'37 LOBOS RAN THE TABLE TO BRING HOME TITLE
LONGVIEW - They were part of what is known as our Greatest Generation, and for 81 years they've been frozen in time as the greatest football team in Longview Lobo history.

The 1937 Lobos brought home the ultimate Christmas gift with their 19-12 victory over the Wichita Falls Coyotes in front of 18,000 fans at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Attendance for that game on Christmas Day outdrew the inaugural Cotton Bowl contest 12 months earlier between TCU and Marquette.

Prince Elmer "Pete" Shotwell was the 44-year-old head coach in his third year with the Lobos. Shotwell, who passed away in 1978 at the age 84, carved an impressive 255-92-18 high school record with other stops at Cisco, Breckenridge and Abilene. He also had a couple college stints at Hardin-Simmons and Sul Ross State.

"His kids loved him without question," said Charlie LeBus, son of the late Frank LeBus, who was quarterback on that fabled 1937 Lobo squad. "He was a good man, just a good man and lived his life with honor. He even opened a boys camp."

Shotwell already had two state titles to his credit at Abilene in 1923 and Breckenridge in 1929. Tough as nails as a taskmaster, Shotwell "whipped his boys into a machine" and by their third year the Lobos were ready to scale the mountaintop.

"Being that most everybody wanted to talk about it, yeah it was quite a few," LeBus said when asked how often the subject of the state title came up in conversation.

"Eighty one years. I've still got my grandmother's ticket from that game," LeBus said pointing to a frame hanging from the wall in the board room at LeBus International - the company his grandfather brought to Longview from Electra in 1931.

Life was a lot different in December of 1937. A gallon of gas cost 10 cents, a loaf a bread was nine cents and a new car would run you $760. Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and America was just shy four years of Pearl Harbor and its entrance into World War II.

A good number of the '37 Lobo football team enlisted and saw combat. Two key contributors from that team - Dick Miller and Chal Daniel - were killed in action. Dick and his brother Hardy were standouts for the Lobos, while Daniel wound up earning All-America honors for D.X. Bible at the University of Texas. Another member of that team, Don Fambrough, went on to be head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks from 1971-1982.

After opening the season with 25-0 shutout of North Dallas, the Lobos gutted out a 13-12 win over Masonic Home out of Fort Worth and followed with a 19-12 nail-biter over Port Arthur. McKinney was a 31-7 casualty in Longview's final non-district tune up prior to District 9A play.

The Lobos kicked off league play by kicking the Kilgore Bulldogs to the curb, 46-0. Dick Miller led the Lobos to the one-sided rout with a 19-yard TD trot. Longview's defense was particularly nasty and Daniel was a catalyst on that side of the ball for the Lobos.

Longview, which scored a 26-0 skunking of the Texas High Tigers the next week, took a break from district play after that and dominated Dallas Sunset, 32-7. The Lobos closed regular season action with a 27-7 win over the Tyler Lions and a 19-6 verdict over the Marshall Mavericks on Armistice Day.

Gladewater fell 57-12 as Longview locked up the 9A championship. The Lobos bested Lufkin, 19-0, in bi-district and topped Temple, 19-12, in state quarterfinal play. Conroe provided little opposition in a 34-0 semifinal whitewash. It was Longview's fifth shutout of the year.

Highway 80 would be a flood of automobiles for the 130-mile trail-ride west to Fair Park and the shiny new Cotton Bowl. Longview had fought behind three times in its first 13 games and the title tilt would be no different.

Wichita Falls jumped out to a 12-0 lead in the opening quarter, leaving Longview with a sizable hole to dig out of. Dick Miller got the Lobos on the board with a second quarter 55-yard punt return.

The Coyotes took a 12-7 lead to the half and maintained that advantage through the third quarter. Frank LeBus and Dick Miller brought the Lobo contingent to their feet in the fourth with a go-ahead 53-yard TD. Raymond Cantrell pushed his way across from two yards out late in the final period to provide the final margin of difference.

Charlie LeBus, now 68, becomes emotional and tears up when talking of his dad's days with the '37 Lobos. His ultimate wish is to one day to add a ticket to the frame, which houses in addition to his grandmother's ducat, the football jersey worn by his father along with the letter "L" from his lettermen's sweater.

"I kept the ticket in '97 and both times in '08 and '09. I'm trying to get another ticket," Lebus said, fighting back emotions. "I'd say dad and the whole '37 team will have them a seat on the front row Saturday."