died in 1960 she continued to live in their home on Texas Wesleyan Campus and she often sponsored students and allowed them to live in extra bedrooms. The home where she and her husband lived on the Texas Wesleyan campus was recently dedicated to the University as the Glick House Community Counseling Center - a gift that Glick made 20 years ago. At 101 she still lived on campus and this November she will turn 102.

The Psychology of the Game (The M Jacket)...

Rusty Russell's arrival at The Masonic Home to be an administrator, a teacher and a football coach began in 1927. Upon arrival he found a classroom to teach in, an office for his use as an administrator, yet no football equipment to play with nor a football field upon which to play. Few of the children at the home had any knowledge of football.

Russell played his first game and won their first real leather football on a side bet with the other team's coach. They used old t-shirts with spray painted numbers for jerseys and hand-me-down unmatching pants that came from somewhere and they were well into the season before they all had football shoes. A few had helmets.

The little team finished its first season in Class B with an 8-2 record. At the end of the season Russell's football budget was no larger but he had an idea of what might make a huge difference for the school and the team and he had a notion how to get it. He agreed to an exhibition game against the powerful Sherman High School team that had been in the Class A Championship Playoffs. Russell's team would be paid $250 for driving to Sherman and being sacrificial lambs. Sherman crushed the fledgling team 97-13, but their coach, Mr. Russell, walked away with something most important.

The Mighty M Jacket

With the season over, Russell took the podium two weeks later at an all-school assembly and presented each of his 12 players with letter jackets with the big "M" varsity letter on the front for all to see. These letter jackets had been paid for by the proceeds of the Sherman game.

This was the first iteration of the Home Kid Football Hero and the first lesson in knowing that going up against tough challenges fearlessly brings its own rewards. All kids looked up to these boys who went out to face the outside world on the football fields. Boys earned respect and proudly wore their letter jackets which became very important visible signs of how success could be earned, even if it was through hard, tough, and even failing efforts.

Years later Opal Lord, a Home Kid who married Home Kid Mighty Mite Doug Lord (both are characters in Jim Dent's book), proudly wears Doug's letter jacket as she signs her photo in Dent's book at the publication events for Twelve Mighty Orphans, the book, in Fort Worth in 2007 when it was first published (it is now in its 20th printing). She is pictured above.

From the very beginning, Russell's interest in psychology and motivation was apparent. He pursued additional education and credentials in this new area of "child guidance" obtaining his master's and later further post-graduate work in psychology/child guidance from institutions in Colorado, NYC and Texas Christian University. He thought his career would be in those areas within teaching, rather than as a coach, which he saw as only a sideline to his other interests of teaching and administration. He would spend many years honing those skills, surprising even himself that his success was found on the football field in addition to the classroom.

Ragnots: Raggedy Uniforms and High Hopes....

In 1932 the Mites reached their finest hour when they met Corsicana for the state championship and the legend can be said to begin that season. "We were ragnots, doing an excellent job. The whole town began to pull for us. We wore those leather helmets and khaki pants...our uniforms were good protection but maybe they weren't the prettiest things," H.N. "Rusty" Russell said of those times. But that is only the beginning of the inspirational story.

Those "ragnots" learned how to overcome obstacles and how to be successful in life. The Channel 2 in Houston special, "The Eyes of Texas," hosted by Bill Balleza, noted of that "for the record, (of the Home Kids) there were nine United States judges, four United States Army generals, five ministers, 47 medical doctors, lawyers and university presidents." Jim Dent adds that additionally there were mayors, two NFL stars (Hardy Brown and DeWitt Coulter), a nuclear physicist that worked with Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, teachers and educators, a 35-year Marine career ending as Lieutenant Colonel, corporate CEOs and company presidents, and many, many students went on to earn graduate degrees.

The individual stories and careers are too numerous to tell but the whole school was sort of a bunch of ragnots with every excuse and reason for failure but the fact is the school cared, the teachers cared and the students did enough with it that they went on to become very important people in the world, their community and it didn't have to be that way. The Home repeatedly turned out great people who valued integrity, learning, perseverance and character. The impressive records of success can only be attributed to the players in the story -- the administrators and the children at The Home. The kids say things like "Mr. Russell is the finest man I ever knew" and "there were teachers we loved like Mrs. Glick and those who she hired to teach". The administrators say it was the kids, who were ready to learn and appreciated opportunities and relationships with mentors. What it was is a magical combination of both. The story is about a specific place, a specific time, willing recipients with their hearts in the right place and people willing to give beyond the norm. With that combintion, you have something that rarely happens. And it did.

Cult Heroes: The Story Goes National...

All of America came to love the Mighty Mites as the nation needed and yearned for heroes. According to Jim Dent, "It was the same obsession the nation held for Seabiscuit. People would go to any lengths to shed the Depression blues, and the best way to forget about adversity was to believe in the underdog -- an underdog with the heart of a champion."

A national story about the team had first appeared in 1932 with the team's first run towards the Class A State Championship. Some 2,200 banks had failed in 1931 and the bad times continued with 12 million men unemployed. At a time when men felt diminished and families felt pushed to the edge, the story of the scrawny orphans beating the giants of Texas high school football inspired a nation.

While the college teams in the area might attract 1,000 fans to games, the Mason's Mighty Mites packed in 5,000 to 10,000 fans on a regular basis. The saga of the winning team would set a standard for the next decade and provide an example of courage unsurpassed since in Texas sports. Those that couldn't attend the games tuned in to the radio broadcasts, sandwiched after Lawrence Welk and before Amos 'n Andy, Guy Lombardo, and Groucho Marx.

Harold Ratliff with the Associated Press, stationed in Dallas, the "big city" just to the east of Fort Worth, started distributing the story of the grasshopper team that could not be beat on the national AP wire. National media quickly picked up the story and stayed on it. Their undefeated year in 1932 was the just the beginning of a decade-plus run. The story of the Mighty Mites was one of inspiration, imagination, success and determination much appreciated at a time when America needed good endings to very tough times.

Notes, Letters and Telegrams Poured In...

The number one team favorite in Texas soon became national darlings and telegrams and letters came flooding daily into the Masonic Home by the hundreds of fans from everywhere in the United States. Full mail bags were dumped daily on the dining room table in the Russell's tiny apartment behind the Dining Hall on The Home campus that also served as Mr. Russell's office. Well wishers from Wyoming, South Dakota, Detroit, New York, little towns and large cities were writing letters cheering the team on. Western Union telegrams from all over the United States came pouring in as well. The story became an ongoing national saga in newspapers and magazines.