Good Movie But Fictionalized - Dallas Carter Was Stripped of the Title

Rating: 8/10 (30 January 2006)

I was in my senior year at Plano Senior High School in '88 when Dallas Carter played Permian--in the semi-final game--and the movie reminded me of that time like it was yesterday. The big Texas arm patches and letterman jackets were all too familiar. PSHS was the 5A champion in '86 and '87, so as students we knew how big this was--especially our cross-town rivals at Plano East who were eliminated from contention in '88 by a Carter squad with grade problems and a tendency to entertain themselves by holding up convenience stores in their time off the field. However, the film makers changed the story, probably for two reasons: 1) to fully memorialize the Permian squad of '88 and 2) to avoid being labeled as being race biased in telling the truth about the Dallas Carter team that, at least for a few months, held the Texas 5A title.
The truth is that Dallas Carter defeated Permian in the semifinal game. At the time, they were already embroiled in a grade scandal and litigation launched by lawyers for Plano East Senior High, but they went on to beat Judson in the 5A Championship in Austin. Later, after months of litigation that initially sought to have some games replayed by eligible teams, Dallas Carter was stripped of the 5A title for having fielded at least one ineligible player--their quarterback--in several games. The postscript to this story is that several Dallas Carter players--almost all of whom had already won Division I NCAA scholarships to major schools--went to prison for a string of armed robberies of convenience stores and/or gas stations in the area and, of course, never played a Division I game. In sum, this Dallas Carter squad should have been banned from the playoffs at the outset. If this had happened, perhaps Permian would've gone all the way in '88.