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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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."

Little Mites photo

A Culture of Community...

The culture of The Home was one of creating a family. The long-standing culture of Fort Worth is and always has been one of taking care of its citizens. Today the buildings at The Masonic Home stand in semi-solitude, mostly boarded up on the remaining acreage, waiting in turn for renewal as the campus evolves into serving the needs of the city's community of children and families through the non-profit entity, ACH Child and Family Services, which is also going through a time of change as it looks for better ways to serve its purpose.

Could the magic of The Home and the story of the Twelve Mighty Orphans have happened elsewhere? Other than Fort Worth, Texas? It isn't just Texas swagger -- Texas thrives on connections.

Fort Worth has fostered a personality of caring, an attitude of looking out for others, a business of making compassion its character, action its purpose.

When the city needed a place for fatherless children, Masons stepped up. When a runty scrawny orphan team needed a place to hold their cheering fans, Amon Carter built a stadium. Roll the clock up with this way of doing things and you'll see leaders who left legacies of long duration in matters of heart and soul. Life is short, but the life of a community can have a continual beating heart. Art is long and so is this idea of purpose and spirit; legacies have left tentacles, including the idea that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a difference.

Same Kind of Different As Me is a recent book about a real story with true characters in recent times in Fort Worth. Compared to the Depression-era story of the Mighty Mites, it is a new story but is part of a long continuum of creating a community through caring for others.

The still empty buildings today, at The Home, are just the bones of something that continues evolving to stay relevant in the chain of caring -- the Fort Worth Texas way.

1938 Quarter Finals...

In the entire state of Texas, you couldn't have a bigger disparity as you might have found between the Highland Park High School Scots, from the toniest part of Dallas, one of the snazziest, most exclusive neighbhorhoods (still is, today), and the Mighty Mites who came not from a defined neighborhood but from their own place behind walls where they lived a life much different from typical school boys of the '30s.

The 1938 quarter final game was not just a regular game of football. It was a game of boys who were taught they could go up against anyone versus a group of boys who had every advantage in thier hip pocket. The Highland Park boys of privilege had fans in the stands that taunted the scrawny father-less boys, shouting "orphans, orphans" to unsettle the Mites.

Thanks to Debra Stephens for the program.

Mighty Mites in the News...

The Mites seemed to propel a powerhouse of new might that kept fancy plays and talented players on the national stage. When Rusty Russell was creating the new offensive plays for SMU in the 1940s, he had a team again making national news in magazines like Collier's and Life (issues above in 1948). Former Mighty Mite Brownie Lewis was the co-captain of that undefeated SMU team (see Brownie in the earlier post). The November 6, 1948 Colliers and the September 27, 1948 Life magazine wrote about the "razzle-dazzle plays" that were not just "hot air" in the scorching Texas heat.


Brownie is pictured above in these two photos in Life. He is the one soaking in the tub in the photo above right.



The Mighty Mites are still making news. This month they made the cover for Texas Co-op Power magazine (above) for the December issue feature story, The Mighty Mites - The Orphans Who Could (pdf), by Jim Dent.

The Spread Offense: Original Tool of the Mites

The Spread Offense was pioneered by H.N. "Rusty" Russell to help his Mighty Mites orphan football team beat stronger and bigger opponents and it emerged on the larger US stage in the mid to late 80s when coaches tried to get the benefits of the Run & Shoot. Russell invented it as a tool for his underdogs to help them outsmart the giants they played (and beat), and then helped it spread in Texas. The wingin' and flingin' strategy is now being played today by top college and pro teams.

The spread offense is "responsible for parity in college football today," ESPN Announcer Commentator Jay Walker said today on ESPN's Sunday Sports Center program on college football.

Walker said the advent and implementation of the spread offense around the rest of the country "means there's a balance" among college teams. "Back in the days when the Oklahomas, Nebraskas and Michigans were on top, they were just bigger and stronger and they played smash-mouth football and they just pushed around lesser teams. With the spread offense, you have to be quick because you can't push around what you can't hit," Walker said.

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Farrington Field: Built for the Mites

The Mighty Mites pulled in crowds that packed the stadiums in Texas. When the orphan team crowds began attracting tens of thousands of fans that could no longer be contained in Fort Worth's 5,000-seat La Grave Field down on the Trinity River, they would play in the city's largest stadium, TCU college's Amon G. Carter Stadium.

But the popularity and appeal of the skinny kids from the tiny orphanage convinced Fort Worth to construct a brand new stadium on prime real estate in the shadows of downtown. In 1939 the 18,500-seat Farrington Field opened and remains today the second largest stadium behind TCU's Amon Carter and the art-deco style facility is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a Texas Architectural Landmark, a city landmark and Texas Historic Landmark.

The stadium is still in use by the public school system in Fort Worth and the city's mayor has said he would help with whatever is needed to film scenes for the movie at the stadium.

image credit for full stadium

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.

What Some Say...

So much has been said about the story, but here are a few comments to highlight:

Walter Lavender from Lorena, Texas thought the book was fantastic. "I had no idea that the Masonic Home was so tough. Miller, Cecil and Dot were my grandmother's sisters children. I knew about their situation when I was growing up but I had never even thought that Miller and Cecil were on one of the best highschool football teams ever. It was so interesting that I read the whole book in the space of 2 days."

I purchased this book for my father ...he's a huge football fan, played high school ball in Texas years after the depression. He'd never heard of the Mighty Mites, and, were it not for a review I heard on the radio, we may never have. ...This is a wonderful story of the human condition, of overcoming odds and expectations, and how one person can make a huge difference in the lives of others when he is truly committed. Football fan or not, this is a wonderful telling of the lives of some special kids and the man who led them.

Willliam L. Brigman, Class of 1940 says:
I played blocking back in a single wing formation on the Mighty Mites team and was at the school from 1930 until my graduation in 1940. ...we were one of the most efficiently trained teams in the arts of the fundamentals of football including blocking and tackling. ... it is not true that the reputation (Hardy Brown) earned in pro football was the reputation he earned playing high school football. I played football with Hardy from the time I was seven years old until I was 18 as a member of the class a year ahead of the so-called Twelve Orphans. We had approximately 30 kids on the traveling squad; about half of them were too small to play in most games. This left us with less than 15-20 who got much actual playing time. Russell insisted on a very rigorous dedication to learning the fundamentals of the game which was one of the main reasons we were such a good team. Coach Russell put through practice scrimmages in which we learned the proper techniques for blocking and tackling; our practice scrimmages were often harder than the actual games we played with other teams. We suffered few injuries depite our relatively small sizes because we were so well-trained. ...The coach also knew how to get the best out of his players. ...A much more accurate read about our coach and team is a chapter contained in the book written by Harold Ratliff titled I SHOOK THE HAND. Mr. Ratlifff was a sports writer in Texas for many years and wrote in this book about the great people of sports whom he met during his career. Rusty Russell was certainly one of the greats. Rather than teaching us to win by dirty tricks he taught us sound fundamentals and he later on became the coach of Southern Methodist University in the days of giants like Doak Walker and Kyle Rote. It is true that the students worked at the home under the supervision of the adult staff; we all had daily chores including cleaning, farmwork, tending the orchards, maintaining the pool and tennis courts, waiting tables, etc. which rather than being abusive helped to prepare us to take care of ourselves and become self-sufficient adults. Each team member was assigned to maintain ten-yards of the field. Taking care of the Home and ourselves gave us pride in both the institution and a sense of self-sufficiency; it also bound us together into a type of family. This was Dustbowl and Depression-era Texas. I came from the Panhandle where my family was struggling to eke out a living. If I had remained at home, I would have had similar chores with less supervision and training since my widowed mother had to toil as a practical nurse in our small town hospital... Sure, we missed our families but we were better off at the Home where we had three meals a day, supervision from well-qualified staff whose mission was to help us to grow into independent, responsible, well-educated and caring citizens. We wrote home once a week, attended church on Sunday with a rotating clergy representing several denominations, and visited our families for two weeks each year when we could afford it. ...All of us were given vocational training and experience in addition to a scholastic education and the polish of good manners. Hooliganism was not encouraged or tolerated on the football team or anywhere else at the Home.

I grew up in Ft. Worth in the late 40's & 50's and heard plenty about them from my father & his friends... am surprised there never has been anything ever written about them before..

Tommye Nichols Hullum '68 read the book and wrote in the ex-student association newsletter (pdf) "Most of the Home kids were placed at the Home because one or both of their parents were dead or divorced." Tommye's Dad was a Mason...and two weeks after turning five, the kids which included Tommye, two sisters Mary and Ruby, and two brothers, Billy and Robert, entered the home in 1955. "My Dad and uncle were at the championship game in Corsicana."

Arthur Calcaterra, graduate of the Masonic Home and School, 1996, contacted us through the website and writes: "Another connection that I have is Hardy Brown would be my first cousin twice removed. My great grandmother was Mary Ann Brown, Hardy Brown Sr. Sister. So, my grandfather and Hardy Brown were cousins. Please let me know as this project progresses. This summer the Brown family will be holding a family reunion."

And...Twelve Mighty Orphans is absolutely the best sports nonfiction book to come along since Seabiscuit, An American Legend. And they both have a similar theme throughout - that of America's love for the underdog. ....it's the back story of the underdogs that grew up at the Masonic Home and scrapped their way to winning...

A Winning Spirit...

Underdogs they might have been, but the Mighty Mites learned to have a winning spirit. The '08 issue of the Masonic Home Ex-Student Association quotes Joe Ray Hogan '48 who played football w/ Doug Lord, in fall of 1944 played against Riverside. He felt, as a freshman, he was playing among Giants, "a great privilege. I felt dwarfed. Yes, Riverside won, but the next day the Fort Worth Star-Telegram said we were "outweighed" (always were), "out-manned" (always were), but "never (bold) out-fought."

The can-do winning attitude was carried out into life by Home kids. Teachers such as Marie Glick who taught for 41 years at The Home, was told by her husband "You're married to the Masonic Home." Glick continues to return to reunions (at age 100 she attended a special celebration held for her in Houston) and holds an special seat whenever she shows up. "She was our mother, she would help us out," said one former student in a documentary The Eyes of Texas. "She was just an awesome, awesome teacher," Opal Worthington Lord remembers. Glick was present at the Twelve Mighty Orphans book publication kick-off at the Masonic building in downtown Fort Worth. She loved greeting former students.

The Masonic Home in Fort Worth closed in 2005 but it produced nine U.S. judges, four army generals, 47 doctors, five ministers, lawyers, church leaders and university presidents.

What the 12 Mighty Orphan story reminds us is that in the midst of a horrible depression, anyone, no matter what their circumstances, could be a winner.

The Story That Finally Was Told..

The story of the 12 Mighty Orphans could have easily died. In fact, several people over the years have tried - and failed - to write the story. When author Jim Dent called H.N. "Rusty" Russell's grandson R. Russell Morton in 2005 asking for archive access and information about Coach Rusty Russell for his story, it was just yet another author and Morton was skeptical about allowing anything to leave the family's hands.

"Many people have tried to tell the story but until Jim Dent came to me, I never thought it would happen," Morton says. In fact, he allowed Dent full access to archives and spent hours with Dent in interviews and arranging time for Dent to have access to family members and archive materials.

Dent was rushing to get the story told while those who were there could still remember. The portrait of Rusty Russell by Dewitt Coulter (pictured above) is one of the family's prize belongings. It was always on the wall above Rusty Russell's desk at home. Releasing this to Dent was a risk but Morton knew this time, at last, the story was going to get told.

After Russell Morton joined the 12 Productions team, he was given a 1952 Dewitt Coulter card (a Bowman card) in mint condition, enclosed in hard plastic by someone who read Dent's book, Twelve Mighty Orphans, and who has a huge collection of baseball and old football cards.

Morton says of the gift, "It was the last year Dewitt played in the NFL and he made pro bowl that year, so was the last card put out on him. It it considered a rare find. Anyway, he just gave it to me and said "we need fresh hope and big dreams right now and this book hits home".

The Story Lives On...

A few weeks after Jim Dent's book, Twelve Mighty Orphans, was published, Dewitt "Tex" Coulter died at age 83. At left are the Coulter brothers, Dewitt and Ray at The Masonic Home.

Dewitt had been a Mighty Mite star in the 1940s, playing all line and backfield positions and punting. Dewitt played for West Point's famous teams of WWII, the New York Giants of the National Football League where he was an All-Pro left tackle (he was an offensive and defensive end, offensive and defensive tackle, linebacker and punter, too) and the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. He was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1997. He was an All State football player, won a national shot put in track, was All American at West Point before he was All Pro but he also excelled and found great satisfaction with his art, writing and humanitarian talents.

In an article on Dewitt for the Dallas Morning News, titled Greatest of the Great, Dewitt said, "Whatever Rusty said, we did. We never had many players but we believed we could hold down our own against the biggest school. It was exciting to run those trick plays Rusty taught us and play a lot of different positions. Masonic Home guys always have been close. When you spend that much time together, you're brothers for the rest of your lives."

Just like Dewitt's life embraced more than football, (his talents ranged far beyond the playing field-- an artist, cartoonist, sportswriter, builder and humanitarian -- his portrait of Rusty Russell comes up on the next blog post), the 12 Mighty Orphan story can not be defined as a sports story. As Home kids have grown up, led successful lives and think of the foundations they had, they have realized how unique their story was. And so, the story continues to stay alive.

As more people read and share the story, it becomes deeper and holds more meaning. Once the story was told by Dent, it has continued to grow legs even while many who were a significant part of the story, like Dewitt and Ray Coulter and Rusty Russell, have died. The story has come back to life and in so doing, continues to touch the hearts of many.

Reunions Maintain Family Ties for Masonic Home Children

Reunions are important to the children who lived at The Masonic Home and the 2009 reunion of the ex-student association will take place on The Masonic Home Campus in Fort Worth. Home kids still refer to themselves as "family" and stay together with annual reunions, newsletters.

Last year the annual reunion was held in Galveston, Texas, and author Jim Dent was a guest and announced that Mike Barr had obtained the movie rights and Barr was in the process of putting a team together.

"If anyone can make that movie a reality, Mike Barr is the man," Dent said to the group in Galveston.

The gathering on the campus featured in the photo above was not a regular reunion. 12 Productions team members Mike Barr, Matt Barr and Ryan Ross (Matt and Ryan are at the far right in the above photo) worked on production aspects of developing the 12 Mighty Orphans story when they brought Home Kids back to the Masonic Home in mid-2008. They brought in two experienced film guys including Michael Piccola to photograph and video the day (see earlier blog post, Home Kids Return) as they worked to collect material and background needed to take the story from book to movie.

Characters in the story, posed in front of The Masonic Home & School sign at the entry of the campus, are, left to right: Miller Moseley, his sister Dorothy "Dot" Moseley, Doug Lord and his wife (who was also a Home Kid) Opal Lord, C.D. Sealey and Norman Strange.

The Masonic Home closed in 2005 and by 2007 the buildings were boarded up and abandoned, but it still remains a central place to those who experienced life there. All Church Home is the new owner of the core Masonic Home property. Mike Barr and Russ Morton, grandson of H.N. "Rusty" Russell and a partner in 12 productions, met with the All Church Home officials this month.

Paul Underwood, President of Ex-Masonic Home Student Association said in the most recent Ex-Student Association newsletter that the students "still mourn the loss of our Home" but most were pleased to see the core campus is being renovated and will be used for helping needy kids.

The ex-student association is holding the 2009 business meeting in the Dining Hall and the students will tour the campus that Sat. a.m. before the meeting.

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.

Brothers and Sisters...

When Miller Moseley, Doug Lord, C.D. Sealy and Norman Strange sat on the stage at the downtown public library in Fort Worth as part of the promotion for the book Twelve Mighty Orphans when it was first published, they still acted like brothers. They referred to each other by nicknames, they had jokes that only they understood and whatever pecking orders had been set, those many many years ago, well... they still mattered, all these years hence and the bonds remain strong. After all, Home Kids always referred to themselves as family.

The audience that day had very few people there. After all, the story (now in the process of moving from book to movie) had been forgotten by most everyone but The Home Kids. Even in the telling of the story to Jim Dent, and those first days of publicity events, the orphans themselves were surprised that everyone else didn't realize how very, very special their experience had been. The Home Kids did, though.

That day, as she signed books, Opal Lord (a Home Kid and one of the characters in the book who married Home Kid Doug Lord) sat at the table signing her autograph to her picture in the book, and she related how she was stunned -- absolutely stunned -- that a person in the audience of the book store the night prior had asked her, with such sadness, how she had overcome her experience of living in an orphanage.

"Why this was heaven," Opal said afterwards. "I'd never seen a toothbrush before I got to The Home. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me," she said. How could people think this wasn't a good thing, she wondered aloud the next day, surprised at the reaction and ideas people seemed to have about the experience of growing up without a nuclear family and in an institution instead.

What these children had lived through, what they had become in the process, and what they still were these year later (which that day at the library were four old men up on the platform who had been equipped, somehow, to live lives that mattered and to know the significance of success) was a story that made them who they were -- in spite of --well, anything and everything.

The magic of that time and those characters involved continues to evolve and gain momentum as others, even the orphans themselves, recognize what a significant experience and story it really was. But only slowly. As with most things in life, only in retrospect and with the experience of years can one see the past in light of the present. This is why the story continues to sell in book form, why has gone through so many printings, and why it continues to unfold, capture hearts and inspire readers.

Dorothy "Dot" Moseley sat in the audience in the library auditorium in downtown Fort Worth watching her brother, and afterwards she, too, was part of the table of main characters who autographed their photos in the book about the true story of the Mighty Orphans. Dot is the little girl in the photo, above at right, with her mother, Mildred Lucille Miller, and her two brothers, Miller, at left, and Cecil, right. Dot recalls that most of the children at The Masonic Home had only lost their fathers. Dot's mother couldn't afford to keep the children and for the rest of her life felt guilty about having to put her kids in The Home.

"It was the best thing that could have happened to us," Dot said when she was interviewed about the story for a television special after the book was published.

The big event for the book publication promotion was an evening function at the Masonic building in downtown Fort Worth held the next day. Masons, Fort Worth citizens, Home Kids and their relatives packed the main hall. The Masonic Drum and Bugle Corps played, people filed in, reporters from all the local media outlets were there, and well known ESPN sports announcer Randy Galloway was host for the evening.

That night the story began to come alive once again in the in the eyes of these men, these boys from that era, as once again the bands played and the people cheered for them as they retold stories of the past.

Dot has recounted how the bonds of family were so close that nicknames endured for life (almost everyone, it seemed, had a nickname) and she could name them all, starting with A. C.D. Sealey, who came to The Home as a six year-old, was known as "Wheatie" because he once ate six bowls of Wheaties in a contest.

In fact, when Sealey was sitting on the stage that day, all these years later with his three other football teammates as part of the Twelve Mighty Orphans book promotion, he was still called Wheatie. It was no surprise because the children and staff at The Home became close. They reconfigured the idea of relations and created their own larger family, always calling themselves brothers and sisters. Forever.

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.

Welcome to 12 MIGHTY ORPHANS BLOG...

The purpose of this 12 Mighty Orphans Blog is to provide updated information and further background on the story about 12 Mighty Orphans, soon to be made into a movie. On February 11, 2009, 12 Productions, LLC acquired the movie option rights to the book Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football, written by New York Times Bestselling Author Jim Dent. For the past year members of 12 Productions have been working tirelessly researching this story, interviewing characters, visiting locations and putting together the best development package possible.

The 12 Mighty Orphans website gives the basic information about the project and story but this blog will provide ongoing articles, like providing this photo which shows Physics, Math and Science Teacher H.N. "Rusty" Russell" with some of the students at The Masonic Home where he served as a mentor to the orphans. Russell is a main character in the 12 Mighty Orphan story.

For more information on the 12 Mighty Orphan project, please visit: the 12 Mighty Orphans website homepage which provides links to: The Story, The Movie, Contact Information, News, Book, Photos and this Blog.

The articles here will be categorized for ease of access and will also be archived and all will continue to available through links on the front page.

Check in regularly and please feel free to leave comments - we want to hear your feedback!