No shame for Katy losing football title game

[IndianFan]

The Katy Tigers could be a role model program for PN-G. Here's to hoping that Coach Faircloth and staff will stay long enough to build a similar level of long term, consistent success that Katy has.

Justice: No shame for Katy losing football title game
By RICHARD JUSTICE Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 20, 2009, 12:20AM

SAN ANTONIO — Katy High School's football team did just what you knew it would do. The Tigers fought until the last second of the last minute.

Even when the game was lost, even when it was obvious that Abilene High had too much speed and too much size, the Tigers kept slugging away, never giving in, never giving up.

Victories can be measured in all sorts of ways, and if there's comfort to be taken from toughness and resilience and class, Katy displayed plenty of all three Saturday night in the Class 5A Division II State Championship Game.

But at Katy, they don't measure things that way. Katy has won so much that only one thing matters, and that's winning. So they'll remember this as the year when Katy finally ran into an opponent it couldn't overcome.

Abilene High rode extraordinary performances by cousins Ronnell and Herschel Sims to a 28-17 victory for the finishing touches on a 15-0 season. Katy, going for a third straight championship, finished a bitterly disappointing 14-2.

As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Katy players wept on the sideline, hugging one another, saying little. Afterwards, only the sound of sobs could be heard as the Tigers walked back to their locker room.

Along the hallway outside their locker room were crying cheerleaders and others trying to comprehend a different kind of ending.

“It's hard to talk right now,“ senior safety Sam Holl said. “I can't even put it into words. We had a good year. It's too bad we couldn't finish it.“

He'd played in two other state championship games, and won them both. He said it was only in the closing minute or so that it struck him Katy wouldn't win this one as well.

“I was like, 'This isn't happening,“' he said. “I just broke down.“

He looked and paused before continuing.

“This is such a great group of guys,“ he said. “This has been probably the greatest experience I'll have in my life. There's no better place to be in the state of Texas than Katy High School.“

Another senior, running back Will Jeffery, had a lone tear streaming down the right side of his face as he faced reporters.

“I feel numb,“ he said. “But we didn't quit. Our coaches wouldn't let us quit, and we wouldn't quit.“

He motioned inside the locker room where his teammates were stripping off their pads for the final time this season.

“Everything is so quiet,“ he said. “It feels like we let a lot of people down.“

That may be how it felt Saturday night because that's the price that comes with playing for Katy.

“We have so much pressure on us,“ Holl said.

Katy coach Gary Joseph, the architect of this extraordinary run, closed the door to his locker room briefly and reminded his players that they'd still done things other team dream of doing.

“We had an opportunity to play for a state championship,“ he said. “Lots of people don't have that chance. I'm extremely proud of these guys.“

Remember the names of quarterback Ronnell and running back Herschel Sims. They're both juniors, and when college coaches began evaluating them, they might start with this night.

Between them, they rushed for 320 yards and scored four touchdowns for Abilene High. Ronnell scored on a 47-yard run 29 seconds into the game, and Herschel sealed the outcome with a 60-yarder early in the fourth quarter.

In between those runs, Katy made a game of it, rallying from a 14-0 deficit to make it 14-10.

Katy will be haunted by missed opportunities. The Tigers twice drove deep into Abilene territory without getting points, and once failed to get a ball to a wide open receiver down the field.

“We had some chances,“ Joseph said. “I'm glad we settled down and hung in there and gave ourselves a chance.“

When other coaches are asked about Katy, they don't talk about overwhelming talent or speed or any of that stuff. They talk about things sometimes only coaches appreciate. Things like team work and fundamentals and tradition. Those were the things on display Saturday night.

“When you look at Division 1 players, a lot of schools have more than Katy,“ Mark Schmid of The Woodlands said. “But Katy's kids grow up in the system wanting to play Katy football. They work their tails off, and the coaches do a great job developing the talent.“

And there are those six state championships, including four this decade. Nothing feeds success like success.

“I think the biggest thing is that you don't have to explain to young kids what the expectations are when they came in or how hard you have to work,“ said Deer Park's Chris Massey, a Katy assistant from 1996 until 2003. “They see it from the older guys everyday. That's a lot of pressure, but I liked it. If just winning a few games is enough, then that's what you're going to get.“

That's never been enough at Katy, and those expectations can be both a burden and a curse. In the end, though, this season was still a remarkable accomplishment. As Holl said, there was no place he'd rather be, no group of people he'd rather call teammates.

 

[badndn]

And watching Austin Westlake, with Allman from Permian with Faircloth, was like watching PNG this year. Very similiar offenses. Not a bunch of superstar DI athletes, but they got it done all year.

 

[Starfire]

I was hoping that Katy would join the ranks of Amarillo, Sealy (later 4-peater), Celina (later 4-peater), LaMarque and a couple of others who have won three in a row, but sadly that wasn't to be this time around.

Outside of gameplay, I think that the media might've played a slight hand in it - it seemed to me that the local channels here kept making the point of saying this would be their third in a row. It as to the point that all schools - even Brenham, the other area school going to state - got the short end of the stick in coverage. What's sad is I think even if they won they'd had less coverage than Katy losing the three peat.

Yes, I understand that a three-peat is huge (I remember the press on Sealy going for three then four, and imagine Celina's (2A mind you) when they went for it and succeeded), but there comes a time when the media needs to step back and let the teams play. I do think they put too much pressure on a great team like Katy and that combined with Abilene's good game play, cost them the title.

I do think that Katy is on the verge of taking away Sealy and (thankfully) Odessa Permian's claims of being the best team of the decade. (I say thankfully for Odessa Permian's claim because they haven't been good since the era they love to think they play like - which is I think at least 20 if not more years ago. They aren't that good anymore - even Andrews usually beats them on a regular basis.)

I do hope though that we have more coaches like the one in Katy and other area teams (you guys, Brenham, etc.) I think the teams show a LOT of class on and off the field, and that's why they did so well in the past, this season and I believe will in the future.

 

[IndianFan]

Southlake Carroll is more of a challenge for team of the decade than Permian. Permian hasn't done much of anything since the 90s.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/hso/6778137.html

 

[Starfire]

Southlake Carroll is more of a challenge for team of the decade than Permian. Permian hasn't done much of anything since the 90s.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/hso/6778137.html

Oh, I DEFINITELY know that. It's just that Odessa Permian has an ego that makes Narcissus blush and they expect to go to state all the time.

What's sad is that they gave a coach who had won five state places (4 championship, 1 runner-up) in football - TJ Mills, THREE years to get them to state. He doesn't (mostly because the players don't give a damn), and he's fired. The next year the team goes deep into playoffs, and who gets the credit? - that coach, and he claims it's was ONLY him who got that team going. I'll give him credit that he got them to work together probably better, but Mills really started the seeds. The team had stunk big time prior to Mills' involvement.

(Needless to say I have little respect for the team, and wish that "Friday Night Lights" hadn't been based on that school for that reason. Then again, if the other choice was Sealy - a school that at the time of its run of state titles would read as "Happy Days" - I'm glad they chose the more arrogant town as basis given the way they wrote the scripts. Basing it on Sealy with those scripts would've been incorrect).

 

[IndianFan]

:thumbsup:

 

[squaw]

Funny how a little age changes one's perspectives--I always thought PNG was a great model for Katy. I remember when Katy wasn't even a consideration in the arena of high school football. I remember seeing Katy play in the Astrodome for their first time and commenting that they were beginning to look like PNG.

 

[IndianFan]

Results means more than years. Katy has set a higher standard than PN-G's program has ever attained.