Golden Memories of Bygone Seasons...

Rusty Russell's gold football charm at top has been handed down through the family for 90 years. It commemorates his election to the All T.I.A.A. (Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association) Football Team as an end in 1921. In addition it commemorates his team conference championship that year.

Mighty Mite Walter "Sleepy" Finigan, #21, passed away in September of 2007 just a couple of days after receiving a signed copy of the book Twelve Mighty Orphans. His grandson, Jody Vincik of Gun Barrel City, Texas, kindly sent us photos of his Masonic Home jewelry - a watch, ring and football charm -- that are posted above with permission. The ring is from the class of 1942.

Old Blue...

When it was time to load up and go play an "away" game, the football team scrambled up in Old Blue, similar to this 1926 Model T flat bed truck, and chugged off regardless of the weather. It was all that was available to transport the kids at The Masonic Home.

Dr. E.P. Hall, "Doc Hall", the team doctor who donated all of his time and love to take care of the orphans, would ride in the cab with Rusty Russell. Old Blue is just as much a character as anyone else in the story of the 12 Mighty Orphans.

Mean Hardy Brown...

After witnessing his father's murder at close range at age four, Hardy Brown arrived at the Masonic Home with his brother and sister. He spent his entire childhood there and played football on the Mighty Mite team. He died in 1991 at age 67.

In an interview Rusty Russell recalled Hardy's transition after he left The Home. Hardy went on to become a Marine paratrooper and afterwards he wanted to fulfill his college ambitions. DeWitt Coulter, his Mighty Mite buddy, got him to come to West Point to play football with him. It didn't work out at West Point and Hardy called Mr. Russell.

Henry Frnka had been a coach at a highschool in Texas and was at that time a coach at University of Tulsa. Russell knew the kind of coach Frnka was, knew Frnka personally, and he felt Hardy would fit into Frnka's system. Russell called Frnka on Hardy's behalf. Based on his conversation with Russell, Frnka offered Hardy a scholarship. Hardy had a successful career at the University of Tulsa before entering the NFL.

When he was in Tulsa, a newspaper ran the photo above of Hardy when he played fullback at Tulsa University and was a contender for All-American. As his wife, Betty looked on, he claimed he could iron a shirt in less than two minutes. Whether he learned that at the Home or not, we can't say.

He played professionally for the San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins, and the Denver Broncos. He was one of only two men who played in the All-America Football Conference, the National Football League, and the American Football League.

At The Home he was surrounded by his family. Perhaps that was the best thing in his life and when thrown into the world of football, he survived as best he knew how. He would say in his pro career he had 75 - 80 knock outs and everyone was out to get him. For those who knew Hardy at The Home, he was in a place where he felt safe and no one was "out to get him".

He was named #5 of the Top Ten Most Feared Tacklers and Washington Post's Matt Schudel writing in his Post Mortem blog about the hardest hitters in football, noted that Hardy cherished his tough NFL reputation. Hardy was 6' and at 190 lbs played linebacker. Interviews with sports figures for a special on the Top Ten Tacklers thought his mean streak and violent nature was "shaped at the Masonic Home for orphans in Fort Worth Texas, a rough and tumble place" and some thought "Hardy channeled his frustrations through football and "he was going to make people pay for it". He had a special move where he threw his shoulder into opponents. "It's like a boxer, take one step forward, keep your back straight, keep your eyes forward, and ...... (pop your shoulder)....and that's it," Hardy said, showing how he does that.

Mighty Mites: Top All-Time Texas Football Story

It happened between 73 and 83 years ago, and today the story, Mighty Mites capture the hearts of Americans, ranked #31 in the list of the Top 100 Top North Texas Football Memories. Nearly 750,000 votes were cast in the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee's "Century in the Making" project, which was set up to find the top 100 football moments.

High School football began in Texas with the "Interscholastic League" formation in 1913. That Same year, the "Texas Interscholastic Athletic Association" or the "TIAA" was formed for College athletics in Texas and over the next few years schools like Texas, Texas A&M, SMU, TCU, Baylor, Rice and a little known school in Brownwood ,Texas, Howard Payne University all joined in.

Rusty Russell began playing football at Howard Payne Academy (high school level) in 1913 and that year the University of Texas won the TIAA Football Championship for colleges. Russell eventually began playing at Howard Payne University lettering in football, basketball, baseball and track. He captained the football and basketball teams and was All Conference in both of those sports. His Howard Payne football team won the TIAA conference Championship in 1921 and he was named best all around athlete at Howard Payne later his senior year when he graduated in 1922.

With all of those years of High School, College and Pro (lest we forget our Cowboys), there was certainly no shortage of great moments. When you consider that TCU won the NCAA National Championship in Football in 1935 and 1938, and rival SMU won 3 National Championships - one in the mid 1930's, and again in 1981 and 1982. Then of course The University of Texas has 4 National titles (1963, 1969, 1970, 2005), that's enough to fill at least 100 top memories. You would have to add in there Hall of Famer Slingin' Sammy Baugh from TCU, and several Heisman Trophy winners , among them Davy O'Brien at TCU and Doak Walker at SMU (who was coached by Rusty Russell at both high school and college levels). How about LaDanian Tomlinson from TCU or Eric Dickerson at SMU? One would have to throw in the 5 SUPERBOWL Championships for the Dallas Cowboys. That then opens the door for the on field heroics of Dandy Don Meredith, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and the list goes on.

It is a legendary story that everyone loves. How could you not?

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Crazy, Stinky, Skinny Well-Fed:Nicknames

When new kids came into The Home, they were given a "Big Kid" for a buddy. Often these led to life-long bonds stronger than those of siblings. New kids also gained nicknames and many nicknames stuck for life.

Some of those nicknames include: Buster, Wheatie (ate nine bowls of Wheaties cereal in a challenge), Wink, Snoggs, Fat Lord, Brownie (big brown eyes), Little Dick (because there was already a Big Dick), Sleepy, Hootie, Killer Underwood, Shorty, Crazy, Stinky, Moe, Monkey, and many others. Skinny Well-Fed gained his nickname when he wrote his mother a postcard telling her that he came to The Home "skinny and now I'm well-fed". Someone read the postcard and from then on he was Skinny Well-Fed.

They called each other "Home Kids" while outsiders called them orphans. They called each other family. Forever.

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Superbowl: Fort Worth & The Spread Offense

The Spread Offense, which we'll see Sunday in the Superbowl, originated with the team of mighty orphans in Fort Worth at The Masonic Home, an invention of Rusty Russell (Jim Dent writes about them in his book Twelve Mighty Orphans). It's exciting to think of this strategy being used all these years later by professional teams and watched by millions.

Fort Worth is buzzing with football excitement. The Superbowl will be played just 11 miles east of downtown in the new Cowboy Stadium. The Steelers are set up in the new Omni Hotel and practicing at TCU's stadium, ESPN is set up and running in downtown's Sundance Square. Some say this town has gone football crazy like it was in the '30s when the scraggly scrawny Mighty Mites, using new play strategies to beat bigger teams, were drawing sell-out crowds at Farrington Field (above) and TCU had undefeated teams and won two national championships.

When TCU won in the inaugural Cotton Bowl game in 1937, their starting backfield consisted of future Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh and three former Mighty Mites: Harold McClure, Glen "Donkey" Roberts, and Scott McCall. Former Mighty Mite Allie White also played on that TCU team. TCU won the National Championship the next year in 1938. The Masonic Home football alumni had learned the spread offense under Rusty Russell before they went on to play at TCU.

In fact, says Russell's grandson, Russell Morton, who is involved in developing the movie based on Dent's book, from the time Russell arrived in the late 1920s at the Masonic Home, "Mr. and Mrs. Russell enjoyed a very close friendship with TCU coaching legend Leo "Dutch" Meyer and his wife, playing bridge on a regular basis as couples and sharing their love of football and strategy." In 1952 Meyer wrote a book detailing his ideas about football formations entitled Spread Formation Football, in which the first sentence was, "Spread formations are not new to football," and they certainly weren't to Meyer who had benefited from a steady flow of Mighty Mites who had been running Russell's spread offense since the late 1920s. Meyer had been an assistant coach at TCU when Russell first came to Fort Worth and Meyer became TCU's head coach in 1934.

Fort Worth has been feverishly lovin' the TCU Frogs like they loved their winning teams in the 30s and remembering the city's football sports history. Some say the spread offense has created parity among college football teams. As just one of the strategies for the little Davids at the Masonic Home playing against Big Goliath teams, the spread offense has had a long life from its beginnings at the orphanage in Fort Worth.


Mighty Mights at Farrington Field photo

Little Mites

The Masonic Home football program started in 1927. Most of the boys had never seen a football which was just fine because they didn't have one to start with. They used a Clabber Girl baking power can stuffed into a sock and taped together for their first football. Rusty Russell instituted sports for everyone, girls (tennis at first) and boys (football at first). Other sports were added later along with academic competitions like Debate and Speech.

Wheatie Sealey came to The Home two years after football did when he was six. "Someone handed me a football and said I was going to be on the 75-lb team and I'd never seen a football team in my life. Most of the time we played barefooted and back in that time we all wore coveralls. The boys on the high school team were our heroes." The little Milk Slimes played an annual game against the big Milk Slimes. Every Saturday they would play other local teams, usually elementary and junior high school teams at Sycamore Park.

"We always thought we could beat 'em," said Wheatie. "We came up from the 75-lb team only thinking we were supposed to win. That's what we thought. People always said those boys were so much bigger and we said yeah, but didn't ever think that we couldn't beat them. We always thought we could beat anybody. Didn't make any difference who they were or how big they were. We thought we could beat them."

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Wheatie Sealey, Coach, Teacher, Mite

Charles Drew "C.D." Sealey died December 11, 2010 at age 87. He was known to his Masonic Home family as "Wheatie" because when he first came to the orphanage right after he had turned six, he took on the challenge of seeing who could eat the most bowls of cereal and he won, acquiring his nickname from thenceforth. He ate nine bowls.

When his father, a Master Mason, died, Wheatie was taken to The Masonic Home and School to be raised and educated. He was one of the youngest children there, as you couldn't enter The Home until age five. It was 1929 at the height of the Depression and he was typical of many kids who entered the home at that time when their fathers died and their mothers could no longer support their children.

Wheatie had vivid memories of entering the home. "I saw all the tall buildings. I couldn't imagine what kind of place that was, ...what kind of place I was getting into," he said. "Everyone had a big kid pal when you got there." They were protectors and disciplinarians. It was helpful to a "new kid" to be taken under the arm of an older "protector". The big kid pals became like older brothers, looking out for the younger boys and teaching them. This concept carried over to the Milk Slimes, a work chore group that Wheatie belonged to, where bigger boys initiated the younger boys who came of age to join to group who milked the cows that provided the fresh dairy products for the children. The Home Kids became like family to one another.

Mike Barr, one of the principals of 12 Productions developing the story into the movie, sat by Mighty Mite Miller Moseley at the funeral. "When his three descendants spoke to those gathered, about 75 percent of what they talked about was Sealey's time at The Home and its impact on his life," Barr said. "His daughter said that his children had hundreds of aunts and uncles -- Sealey's non-blood siblings from The Home. He was proud of his time there, always talked about it, how it shaped him and how Rusty Russell influenced him." Barr said 20 percent of the tributes given were about Sealey's years spent as a coach and there were quite a number of his players there.

H.N. "Rusty" Russell came to the home in 1927 as a teacher and administrator and he started the football program right away. Wheatie was pulled right into the football program and was a Little Mite and later part of the famous Mighty Mite teams from 1937 - 1940, that made the State Playoffs and Wheatie played quarterback. Wheatie graduated in 1941 from The Home.

Like his Mighty Mite teammate, Doug Lord, who fell in love with and later married fellow Home student Opal Worthington, Wheatie met and married his first wife Erline Alderson, also a Home Kid. He joined the Marines as a paratrooper at the beginning of World War II and returned home after being wounded. After graduating from college, at North Texas University in Denton, Texas, he became, like other Mighty Mites such as "Brownie" Lewis, a teacher and coach.

Wheatie remained in Fort Worth. "Coach Sealey" retired from the Fort Worth Independent School District in 1981. He was a sixty-year member (and past master) of Polytechnic Masonic Lodge 920 and a member of Godley Masonic Lodge. His brother, Murray, predeceased him. He is survived by two sisters, Agnes Hall of Fort Worth and Niela Shelton of Haslet, his wife of 30 years, Joella Mims Sealey, and numerous children, step-children and great-grandchildren.

links:
obit from Fort Worth Star Telegram
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