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| LONGVIEW - The great lesson of the Lobos' magnificent 19-12 victory over Wichita Falls, no less than of their 14-winning-game season, is stamina, something int ice their elders on the scrimmage line of civid growth and progress may well emulate their championship eleven.
Put in the hole by over-eager play in the first few minutes, Longview's well-disciplined team rallied, held its own and finally surged ahead in an irresistible last-quarter exhibition of fighting heart. It was not the first game in which the Lobos had given away weight or other advantage and then fought on to victory, and though tremendously gratifying to their thousands ofc cheering partisans, the final triumph Saturday was no upset, after all. Longview as a city, on the other hand, has been an odds-on favorite for the past seven years, and if its citizens fail to make the most of their advantage they can blame none but themselves. One of the few cities in the world to share a five billion dollar 20-year funded endowment, the Gregg county seat has a long start in the percentage-of-growth championship of Texas race. The same sort of faith which made P.E. Shotwell's 1937 Lobo football team high school champions of the state will make Longview the commercial, industrial and civid superior of any city in its class anywhere. And just as not all of the credit for victory can go to the ball carriers, brilliant as they undeniably were Saturday and throughout their championship season, not all the responsibility for Longview's growth can fall to those pushed into places of leadership, riding the white horse and carrying the flag. Everyone who invests a dollar of his capital through faith in Longview's future will deserve a share of recognition for the inevitable achievement of the citizenship as a whole. Millers, Lebuses and Cantrells are not more essential in the civid lineup than the fighting blockers and tacklers who make scoring both possible and effective. Longview will have no walk-away in the civid race any more than the Lobos did in football, for the city can look for penalties and other reverses ahead, but let us hope none for lack of civid pride and teamwork, which, in the end, are what count most. All East Texas, but particularly that part sharing the activity of the world's greatest oil field and other rich pools west of the Trinity, can well take their cue from Shotwell's boys, now and in the years to come, for the principles they have just demonstrated are universal in their application. Good fighters are good winners, and good losers in the moments of reverse, but fighters here and henceforth, now and all the time. Even the Longview rooters did their share in Saturday's victory, and in the perennial battle of which we speak it counts as well. If you can't pass, run or boot the ball, block or tackle for your town, you can always cheer for those who do, and thus often snatch the victory from defeat. Coach Shotwell and the Lobos, you've showed us how - let's go, Longview, it's first and goal. |