Sports-challenged, but still cheering
Mary Henkel Judson

I'm gonna fess up here. I was a high school cheerleader from 1968-1971, and I didn't know what a first down was until 1976 when I had to edit sports stories.

"First and 10, do it again! First and 10, do it again!" It rhymed, it got the crowd going and, hey, we won.

We were the Refugio Bobcats. For the uniformed, those living under rocks or who are simply clueless about football in Texas, the Bobcats were, and are, legendary in the annals of Texas high school football. They hold the last football state championship won in South Texas - 1982, the year I wrote cutlines for photos from that game from my hospital bed after giving birth to our one and only child. The Bobcats also are the only currently state-ranked football team in the Coastal Bend. Number 3, to be exact.

The Bobcats went to state in '68 and lost to Lubbock-Estacado, 7-0, and in 1970 we tied for the state championship with Iowa Park, 7-7. Heady stuff.

My fellow cheerleaders with football-playing brothers knew more about the particulars of the game, and I followed their leads. I was a quick study. When an orange and black jersey caught the football thrown by my boyfriend (identifiable by the number 10 on his jersey) and carried it across the goal line (which I identified early on) we jumped up and down and did cartwheels, handsprings and "Herky's" (a jump named after the man who invented it). If that was followed by the ball being kicked between the goal posts (which we had earlier in the day wrapped in orange and black crepe paper), we did more cartwheels, handsprings and "Herky's".

What else did I need to know?

Oh, yeah. When the Other Team (those not wearing tight black pants with orange and white trim) had the ball, we yelled "Defense! Defense! Defense!"

Years later, when Murray and I married and moved to Refugio to manage the newspaper upon my parents' retirement, I found myself editing stories about Bobcat football games written by a former coach. It was incomprehensible that he would write about a first down more than once. I mean, how many firsts can you have?

About the time I figured out football (sort of) in the glory days of the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers, we moved to Port Aransas where basketball is king.

Refugio put all its eggs in the football basket, so if you think I didn't know anything about football, I really didn't know anything about basketball. We cheered only occasionally at basketball games, and my only other exposure to basketball was in P.E. class where we girls played half-court. To tell you the truth, after 24 years in Port Aransas, I am still trying to figure out basketball. I have, however, figured out that the team can't live without point guards who don't get near enough glory.

Meanwhile, I haven't really locked into the Cowboys since the good ol' days of Tony Dorsett, Harvey Martin, Ed "Too Tall" Jones and Tony Hill. The Houston Texans just don't do as much for me as Earl Campbell did when he roared past the Oilers' goal line. Those were the days when Murray and I had a beach house here. We'd leave on Sundays and listen to the Oilers on the radio, and get back to Refugio in time to turn on the TV for the Cowboys' kick off.

By then, I'd learned what a first down was, and that there was more than one. And, in the meantime, I've become a big tennis fan.

So here we are at the end of August. Football season is kicking off, and the U.S. Open (as in tennis, not golf) will close the grand slam season. Basketball season in Port Aransas is two months away.

My only hope is Wade Phillips, son of Bum who coached Earl, who is now coaching the Cowboys. Wade just may get me from the end of the U.S. Open to the Australian Open in January.

Old cheerleaders don't die. We just find something else to cheer for.

Mary Henkel Judson is editor and copublisher of the South Jetty. Contact her at southjetty@centurytel.net.