1940 Mooringsport High School Football

The 1940-41 school year football team, shown below. At the end of this piece are larger pictures of groups of players taken from this photo to assist with further identification. 

Back Row: McCain, Simpson, Shepherd, Barnes, Riall, Joyce, Cook, Springer, Cogley, 

Coach James Austin (Assistant)

Middle Row: Principal Lloyd E. Walker, Matthews, Gray, Kenneth Dunbar, Little, Flanagan, Bramlett, Scott

Front Row (All L-R): Smith, Collins, Nelson, Neal, Seybert, Ray, Barnes, Harold Colgin, Cook,

Coach J. D. McKellar (Head)

Contributor: Vickie Colgin Gaither

For more information about Coaches McKellar and Austin, see Notable Athletes And Coaches.

What could be found about the schedule is as follows:

Sep-20 - Haughton (T) 0-0

Sep-27 - Bossier City "Kittens" *

Oct-04 - Pelican

Oct-10 - Fair Park "Juniors" *

Oct-18 - Vivian (W) 8-2

Oct-25 - Logansport (W) 18-0

Nov-01 - At Cotton Valley

Nov- 08 - At Oil City (W) 27-0

Nov-29 - At Arcadia (L) 26-0 (District Playoff)

* During this time it was common for the smaller Shreveport area schools to play the junior varsity squads of the much larger city high schools.

A recap of found game results follows. Others may have never been reported in the paper or, due to limitations of optical character recognition (OCR) functioality, do not appear in search results, requiring manual search page-by-page.

Mooringsport 0, Haughton 0 (tie)

Shreveport Times 24-Sep-1940, Page 13


Mooringsport 8, Vivian 2

Times 19-Oct-1940, Page 8


Mooringsport 18, Logansport 0

Times 26-Oct-1940, Page 13


Mooringsport 27, Oil City 0

Note it is mentioned that only two teams have scored on the Oilers all season - Vivian (safety) and Cotton Valley.

Times 09-Nov-1940, Page 14

With the regular season over, the Oilers entered the state playoffs, facing Arcadia in the first round. Their common foe was Haughton, which Mooringsport tied 0-0, while Arcadia defeated the Travelers (later renamed Buccaneers) 23-6. There is a discrepancy with a previous article in that here it is said the team was undefeated with a tie (Haughton). The recap of the Oil City game noted the Oilers had six wins, one loss, and one tie. Perhaps "undefeated" here referred to within their class (B).

Note the playoffs were delayed for several weeks due to an epidemic of infantile paralysis (polio) in the Shreveport area.

Monroe News-Star Times 28-Nov-1940, Page 9


Arcadia 26, Mooringsport 0

Times 30-Nov-1940, Page 12


After the season was over, the All-Northwest Louisiana team was announced. Shepherd and Springer were named to the first team, while McCain made the second squad.

Times 22-Dec-1940, Page 18


To read about the 1932 playoff team, see  An Almost Undefeated Season.

Appendix

Larger views of players. If you know someone's first name, please contact me.

  McCain, Simpson, Shepherd

,  

Barnes, Riall, Joyce

,

Cook, Springer, Cogley

 Matthews, Gray, Dunbar, Little

Flanagan, Sharp, Bramlett, Scott

Smith, Collins, Nelson, Neal

Seybert, Ray, Barnes,

Harold Colgin, Cook

Mentioned in articles but not appearing in the team photo was a player named O'Daniel (no first name given). Given he was a starter, this may have been 17 year-old Rex O'Daniel; or possibly his younger brother Don (shown below), who was a known friend of team member Harold Colgin.

  Contributor: Vickie Colgin Gaither