- SO LONG SHOTWELL: A son of Abilene’s reflections – by Lance Fleming
- SO LONG SHOTWELL: A view from the sideline – by Ron Hadfield
- SO LONG SHOTWELL: The greatest show in town – by Garner Roberts
- SO LONG SHOTWELL: Mud, sweat and tears – by Grant Boone
ACU’s 57-year history at Shotwell began with a delay of game. After using Fair Park as their home field for a dozen years after World War II, the Wildcats were scheduled to host Lamar University (then called Lamar Tech) on Oct. 3, 1959, at the brand-new facility originally known as Public Schools Stadium. But a downpour that Saturday soaked the city and the stadium’s natural grass surface. So to keep the new sod from being trampled under the heavier foot of college-sized players, the game was moved to the old digs at Fair Park where the Wildcats lost to Lamar, 8-7, on what Optimist reporter Royce Caldwell called “a sea of mud.”
Three straight road games followed on the 1959 schedule, pushing the Wildcats’ debut at Shotwell back to a rather oxymoronic Homecoming date with Trinity University as alumni came home to a place they had never been. Playing what lineman and punter Thurman Neill called “good ole southern football” (“We punted, played it rugged on defense and watched for a break,” Neill said afterward), ACU turned back Trinity, 13-12, getting its tenure at Shotwell off on the right foot. Or feet, specifically those of Neill, who dropped two punts inside the Tigers’ 10-yard line and recovered a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown, and Bill Locke, who scored the other touchdown on a 7-yard run and whose extra point kick provided the winning margin.
ACU found its new home turf to its liking in those early years, going 17-6 at home from 1959 through 1964, including a perfect 5-0 record in 1963 when the Wildcats won their last eight games of the season. The overall win streak stretched to 10 into the second game of 1964 with a 17-11 victory over Texas A&M University-Commerce that saw running back Dennis “The Menace” Hagaman scurry around a soggy Shotwell for a season-high 126 yards, highlighted by a 50-yard touchdown burst and a 32-yard gallop on fourth down to help seal the deal.
That 1964 season was the first football campaign for the brand-new Southland Conference, which ACU co-founded after seven years as an independent. The Wildcats’ first Southland game at Shotwell was a 21-7 loss to Arkansas State University that also was noteworthy for the number of passing yards the home team accrued that day: zero. Six years later to the day, all-America ACU quarterback Jim Lindsey would set a conference record with 414 passing yards and earn a write-up in Sports Illustrated.
But that wasn’t the most memorable game ACU ever played at Shotwell. In fact, it wasn’t even the most memorable that month. The one right before it, a 17-0 Homecoming decision over Texas A&M-Commerce, featured not one, but two record-setting performances. Late in the first quarter, Ove Johansson kicked a 69-yard field goal, which 40 years later is still the longest in football history. In the second quarter, Montgomery passed Walter Payton as college football’s all-time touchdown leader.
The Purple and White’s head coach at the time, Wally Bullington, lost his first game patrolling Shotwell’s sidelines but not many more. A lineman and punter on the Wildcats’ undefeated team in 1950, Bullington took over the program in 1968 and brought with him his former teammate Ted Sitton as offensive coordinator. Together, they ushered the modern passing game into this corner of the college football world where teams generally ascribed to the old adage that only three things can happen when you throw the football, and two of them are bad.
Riding the rocket right arms of Lindsey, Clint Longley and Reese, Bullington won more games at Shotwell (35) than any other ACU head coach, including a perfect 6-0 home mark in 1973 when the Wildcats joined the Lone Star Conference and won the NAIA national championship. Bullington will put a headset back on to help me call ACU’s final game ever at Shotwell this Saturday against Northwestern State University, the school he beat in his first game as the Wildcats’ coach.
Sitton took over for Jones, and Wildcat quarterbacks continued to sling it around Shotwell as ACU and the Lone Star Conference moved from the NAIA ranks to NCAA Division II. Under Sitton’s tutelage, Loyal Proffitt was the LSC’s Freshman of the Year in 1981 and a four-year starter. And on Oct. 29, 1983, at Shotwell, he completed an ACU-record 35 passes and threw for 466 yards and three touchdowns in a 24-10 win over Stephen F. Austin State University, perhaps proving a Proffitt isn’t always without honor in his own hometown.
Odessa native Rex Lamberti took the reins of the ACU offense in 1985, and the Permian High School product brought his own brand of mojo to Shotwell Stadium, off and on, for nearly a decade. In his first two seasons as a starter, Lamberti threw 56 touchdown passes, a then-team record 32 of them coming in 1986. Proving you can go home again, Lamberti was coaxed out of retirement in 1993 by first-year head coach and former Wildcat player Dr. Bob Strader. At the age of 27, Lamberti led ACU to its first winning season since his last year in 1986 and earned all-America honors by tossing 28 more touchdowns to finish as the program’s all-time leader.
In 2007, the Wildcats led the nation in scoring with 49.2 points per game and were second in yards per game. In 2008, they were tops in both categories and produced the first unbeaten regular season since 1950, capping it at Shotwell with a 47-17 rout of Midwestern State University.
What happened next remains nearly impossible to describe almost a decade later. A month after ACU whipped West Texas A&M University, 52-35, on the road, the archrivals met again Nov. 22 at Shotwell in a second round playoff game. With more than a half dozen future pros on the field in what looked like a small-college NFL combine, ACU scored 13 touchdowns in 15 possessions and won, 93-68, obliterating most every scoring record in NCAA history and even outscoring the Wildcat men’s basketball team, which needed two overtimes later that evening to reach 90. Billy Malone threw touchdown passes to six different receivers, leaving Shotwell as ACU’s all-time leader in touchdown passes with 114.
Collums took over for Thomsen in 2012 and, facing hurdles no Wildcat sprinter – much less head football coach – had ever seen, continued to churn out record setting performances and quality young men.
ACU’s final game at Shotwell Saturday will be its last in Abilene of this tedious transition to Division I, meaning the debut at Wildcat Stadium on campus next September will be the first home game in which the Wildcats are finally eligible to make the FCS playoffs.
They say home is where the heart is. And while Shotwell hasn’t been much to look at or even remotely whispered to passersby or guests that it is the home of the Wildcats, it is for better or worse where 12 ACU head coaches, scores of assistants and hundreds of players have left their hearts. For that reason alone, a small piece of our hearts, along with a huge chunk of our history, will always be there.
