David Henry
Published 12:00 am, Sunday, June 27, 2010
It might be 90 miles away, but Houston’s Astrodome has played an important role in the area’s sports history.
The “Eighth Wonder of the World” has been the site of several state championship games featuring area teams, and has seen record crowds and exciting games still talked about today.
The building itself soon might be history though.
The Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation is weighing three different options on what to do with the Astrodome, one of which includes tearing down the 45-year-old building; The Beaumont Enterprise asked readers if the Astrodome, costing $2 million per year in maintenance and upkeep, should be spared.
An overwhelming majority, 69 percent, said the Dome should not be torn down.
With all of the games played there involving high school teams from Southeast Texas, it’s no wonder.
“I’d hate to see them tear it down,” said West Orange-Stark head coach and athletic director Dan Hooks, whose teams have gone 10-4-1 in the Astrodome, including the 1986 state championship victory against McKinney. “Playing there was the epitome of high school football. We’ve won several games in that building. It has almost been like another home.”
Road to the championship
Two Southeast Texas teams won championships in the Astrodome.
West Brook played the final five games of its championship season in 1982 at the Astrodome, winning the title in a 21-10 victory against Hurst Bell.
Hooks won his first state championship with West Orange-Stark in the 21-9 victory against McKinney there.
“My favorite memory was looking at that big scoreboard and seeing us 21, them nine,” Hooks said. “It was a dream come true. Something for coaches, players and fans to be proud of.”
The Bruins’ first two games at the Astrodome in that playoff run were the most dramatic. They tied Baytown Sterling 7-7 but advanced on the tiebreaker of having more first downs. A 15-yard touchdown run by Jerry Ball with less than two minutes left gave West Brook a 28-22 win against Houston Memorial.
French High School’s championship game in 1984, when it tied Odessa Permian 21-21 to share the 5A state co-championship, wasn’t played at the Astrodome, but the Buffaloes played their first four playoff games at the Astrodome.
In that stretch, French beat Aldine, a 31-point favorite, 48-13 in the first round, and defeated Galveston Ball, a team that had three players go on to the NFL, including Kimble Anders, 24-13.
Galveston Ball “had just beaten West Brook the week before and everybody was looking forward to a Westbrook/French rematch,” said Finis Vanover, French’s defensive coordinator at the time and the current head coach and athletic director at 4A Angleton High School. “Once again, the kids performed like warriors. We had some great memories in that place.”
Unlike West Brook and WO-S, Port Neches-Groves never had that shining moment in the Dome – losing a state semifinal game in 1974 with Brazoswood and the state championship game with Stephenville in 1999.
Record crowds
Port Neches-Groves fans were a part of history in the 1999 Division II championship game, a 28-18 loss to Stephenville. The crowd of 39,102 at that game was the largest ever in the Astrodome for a high school football game, and the sixth-largest crowd for a high school game in Texas history.
Matt Burnett, the PN-G coach at the time, was surprised Stephenville head coach Art Briles, now the head coach at Baylor, even agreed to play there.
“That was the most exciting game I had coached in as far as the crowd goes,” Burnett said. “Our side was purple all the way up. Right at the middle of each goal post in each end zone was purple all the way up. It was amazing how many people. Stephenville probably had 6,000 on their side and we had 33 (thousand). There’s not that even that many people in PN-G.”
The 38,570-person crowd the Indians had in their 1977 fourth-round playoff game with Houston Kashmere is the second-largest for a high school football game in the Astrodome and the eighth-largest in state history.
One reason the crowds were so large at the Astrodome was because there often were double- or triple-headers held in the playoffs.
“You could buy a $6-$8 ticket and stay there the whole day and watch three games,” Vanover said. “People were cheering and hollering even if it wasn’t their team that was playing. It was a fun venue for coaches, kids and spectators. Those were some fun, fun times when the Astrodome was cooking.”
Kevin Barbay, a former Nederland quarterback who now is the Warren athletic director and head coach, said Nederland and PN-G played back-to-back games in the Dome in the 1999 playoffs, and the fans from Nederland stuck around to watch PN-G. Nederland players came back the next week to watch PN-G play for the championship.
“Even though they were our rivals, we watched them and cheered for them,” Barbay said.
An atmosphere like no other
Barbay remembers the first time he set foot on the Astrodome field in 1998. He was a sophomore in high school, and he and his teammates left school on a Tuesday at noon to practice at the Astrodome. Head coach Larry Neumann wanted the team to get at least one practice there before the team’s game that Saturday against Bay City – the first time Nederland played at the Astrodome.
“The biggest thing I remember is walking in and thinking ‘Holy (expletive) – this place is huge!'” Barbay said. ”
And that is what it was like without any people in the stands. The crowd only magnified the atmosphere.
“The kids would walk out of the dressing room through a long tunnel down to the field and see all the fans hollering,” said Port Arthur ISD athletic director Ronnie Thompson, who said his favorite memory of coaching in the Dome was when his Port Arthur Jefferson team defeated LaMarque 29-24 in 1980. “If you can’t get ready to play in that atmosphere then you shouldn’t be playing.”
While fans usually are allowed on the field at high school stadiums after games, that wasn’t the case at the Astrodome. Security lined the end zone to dissuade anyone who thought about it.
It didn’t stop, Barbay’s mom, Connie, though. She hopped over the gate and ran onto the field to hug her son, who threw two touchdowns to help Nederland beat Luke McCown and Jacksonville 28-19 in his first start of the season.
“Security pinned her up against the wall,” Barbay said. “We joked about how we might have to bail my mom out of jail after the game. That’s her famous story of jumping over the rail at the Astrodome.”
Surface level
Burnett, who played in the state semifinal game for PN-G at the Astrodome in 1974, played on the field at the high school, college and professional level. He played in college for Lamar University when they played Houston, and played in an NFL preseason game with the Houston Oilers when he was trying out to make the team.
Burnett described the artificial turf playing surface, Astroturf, as “carpet glued to cement.”
“It was a really tough surface,” Burnett said. “We didn’t care at the time; we were just happy to be there.”
While the Astroturf was upgraded after Burnett played on it, it didn’t get much better, said Burnett, who came full-circle when he coached on the field in the 1999 championship game.
“It just became thicker carpet,” Burnett said.
Barbay remembers seeing a faded Houston Oilers logo in the end zone and there being spots on both 45-yardlines where the NFL logo used to be. Those spots were a half-inch higher than the rest of the field.
“I remember taking a snap and my toes were up and my heels were down,” Barbay said.
The longest yard
If there’s one game at the Astrodome talked about more than any other, it’s probably Nederland’s state quarterfinal game with Bay City in 2000.
With the Bulldogs trailing 7-0, Barbay completed a pass to his running back Joe Ramoin, who fell down six inches short of the goal line with four seconds left. On the final play of the game, Ramoin was stopped cold in front of the goal line and Bay City players ran off in celebration.
“I probably think about that game every day,” Barbay said of his last high school game. “I knew we were so close.”
Bay City blew by its opponents in the next two games to claim the state championship.
“That was the closest Nederland has come to winning a state championship,” Barbay said. “I saw Chad Morris (Bay City’s coach at the time) while I was coaching at North Texas and Baylor, and he still remembered who I was. I told him he was wearing my state championship ring.”
Last dance
High school teams from the area also played baseball at the Astrodome. Little Cypress-Mauriceville coach Steve Griffith‘s teams were 6-1 there.
“We had lots of success there,” Griffith said. “The only game we lost was the 1998 regional semifinal game to Nederland in extra innings.”
It was the perfect place to play with the area’s unpredictable weather. By 2001, the price to play at the Dome had dropped to $500, cheaper than the $1,500 Lamar charged at the time.
“You couldn’t get rained out there,” Griffith said. “There needs to be an indoor facility to play games in when weather doesn’t cooperate.”
Woodville’s baseball semifinal game with Sealy in 2003, an 8-1 Eagles victory, was the last high school baseball game played at the Astrodome. The baseball diamond was taken out after that year.
But that’s not why the Woodville coach at the time, Neil Hennigan, is sentimental about the Dome. It was the last game his father, the late Tyler County Sherriff Gary Hennigan, saw him coach. Gary Hennigan was undergoing chemotherapy and could not make any of his son’s games that year. He could watch them in the Astrodome, though, because it was air-conditioned.
“I’ll never forget the hospitality from the people that worked in the Dome. They went down in a golf cart and got my father in the parking lot, brought him up and took him through the Dome to his seat,” Hennigan said. “It meant a lot to me.”
End of an era
The last Southeast Texas team to play in the Dome was Newton, who defeated Brookshire Royal 49-12 in the state semifinal game Dec. 4, 2004.
That was the last year high school football playoff games were played in the Astrodome.
Now, the Dome sits empty, with its fate in the hands of politicians and potentially the voters, should a bond referendum to renovate it come up.
“You hate to see it go because it was a special, special place,” Thompson said. “But you always see old ones go and new ones come in their place. The opportunity to perform there is a memory those guys will take with them the rest of their life.”
Like big Jerry Ball bursting up the middle, the French Buffaloes slaying giants and Dustin Long throwing a touchdown pass, the Astrodome itself soon could be just a memory.
“We all get old; it happens sooner or later,” Vanover said. “There are incredible facilities being torn down all the time and it makes worldwide news. Everything has its place in time.”
The coaches hope there’s some way to salvage it.
“I would like to see it stick around because it could be useful,” Hennigan said. “You can play football games there every Friday and Saturday. It may not be feasible to keep it up, but it would be nice.”
Lamar at the Astrodome
The Cardinals have played at the Astrodome three times. In 1975, Lamar played Houston, losing 21-3. The Cardinals played Southern Mississippi in New Orleans at the Super Dome that year, becoming the first collegiate team to play two games in a domed stadium in the same season.
Lamar defeated Sam Houston State 55-7 in the Astrodome in 1981, and fell 42-35 to the Cougars at the Astrodome in 1983.
Astrodome Renovation Options
Reliant Park Plaza plan: Raze the Dome for $128 million; replace Reliant Arena and make other improvements to park; build a hotel (with no public money) with as many as 1,500 rooms. Total price tag of $873 million.
o Astrodome Multipurpose: Gut the Dome and add a new level of floor space, a science and technology center, a planetarium, solar panels on the roof that form a world map for $324 million to $374 million; keep other elements of plaza plan. Total price tag of $1.08 billion to $1.13 billion.
o Astrodome Renaissance: Multipurpose plan plus add more Astrodome features, including conference space, a series of interactive exhibits that would allow users to simulate space travel and deep sea exploration, museums, an alternative energy center and a movie studio. The Astrodome portion would cost $588 million. Total price tag of $1.35 billion.
Source: The Houston Chronicle
