Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football

by Jim Dent

Yeah, you know the joke about Rusty Russell: They say the grass is always greener on the other side. Well, ol’ Rusty finally found a football field that’s got no grass. So why had Russell chosen to make the leap? Because gut instinct had told him that there was magic inside this godforsaken place. The orphanage just needed somebody to warm it up: the kids needed someone to believe in. Russell knew that football could jump-start a life. Football had been his ticket off the farm. Football would eventually help the orphans navigate these tough times.

The official nickname of the Masonic Home football team was the “Masons,” a moniker that would fade into the background years later, when sportswriter Pop Boone renamed them the “Mighty Mites.”

A half hour later, as the players gathered on the practice field, Russell counted heads and came up with twelve.

Truth was that Russell could never remember a worse-looking team. The boys were still shoeless and would be until the end of September. The orphans did not wear shoes from April 1 until October 1. Some of the boys wore gray jerseys, others white. Everything had a hole in it. Only half of the team had leather helmets, and none of those matched. And they looked pretty funny throwing passes with Clabber Girl Baking Powder cans.

Any child between the ages of five and thirteen was eligible for acceptance if their father had died while in good standing with the Freemasons.

It was little wonder that Fort Worth became known as one of the friendliest places to downtrodden children in the hardest years of the Depression.

Most football experts were shocked when the little team finished the 1927 season with an 8–2 record. But it turned out to be no fluke. From 1927 through 1931, the orphans compiled a 39-11-4 record. What really captured the public’s imagination was their gritty, relentless style of play. This bunch of scrawny kids played a brand of football that Texans had never seen.

Russell knew that football would eventually bring self respect to the boys, and that winning breathed life into battered souls. But he also knew that football was a diversion, a way to forget dead mothers and fathers. A boy who learned team values rarely felt orphaned.

Russell and the Mighty Mites enjoyed an early success that was unmatched. But it also came with a measure of frustration. Thousands attended the games, but it seemed the Masons were toiling in relative obscurity. The Fort Worth Press and Star-Telegram barely covered their games. Class-B teams were considered second-class citizens that did not even play for a state championship. The best you could hope for in the minor leagues was to ascend to the regional championship game, and even then the sporting press normally ignored you. Meanwhile, the big schools like Central and Polytechnic always landed on the front page. What the sportswriters failed to recognize was that the Masonic Home was rapidly outgrowing the competition. By 1930, very few of the small country schools could stay on the field with Russell’s team. This occurred in spite of the fact that the orphans were badly outweighed. Truly, the grasshoppers were getting the best of the giants. For the 1930 season, Russell managed to add two big-league schools to the schedule. The Home managed to tie Fort Worth North Side 6–6 and Central 7–7. The only loss of the season was to a junior college team by the score of 6–0.

In ten games that season, the Masonic Home outscored its opponents by the aggregate of 216–37. Still, they were going nowhere fast and were still regarded to be among the bottom-feeders of Texas high school football. Few people knew that Russell was working on a plan that would attract a lot of attention to the Masonic Home and shake up the structure of high school football in Texas. When the Masons finished the 1931 season with an 11-0-1 record, and won the Class B regional championship by the score of sixty to zip over Clarendon, he decided to spring it on the public. Russell wanted to play with the big boys. No, the Masonic Home did not come close to qualifying for the Class-A level. They had about one-tenth the enrollment of most of the Fort Worth schools. The dictatorial Texas Interscholastic League would never approve of his little scheme. But Russell knew about a backdoor. There was a little-known provision that would allow the local district to accept teams that did not meet the enrollment requirement of five hundred students. Russell had already canvassed the six coaches of District 7A and knew he had the votes. The door was open for a bold, sweeping move into Class A—the major leagues of high school football. In the spring of 1932, District 7A of Fort Worth welcomed the orphans. This was major news across the state, as it meant the district was defying the powerful TIL. It meant a new day was dawning in Texas high school football. Some people would accept it with...

Masonic Home, the tiny orphanage on the east side of town, was the classic underdog—skinny kids with tattered jerseys, bony knees, and dirt-smudged faces. Corsicana, in turn, represented the muscled-up bully that ruled the playground. Naturally, the local bookies had made the Tigers a fourteen-point favorite. Boone, whose column was called “Pop’s Palaver,” had labored overtime explaining to his readers how the little band of orphans had come so far so fast: In the first place, it is just short of phenomenal that a team of such power and brilliance could be culled from the smallest Class-A high school in Texas. There are only 141 students in Masonic Homes’ school and only seventy-one are boys. Most of them don’t weigh over a hundred pounds. When it is remembered that schools such as Waco, Abilene, Amarillo, and others have student bodies of thousands, with hundreds of boys to choose from, the wonder of this thing becomes apparent. The stamina, skill, fight and dogged determination of those twelve youngsters that make up the Masonic Home team must go down in the history of Texas high school football as the greatest singular accomplishment ever.

What happened during the 1932 season was mind-boggling. The orphans stung seven local teams by the combined score of 145 to 33. Polytechnic High, with its sprawling new campus and an enrollment of more than a thousand students, fell 18–0. The first opponent in the playoffs was Woodrow Wilson High of Dallas, and the Wildcats, upon hearing about the ragtag orphans, laughed loud enough to be heard thirty miles away. Woodrow Wilson, with its fifteen hundred students, flaunted its status as one of the elite football schools in Texas. Some said the 1932 team was the best ever. The Wildcats boasted a plucky, strong-armed kid named Davey O’Brien, the same little quarterback who would win the Heisman Trophy at TCU in 1938. But against the grinding, hustling, scrappy, sack-happy little Mites, O’Brien completed only one of eighteen passes. The 40–7 defeat was especially embarrassing, since the game was played before twenty thousand fans at TCU Stadium. In round two, the Mites were a ten-point underdog against the powerful Sherman Bearcats, the same team they had lost to 97–13 just five years earlier. It did not help that a blizzard had blasted Fort Worth forty-eight hours before kickoff. If the Mighty Mites could not pass, they could not win. At least that was the opinion of the sporting press. The Bearcats would outweigh the Mites by an average of thirty-five pounds in the line. Over the years, the remarkable mind of Rusty Russell had concocted a passing strategy like none other. It...

This love affair between the general populace of Texas and the little band of orphans was hard to fathom. Granted, most folks in the state were long in love with the game of football. It was as indigenous as oil wells and tumbleweed. But most football fans focused all of their energy on the local team. Living in Midland meant your heart went out to the Rebels. In Port Lavaca, the sun rose and set on the Sand Crabs. Folks in Winters lived and died with the Blizzards. But the Mites had become like a magnet to anyone looking for something to cheer about. They were a reason to live during the Great Depression.

In the depths of the Depression, people needed something to cling to. The Mites were the classic underdog, a team for the common man and woman. There was nothing glitzy about the little boys that toiled every Friday night against the bigger boys and came away the winner most of the time. It was the blue collar style of play that inspired the mass appeal. And it did not cost a great amount of money to see the boys play in 1932—a ticket to the game was a dime and a hamburger a nickel. What better time for the Mighty Mites to emerge as a kind of public property—much like Texas or Texas A&M, or, on a more national level, Notre Dame or Army. The popularity of high school football in Texas had taken off like a fiery burst from a Roman candle. Texas would always be a state of romantics searching for heroes. Naturally, the rough-hewn boys playing football would soon be idolized like the cowboys of old. This organized version of high school football had taken root in Texas only twenty years earlier. Still, it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of it. Football players had been placed on a pedestal, much like cowboys or the oil wildcatter. Texans did not need to watch B Westerns at the Saturday morning picture show to know what a cowboy looked like. In some respects, Texas was still a raw and rowdy frontier in the 1930s, and the high school kids in shoulder pads and leather helmets furthered that tough image. Stadiums started filling up right after the end of the Big War. West Texan...

The Texas Interscholastic League was started in 1914 with six hundred members, mainly for the purpose of regulating football. The TIL helped bring the sport to a fever pitch. By 1930, the organization had grown to six thousand members. Until the Depression, most football fans could have cared less what it cost to follow their teams around the state. They came in automobiles, trains, and wagons, and were usually filled to the neck with outlaw whiskey. The oil patch mentality engendered a gambling spirit. Bookies worked the stands and took bets from anyone with the money to back it up. By the start of the 1932 season, the Depression was like a black cloud hanging over Texas. But that did not stop the true believers from following the Mighty Mites to every game. And it certainly was not about to slow down the three trains loaded with fans now converging on Corsicana. People from all walks of life were coming, regardless of the financial sacrifices.

Unlike most of America, the wide presence of oil dollars kept the Texas economy chugging along even after the stock market crash of 1929. Cowtown had been lubricated by the great Ranger oil strike, and most of the big hitters were convinced the economy was indestructible. That feeling began to fade, though, as the banks started to fail. In January 1932, one of the city’s biggest financial institutions, Texas National Bank, cratered as customers made a rush on the front door and demanded their money. Lawmen attempted to force people outside, but they refused to budge and the bank began paying out. Two weeks later, the First National Bank, with its $24 million in assets, stood on the brink of disaster. A huge mob crashed into the lobby as thousands demanded their money.

It was twelve-thirty, an hour before kickoff, when the train pulled into Corsicana and slowly passed the stadium. Passengers with a good view of the stadium could not believe their eyes. All twelve thousand seats were already occupied. Fans ringed the field six and seven deep and some were trespassing onto the playing surface. There would be no room for the Fort Worth fans. “This is a bunch of crap!” a man sitting next to Boone yelled. “The damned Corsicana fans done took everything.”

The Mighty Mites actually had more urgent problems. Food poisoning had swept through the team the previous night, when six players started throwing up right after returning to the hotel from a local steak house. Some had vomited and suffered from severe diarrhea until the sunrise. Russell did not suspect a conspiracy. But Doc Hall did. “Somebody put something in those boys’ food,” Hall said. “I just know it.”

The last couple of weeks, Russell had found time to scout Corsicana. But now, as he stood on the field and measured the brawny Tigers up close, they looked different. He saw a bevy of large, raw-boned country boys with a fierce determination in their eyes. Some boasted thick beards and looked almost as old as Russell himself. In physical stature, they were men, compared to his boys. There really was no telling just how old these boys might be, as the Texas Interscholastic League rarely checked birth certificates, and it was fashionable around the state to keep the veterans around past graduation. The orange vertical stripes on the Tigers’ jerseys enhanced their animal-like auras. On offense, they utilized a powerful running game that knocked the wind out of the opposition. Their defense was the best by far in the state, allowing only two touchdowns all season. They would outweigh the Mighty Mites in the line by forty pounds per man.

Worry was carving a hole in Russell’s stomach. Two days earlier, he had agreed to something that he now regretted. If the game ended in a tie, the state champion would be crowned on the basis of twenty-yard-line penetrations. This was a bad idea. There was nothing wrong with having cochampions in the case of a tie.

Leon Pickett and Allie White were two of the best linemen in the state. Scott McCall, Donkey Roberts, and Harold McClure were outstanding runners and receivers. Perry Pickett was still learning the quarterback position, and his passing would suffer on this windy day. But Russell knew that Perry was a gamer and he would find a way to move the offense.

He had been taught long ago never to whimper or moan or to blame someone else for his troubles. Life is tough, so accept the consequences. With the good also comes the bad, and vice versa.

The game of football can be a rush of adrenaline for those who are not afraid to hit or be hit. In truth, football is anti-intuitive. You were not born to strap on shoulder pads and to smack somebody in the teeth. Football is not for everybody.

Maybe the duck was lucky. The Mites defeated the North Texas Agriculture College that night by the score of 19–6. The Mighty Duck quacked loud enough to be heard above the squawk of the drum-and-bugle corps. He quacked in gratification each time one of the boys tapped the cage. Then he rode with the boys on the bed of Old Blue and quacked all the way back to the orphanage.

The next week, in front of yet another packed house, the Mites defeated Fort Worth Stripling 28–6. North Side fell the following Friday night 13–6. The Mites then waxed Weatherford 60–zip. His Duckness sat on the bench for each game. The boys had agreed that he could stick around until they lost a game.

The Mites and the Parrots fought like a couple of angry birds from the opening kickoff. Poly took a 6–0 lead. Then Pickett moved the offense sixty yards with seven straight completions. He dived into the end zone for the tying score, but the extra point fluttered right off the post. The teams were so even that it seemed appropriate that the game would end in a 6–6 tie. “We didn’t lose,” Paul Smith told his teammates after the game. “So that means that Mighty Duck stays.”

Points came grudgingly in one of the most physical battles that anyone could ever remember. Players from both sides were limping off the field, and Russell wished he had more than twelve players to suit up. Thankfully for the Mites, the game was being controlled in the line by Masonic Home center Bob White, along with tackles Allie White and Paul Smith. Scoreless in the fourth quarter, the game now hinged on penetrations. At least it seemed that way. So the Mighty Mites tried to imagine that the twenty-yard line was actually the goal line. Perry Pickett completed a thirty-yarder to James Thrash that moved the ball to the Poly nineteen. The Mites led 2–1 in penetrations and managed to maintain that edge until the clock ticked down. Some believed it was the luck of the duck. But the sporting press in Fort Worth was convinced that it was more a matter of talent. Many were writing that the Mighty Mites were on their way back to the state championship game, and reasons abounded to support those opinions. The wide-open Russell passing offense, with Pickett completing passes all over the field, had taken Texas football by storm. The past three seasons, Pickett had grown up with the intricate system that was so far ahead of its time that opposing coaches worked night and day hoping to defense it.

In the first round of the postseason, the Mites tore through highly respected Dallas Tech 32–0. The next week, unbeaten Highland Park never crossed midfield, and Masonic Home captured the regional finals 13–0. All that stood between the Mites and yet another trip to the state finals was Amarillo. Typically, the Golden Sandstorm, in their bright gold uniforms, was a harrowing sight to behold. The Sandies would wear down the orphans on a snow-covered field, where the temperature rose only to eleven degrees, and as the late afternoon light slipped away, Sandies kicker Virgil Pettigrew kicked a wobbly fifteen-yard field goal that seemed to quack as it wobbled over the crossbar. Amarillo won 3–0. Frustration gnawed at the lining of Russell’s stomach. Two shots at the state title had slipped through his fingers. Perhaps his greatest disappointment was that no one believed the Mighty Mites could do it in the first place. It was a long, painful seven-hour bus ride from Amarillo back to Fort Worth. The players rarely spoke as the bus traversed the slim, winding roads. But the trip was not made in total silence. The Mighty Duck quacked all the way.

As a milk slime, your day began at four o’clock in the morning, when you rose from bed and sprinted three-quarters of a mile to the dairy. You were done by seven, in time to eat breakfast and to attend Mr. Russell’s first football meeting of the day. You milked again for an hour in the afternoon before running full speed to the practice field. Russell allowed the milking boys to be a little late to practice and normally started the calisthenics without them. But if they were not on the field by the start of the daily scrimmage, the coach started checking his watch. “Where are the milk slimes?” he would say. Then, like clockwork, they would come charging down the hill with leather helmets in hand.

WHAT BONDED THE orphans more than football or fighting or swimming in Sycamore Creek was death. All had felt its dark presence. Each life had been changed by it. Death had brought them there.

Like the Mighty Mites, Seabiscuit had nothing to lose, and, upon finding his stride, never stopped running, or winning, for that matter. He was the champion of the working man and woman during the Great Depression.

Little did Russell know that in the decades ahead coaches all over America would copy his blueprint and call it the “spread offense.” By the nineties, it would become one of the most popular formations in all levels of football.

An America looking for heroes believed in the Mighty Mites. 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 adversity was to believe in the underdog—an underdog with the heart of a champion. Many of these Mighty Mites believers lived as far away as Los Angeles and New York. Russell knew this from the sack of telegrams he received every day.

“It is far more important to walk out of here with a high school diploma than with another letter for your jacket.”

Russell studied all of the sad faces and felt his own heart starting to melt. Here were seven kids that had lived for this moment, for the chance to play on a championship team. Now their dreams were as dead as the scorched grass of the practice field.

hours had turned them into a fearless bunch. They had learned to trust each other. The orphans stuck together, helped each other, covered for one another in a jam. It was the code of the Home.

never in a million years would they give each other up.

Because they had lost seven players to the new age-eligibility rule, the Mites would practice with twelve players. That meant the right side of the line would have to practice blocking against the left side of the line. It meant there would be only two players in the offensive backfield and two in the defensive backfield.

“Dewitt, I honestly believe that you are afraid of hurting the other boys. You are the strongest player on our team, but you seem to be holding back. Football is a tough sport and you’re going to have to be a tough player. Otherwise, you will be the one getting hurt.”

The 1940 season was supposed to mark the end of the Mighty Mites’ fantastic run. At least, that was the opinion of the sporting press. Most of the writers were picking the Mites to finish no higher than second or third in District 7AA, and there was no promise of a playoff berth. Losing a third of your team to a new eligibility rule, along with breaking in a new quarterback, was not the best way to launch a championship season.

Nothing would come easily against the Wichita Falls Coyotes on their home turf. The Coyotes were ranked number-two in the state in the preseason polls. This is how the rest of the top ten shaped up: 1. Amarillo 2. Wichita Falls 3. Big Spring 4. El Paso 5. Paris 6. Greenville 7. Masonic Home 8. Dallas Sunset 9. Stephenville 10. Temple

Football fever never died in Wichita Falls. The West Texas state of mind had seized its citizens back in the early twenties, about the time that oil geysered from the hard, red earth. Wichita Falls was really no different than Amarillo, Abilene, Breckenridge, Odessa, or Midland. Every business in town would be closed and locked up, every highway deserted, every man, woman, and child seated inside the stadium when Friday night’s game kicked off.

Football, as America was finding out, attracted a passionate breed of fans, and the Mites had more than their share.

In 1940, a popular approach with football teams all over America was to turn all outsiders into enemies. Opposing teams possessed cruel intentions, just like the people outside the fence. It was a rallying cry that the orphans could readily identify with.

Crazy Moseley was a silent tribute to a great American colloquialism: Actions speak louder than words. Play after play, he opened holes in the defensive line for Hardy Brown, and the big fullback responded with huge gains. After carrying the ball for a big gain, Hardy liked to cuff Crazy across the top of the helmet and say, “I just wish you could teach Dewitt to block like that.”

Remember. It’s not always the best team that wins. It’s the team that wants it the most.”

Listen closely, You twelve regulars mostly, Don’t fumble! Hit ’em like hell! Don’t grumble, Hold the ball, And we’ll take all! Yours truly, Doc Hall

the orphans became a symbol of inspiration for every man and woman during the Depression. They were the most popular team in Texas in the thirties, with a cult following that stretched from New York to the West Coast. They were a reason to live. They were Seabiscuit and Cinderella Man rolled into one fighting little football team. They were devotion, hope, and the belief that winning lives within the heart.

But the genius of Rusty Russell was in his ability to make every boy a giant in his own eyes.

Russell’s record at the Home was 127-30-12.