Saturday's Yates-Wheatley game marks 80th anniversary

(11/02/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- It all started back in 1927 -- the first meeting between Yates and Wheatley, which also happened to be Wheatley's first game.

Yates would win that first battle, but there would be many more over the next 80 years.

"My dad, he turned 80 about a month ago and he's a Yates graduate, and he tells me all the stories about the Yates-Wheatley Turkey Day Classic," current Yates coach Clarence McKinney said.

McKinney, like his dad, is also a Yates graduate. McKinney quarterbacked the Lions back in '87 and '88. That's McKinney, No. 10. He knows what it means to beat Wheatley. He learned from his dad what it meant back in the day.

"I think both teams were having their homecomings during that time and he would tell me this story about Ms. (Phyllis) Wheatley coming in a limousine and Ms. Yates upstaging her, coming out in a helicopter," McKinney said.

"I had never seen anything like that before at a football game," Wheatley coach Eldridge Small recalled of is playing days. "The stadium was jam-packed. You had people standing around on tracks." Small was athlete of the year at Wheatley back in 1968. He played against Yates back when the game was held on Thanksgiving Day. He remembers the crowds, the pageantry, the halftimes.

People came from all over the state. People were flying to the game in helicopters and landing on the field. It was an extraganza there. And I loved it," Small said.

"The game was OK. But the activities before the game and after the game were just magnificent,".

The Lions and Wildcats are ready to make new memories Saturday night.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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