By Avi Zaleon
Updated 3:13 pm, Friday, October 19, 2012
If you listen close enough, these bleachers tell stories.
At Port Neches-Groves’ Reservation, families have had season tickets since the 1950s, children dance on the sideline and couples fall in love cheering the purple and white.
At Nederland, one boisterous fan yells into a megaphone, families travel long distances for playoff games and lifelong friendships are shared.
Tonight, all these characters and more than 10,000 friends will descend on The Reservation for the 87th Mid-County Madness game between PN-G and Nederland.
Indians fan Kay Bourghs has had season tickets since two years before her birth in 1958.
Her mother was a two-year Indianette. Her father was a three-year varsity basketball player.
“If PN-G held a Monopoly tournament, he would be there,” Bourghs said, noting that her father never missed a game. “He’d be sitting there in his lawn chair cheering them on.”
When Kay was in junior high school, students sat in bleachers in the end zone at PN-G games. She remembers her dad looking through his binoculars to make sure his daughter and her two cousins stayed in their seats.
“You don’t move till the clock says zero,” Kay remembered him saying.
It is clear that Kay’s brother, Lane, who announces PN-G basketball games, was raised under the same roof. The night before his wedding, he was right where he wanted to be.
“I couldn’t miss PN-G and Vidor,” he said.
Kay and Lane’s father’s health declined over time due to diabetes. One day he called Kay to his bedside.
“He said, ‘I need to tell you something really important,'” Kay recalled. “We go over there and Dad says, ‘I need you to go to the ticket office and get a transfer form while I can still see well enough that I can sign my name. I need to sign (the season tickets) over to somebody who will never give them up.'”
Bourghs has missed only three homecoming games that she can remember, after being injured in car accidents in 1989, 1995 and 2006.
The second accident put her in a wheelchair.
Her passion remained with PN-G athletics.
Bourghs sits in section E for home games and calls ahead for road games to let the school know she is coming. She said being closer to the action is better. She likes when she can watch from the track around the field.
She attended last week’s game against Central at the Beaumont ISD Thomas Center. After she waited two hours outside the stadium, an attendant opened a black gate to let the already-formed line of Indians fans inside. Lane stood behind his sister and pushed her forward.
“It’s similar to being in a movie theater,” she said. “For a certain amount of time in your life, your troubles are somewhere else.”
Earl Richard and Jaci Oliver, Nederland
Jaci Oliver affectionately calls her grandfather by his first name. It fits her spunky personality and complements Earl Richard perfectly.
The Nederland junior’s words are upbeat, carefully enunciated and full of life. Earl’s are drawn-out, relaxed and bring a sense of comfort.
Together they watched Nederland emerge from its tunnel in the far end zone to start the second half last week against Little Cypress-Mauriceville. Jaci and Earl, who graduated in 1962, stood in a grassy patch close to the field, off to the side of the visitor bleachers.
Jaci admits that she has been brainwashed to bleed black and gold since birth, something she credits her grandfather with. Earl takes pride in his ability to recruit even the most unlikely Bulldog fans.
“My wife is from Port Neches and she knows nothing about Port Neches anymore,” he said. “She’s all Nederland Bulldog now.”
He makes it sound so easy.
“Well, it’s not very hard when you have three boys playing football (for Nederland),” he said.
Earl estimates he has probably missed five Nederland games in 40 years.
Every year Nederland makes the playoffs, Jaci and Earl make long drives in his truck to the game, stopping to get some fast food on the way. This wouldn’t be such a tradition if the Bulldogs had not made the postseason 15 of the past 16 years.
And that’s it. Nothing flashy or complicated, just a long drive when the two, separated by a generational gap, can be connected over a team they love.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Jaci says.
Adrian Abshere, PN-G
Adrian Abshere has worn the same purple and white fedora to every PN-G game this season.
He picked out the hat when he tagged along with his mother and sister to go shopping for a bow this summer. The boy and hat are now sideline fixtures.
No matter the play or circumstance, Adrian is always in motion. When the Indians’ defense tries to stop the opposition on third-and-5, Adrian raises his arms and to tell the crowd he wants to hear more noise.
“I think it’s awesome,” said Norman Abshere, the junior high school coach and Adrian’s father. “In the beginning I would calm him down because I thought he was getting in the way of organizations on the sideline, but they’re all for him doing it.”
The elder Abshere knows all about growing up on the sidelines. He grew up watching his dad, also named Norman, coach at West Brook. Having Adrian accompany him to PN-G games seemed natural. But Norman admits the similarities don’t go much farther.
“He’s taken it to a different level than I did when I was younger,” he said.
Harry Williams, Nederland
Harry Williams has a way of ensuring that his seats at Bulldog Stadium, which he has owned for 21 years, will be his forever.
“Nobody’s going to get them,” he said. “They won’t want to sit on my ashes.”
It’s hard to tell if Williams is joking. When one of the most diehard Nederland fans on the planet makes a declaration about his loyalty to the Bulldogs, it’s difficult to draw the line between exaggeration and reality.
“My house is on the 40-yard line,” he said proudly.
It’s true. Williams and his wife, Lawannda, live on Detroit Avenue and their front window faces Bulldog Stadium.
Williams has a personalized Nederland-themed golf cart. He hates purple and claims to have only one thing of that color in his home. He attends every Nederland sporting event he can, including pep rallies, softball, basketball and baseball games, in addition to his 12-year-old granddaughter’s volleyball matches on Thursdays. Lawannda makes a sports calendar to keep everything straight. She has one copy by the computer and another in her purse.
“Pep rallies, one-act plays, it don’t matter,” Williams said. “If Nederland puts it on, I’ll go to it.”
But above all else, Williams’ megaphone is what makes him a recognizable character at football games. Made for him by a friend in Winnie about 15 years ago, the white plastic cone is decorated with gold and black accents, a Bulldogs logo and “HARRY” written on the end. Black tape protects the rim of it, as age has chipped away some of the paint and caused minor cracks.
Born in Chaumet, La., Williams moved to Nederland in fourth grade and graduated from Nederland in 1963. He played varsity football in his junior year but got hurt and did not play his senior season.
During a game last week at Little Cypress-Mauriceville, Lawannda leaned in, the Friday night lights reflecting off her rhinestone glasses, and shared a story that Williams would never tell – at least without a joke or two.
Williams used to love horseback riding. But in November 2010, he was bucked off a horse and was in a coma for two months. Along with Thanksgiving and Christmas, he was unconscious for Nederland’s playoff game that year.
“He missed a lot of stuff,” Lawannda recalled. “It took him a while to walk again and come to his senses. I’m not sure he’s completely come to them yet.”
It seemed Williams’ sense of humor rubbed off a little on her, too.
Kristi Smith and Steve Whitten are set to be married Saturday. They attend all PN-G games together.
That wasn’t always the case. They once broke up over football.
Smith bought season tickets so they could attend games together, and Whitten, a Vidor graduate, refused to go.
“I said, ‘Well, Friday night for the next four months you’ll know where I’ll be,’ and we didn’t speak for three months,” Smith said.
The two got back together in time to attend a 2010 PN-G game at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
It was a PN-G baptism for Whitten. From then on, he was an Indians fan.
“He’s worse than me now,” Smith said.
Jim and Loretta Waterbury, Nederland
Every Friday during high school football season, Jim and Loretta Waterbury leave their Lake Conroe home and drive a little more than two hours to watch Nederland play.
Loretta doesn’t mind the drive, it’s worth it so she can see family and friends she grew up with in Nederland. Familiar faces like her brother, sister and Lawannda Williams, who Loretta has known since she was 5 years old.
“This is the most fun that we have all week,” Loretta said.
It never gets old for the Waterburys, who lived in California until 1998, when Jim retired from the Highway Patrol and moved back to Texas. In 2000, they purchased a pair of Bulldog season tickets and have been going ever since.
Loretta has the same passion for Bulldog football as her father, who regularly went to Nederland practices during the week, way back when.
“It’s just a tradition,” Loretta said.
Bulldog Stadium is about 120 miles from Lake Conroe, but the distance means little when the destination means so much.
AZaleon@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/avi_zaleon
