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.

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

The Home Survives...

Recently I toured the 19.3 acre site of the former Masonic Home campus, which closed in 2005, that is now being saved and will operate under the entity ACH (formerly All Church Home, Fort Worth). Wayne Carson, PhD, and CEO of ACH, said that the property came under the ownership of ACH in 2008 and the entity serves around 3,500 children each year.

The chapel has been renovated and is open for weddings. It is called The Bell Tower Chapel and Garden. The first wedding is scheduled for 3/2/2010 and over 30 bookings were scheduled when we were out there in the latter part of January.

Many have commented about the classical structure and architecture of the various buildings on the Home campus, most of which are being saved, renovated, and will function as part of the new ACH entity. Above is the old administration building.

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.

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.

So, What Is The Latest?

Arthur Calcaterra, a 1996 graduate of the Masonic Home and School, wonders what is the latest news about the story as he heads to the Masonic Home reunion in Fort Worth. The annual reunion takes place this weekend on the old Home campus (see Reunions Maintain Family Ties for Masonic Home Children).

Calcaterra has an added personal reason to be interested in the 12 Mighty Orphans story, as Hardy Brown is his first cousin twice removed -- his grandfather and Hardy Brown were cousins. Not only are his generational ties to the story strong, but Calcaterrra has stayed in Fort Worth and is a practicing architect. As an architect, he would also understand how well-built the remaining buildings are on the campus, having been built by Masons.

Calcaterra is not the only one who keeps asking for the lastest news. So, direct from the partners, here's what can be announced so far:

The four partners of 12 Productions have had a five-step goal of 1) partnering with a major production company; 2) finding a director who understands the genre; 3) finding a screenplay writer; 4) attaching a major actor to play the lead role; and 5) taking the project then to a major studio.

They have spent the last several months working on each of these steps and their initial meetings had such successful receptions that the project has generated passionate responses with experts who have quickly understood the story and requested repeated meetings wanting to be part of this project. The partners have been extremely pleased with the substantial progress they have made on their plan and the talented people they are partnering with and hopefully will have more specific information regarding the project in the very near future.

Breaking news will be posted here, so stay tuned!

Pictured above is Coach Rusty Russell with members of the 1940 team.

Home Kids Return...

As part of the production development for the 12 Mighty Orphans story, principals of 12 Productions invited Home Kids, including characters in the book, Twelve Mighty Orphans, back to the site of The Masonic Home in Fort Worth, Texas. Together they toured the property and remembered what had happened decades ago, from the 1920s through the 1940s. The Masonic Home had closed just as Jim Dent was researching and writing his book.

Using golf carts to tour the now-vacant buildings, 12 Production principals Matt Barr and Mike Barr and Ryan Ross were there with the Home Kids as they toured the buildings and the campus and, in the process, were emotionally overcome by the meaning and significance of the people and events that came together long ago in that one place. This has been just one part of the work the 12 Productions team has been doing since the book was published, adding almost 20 hours of audio and video interviews and months of development work on the story and characters.

In the photo above, taken by Photographer Michael Piccola, shows Home Kids ready to scoot around the campus in a golf cart. They are real life characters in the true story and, from left, in front: Doug Lord and Norman Strange. In the back seat, from left: C.D. Sealey and Miller Moseley.

"Miller Moseley shed tears as he looked at the hole in the ground where his dorm used to be," said Mike Barr, remembering the activities of that day. Mike, a former football coach at Southern Methodist University, has worked to develop the arc of the story in terms of the coach and character of physics and math teacher H.N. "Rusty" Russell, and the football players which included Moseley, Lord, Strange and Sealey.

Actor Matt Barr, Mike's son, has a life-long passionate love of film and acting and a slew of acting credits (he is currently has the lead role in the CBS mini-series Harper's Island that will air its third episode this week on Thursday, 10:00 PM Eastern Time). Matt was also a football player in high school. He was most interested in character development and was awed by the experience of watching these men, who were captured in the book, move through the Masonic Home which was foundational to their lives.

"It was just awesome to watch them move, hear them speak, see them relate to one another -- these are things that are very significant when you create a character on screen. It is not the same as creating characters in words on a printed page," Matt says. Matt's father agrees.

"To actually take these men in their elder years back to the actual football field where they practiced in the prime formative years of their youth and hear their stories and to be able, right there, to ask them specific questions was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Mike said, adding that what might have motivated them as players then takes on much greater significance when they have a lifetime of non-football experiences that were formed then, on that very grass. They studied and noted the characters' thoughts on teammates, coaches, strategies and all of these things have been important in concepts of story themes, character and story arc, Mike said.

Especially, with his own son and their own father/son, coach/player experience in mind, to work with the players on turf they all could relate to was significant to the 12 Mighty Orphans story for Matt and Mike. Principal Ryan Ross, who brings his production experience to the 12 Productions team, knew what would be important for moving the story to film from a production standpoint and he captured the experience that day on film.

That day, walking the ground, watching the Home Kids remembering the past, talking about the story and the place, was one to never forget.

It Was All About The Home Kids...

In 2008, Matt and Mike Barr began working on taking the story based on Jim Dent's book, Twelve Mighty Orphans, to the Big Screen. They went to New Mexico to interview Betty Russell Morton of Albuquerque about her father, H.N. "Rusty" Russell, one of the characters in the story, and also about life at The Masonic Home and School. Pictured above, left to right, is Russell Morton, Betty's son and a principal in the newly formed 12 Productions, LLC, Betty Russell Morton, Matt Barr and Mike Barr. The Barrs, principals of 12 Productions, realized the potential of Dent's story for film, obtained the rights to the story and assembled the team for 12 Productions. Ryan Ross, the fourth principal in 12 Productions, is not pictured.

In an interview this week at her home in Albuquerque, Betty talked more about her memories of The Masonic Home and School. She lived in an apartment in the back of the Dining Hall on The Home campus when she was a small girl and remembers her parents having life-long relationships with the students, going to all of the annual reunions that they could.

"It was all about The Home Kids," she said, adding that the students never, ever, referred to themselves as orphans, nor did anyone affiliated with the school. "It was one big family," she added.

She remembers her mother, Juanita "Nita" Cravens Russell, taking a deep and special interest in the kids, especially Dot Moseley (now Mrs. Dorothy Kellam), who came to the orphanage when she was barely five years old, which was the youngest age that children could be admitted, although Betty was there with her parents as a baby and has memories of toddling and playing around the entire school.

Betty's mother spent a lot of time in her rocking chair with Dot, loving and doting on her. Her mother realized Dot needed extra special attention in adjusting at such a young age. Betty's mother, Nita, was just a few months old when her own mother died. Nita was sent off to boarding school at age six. Betty didn't know this about her mother until Nita celebrated her 90th birthday, because her mother never talked about her own childhood.

When Betty's parents were older, she said they just reveled in talking about their "home kids" and all of the great things that they had gone on to do. "My parents always felt that they got a lot more out of the home themselves than they ever gave," Betty said.

The story, in the 1930s and early '40s, captured national attention for a team of winners that drew state-wide supporters to watch the football games, but it wasn't until she was grown that Betty realized how uniquely special The Home was and what it meant to the kids who grew up there. When she saw Dot Moseley at the book signing, where they sat beside each other signing their photos in Dent's book, they shared the memories they each had of their early years there and of Betty's mother who rocked both girls. It wasn't until Betty was in her 80s, read Dent's book and reconnected with The Home students at the book signing, that she realized how her own mother was orphaned and how she could identify with the kids.

Her father thought his calling was to be in academics and child guidance; little did her parents know that their years at The Home would be the largest, and probably very most important and meaningful (to them), career block of their lives. Her father's brilliance with the strategy of the game of football would become his legacy to the larger public. However, his relationship to the kids and how he taught them to be winners in the game of life was what meant the most to him.

To each other, the students were "home guys" or "home kids" and they thought of each other as siblings, for life. Others outside of "The Home" may have called them orphans, but as Dent's book brought out, they were "Mighty" no matter what they were called.

Tips For Reading This Blog...

Above is The Masonic Home, as it stands today -- empty. After supporting orphans for over a century, The Home closed just a few years ago but we still have stories to tell... so stay tuned!

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