Most people who grew up in small towns understand high school athletics is the last bastion of sports purity and football is the king of sports in Texas.
One of the best and purest sports stories in a state known for outstanding football is about Ken Hall, who played at Sugar Land High School in the early 1950s when it was in Class B. In four years, Hall established five national high school career records, seven national season marks and two national records for single game achievements. Fifty-five years later, three of those records still stand.
Some say his career 11,232-yard rushing record will never be broken. His per game average of 337.1 yards rushing for a season is still in the books as is a one-game record. Against Houston Lutheran High School in 1953, Ken averaged an unheard of 47.3 yards every time he carried the football.
Hall may be the nation's greatest high school football player ever and most people have never heard of him.
One of the most remarkable things about him though is that you'd never learn of his records from him. And, chances are any conversation about football, particularly his career, you'd have to initiate.
It was my privilege to live next door to his parents for five years, shortly after he retired from professional football. Knowing Curtis and Imogene Hall explained a lot about Ken. They were two of the most down-to-earth, honest people you'd ever meet and their son followed that example.
Ken graduated from Sugar Land High School in 1954 and went to Texas A&M on a football scholarship. Another legend, Paul "Bear" Bryant, became the Aggie coach and his intractability drove Ken from the team and school in his junior year.
Before he died, Bryant wrote Ken a letter of apology saying his handling of Hall was his biggest mistake. Later, Ken said, "There's honor in that."
After he left A&M, he went to Canada and played a season with the Edmonton Eskimos. The next year he went to the Baltimore Colts but a knee to the back shattered his sixth vertebra and ended his season early.
He played a year with the NFL St. Louis Cardinals and joined the Houston Oilers in 1960, the first year of the American Football League.
He still holds the Oiler record for the longest kickoff return in franchise history, 104 yards.
When Ken came home to Sugar Land, he went to work for Imperial Sugar Company where his father was employed.
Ken and his wife Gloria were high school sweethearts and married in his junior year at A&M. They raised two sons.
In high school, college and as a young man, Ken Hall had movie star good looks. He had the chiseled body, as one Aggie assistant coach once put it, of a "Greek god."
As a high school player, Ken stood 6-2 and weighed 195 pounds. He ran the 100-yard dash in 9.6 seconds and single-handedly won the Class B state track team championship two years.
While going to high school, Ken missed football practice one day a week to go to his regular job as an usher at the Palms Theatre in Sugar Land.
He also played trumpet in the SLHS Gator band and marched at halftime, something he enjoyed as much as playing football.
After his retirement from the pro ranks, he was often called upon in Sugar Land to lend his name to some civic or charitable cause, which he did graciously.
In those mid 1960s when I knew him, he and Gloria sang in the church choir where we worshipped.
At a PTA program, Ken, two other guys and I donned wigs and portrayed The Beatles in a skit. He was John Lennon and I was Ringo Starr. Ken had a fine voice. They just let me bang on one drum.
He left Imperial in 1970 and went to California where he worked in sales and marketing for another sugar company.
Ken returned to Texas in 1986 and moved to Fredericksburg where he realized a longtime dream and opened a barbecue restaurant that quickly became a favorite in a tourist town known for excellent restaurants.
Remembering Ken Hall and what he represents gets me in the mood to enjoy another great Texas high school football season.
Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher with more than 50 years in the business. He can be reached by email at wwebb@wildblue.net.
