Paul Tyson Field in Waco, Texas, stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of one of the state's most influential high school football coaches. From its namesake's remarkable career to the field's recent relocation, this article delves into the rich history and future plans of this iconic sports venue.
Paul Leighton Tyson (October 25, 1886 - September 9, 1950) was an American football coach. He was one of the most successful high school football coaches of all time, winning four Texas state championships and one national championship in the 1920s.
The Early Years and Tyson's Rise to Prominence
A native of Arkansas, Tyson enrolled at Addison-Randolph College in Waco, Texas, (later re-founded as Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas) in 1904, intending to become a doctor. the team the next week and made the starting line-up. He also lettered in baseball.
In 1908, Tyson graduated from Addison-Randolph, and went to Pritzker School of Medicine in Chicago to study medicine. Returning to Texas, Tyson taught biology in Tyler to supplement his income while studying medicine. Though starting his career with a 1-3-2 season in 1913, Tyson's Waco teams did not have a losing season in the following 27 years under his guidance.
His 27 year record is 205 victories, 42 defeats and 16 ties. His overall score was 8069 points to opponents 971. Paul Tyson’s “Golden Years” were from 1921 through 1927 with 80 victories, 2 defeats, and 2 ties. Undefeated in 1921; 526- 0. 1922 State Champions. 1923 State Finalist. 1924 State Finalist. 1925, 1926, and 1927 - 3 State Championships. 1927 National Mythical Champions. His score in 1927 was 783-33, 14 victories and 0 defeats. The total score for the seven year period was 3,809 points to opponents 147.
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Their dominance, however, truly began in the 1920s. Waco played six straight championship games between 1922 and 1927, losing only two. In a time when most teams relied on a basic offense run out of a short punt formation, Tyson revolutionized offensive tactics, developing a series of plays out of the single-wing formation, where one or both of the two backs receiving the snap would spin and cross paths with the remaining backs and ends.
Tyson's teams were also known for their defense. Playing only a regular-season schedule, the 1921 team was the first of three squads to allow no points in a season. From 1921 to 1927, Waco had 58 shutouts. The 3-0 state title loss to Abilene High School in 1923 was Waco's only scoring blemish.
Even before the mythical national championship, Tyson was a national figure. He attended and spoke at football clinics all over the country. Knute Rockne and Pop Warner routinely sought his opinions on offensive philosophy, and he was a favorite of reporters, who found him charismatic and humble and openly campaigned for major universities to hire him.
Despite receiving several offers to coach college football teams, Tyson had no interest in leaving Waco. He attended and spoke at football clinics all over the country.
As the Tigers went through pre-game drills, Tyson strolled the field, studying the uneven terrain, looking for bare spots or wet grass, anything that might give his team an edge. he never left anything to chance. After Oak Cliff gave the Tigers their only good game in 1921, losing just 21-0, Tyson had one of his coaches scout every one of Oak Cliff's games the next year, at a time when no one scouted games.
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Tyson didn't cuss or swear or even raise his voice. Sometimes he'd challenge one of the boys to a race and give him a 10-yard head start. If the boy was particularly fast, he'd give him five yards.
He never lost. "He knew how to handle boys," Dudgeon said. "He believed in discipline. If you started cussing, you didn't play the next game. If you made an error, he'd call you over. He'd call you "Boy' or "Kid.' "Boy,' he'd say, 'this is what you did wrong. I know you can do better.'"
And you could."He had some stars. Ben Lee Boynton, an All-America in college, played for him, and one of Boynton's teammates was Leo R. "Dutch" Meyer, who would go on to fame as coach at TCU. John Drew "Boody" Johnson, considered by some old-timers the greatest all-around high school player ever, played for Waco from 1921-23.
The Tigers played at the old Cotton Palace in the '20s, Baylor's home field, too, and they regularly outdrew the Bears with crowds of 12,000 to 15,000. Fans once rewarded one of Tyson's state championships by sending him to the Rose Bowl. After the '27 national championship game against Latin High of Cleveland, they presented him with 75 percent of the net receipts, or $6,000. He had no need for such a great sum. He lived in the YMCA for years and paid $15 a month in rent.
He made $250 a month as a biology teacher and coach. What would he do with $6,000? Someone told him he should buy a Packard straight-8, which went for an astronomical $3,500. He'd never owned a car. He didn't even know how to drive one. He bought the Packard, though, and his players gave him lessons.
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Since 1919, he attended coaching schools at Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Ouchita College, Colorado, Stanford, Northwestern, Baylor, SMU, TCU, Nebraska and other colleges. From Pop Warner at Stanford, he refined a play out of the single wing in which the quarterback would take a snap, spin to one of three backs crossing behind him and hand off or keep the ball for a run or pass.
The "spinner" play proved devastating in 1927. Defenses had no idea where the ball was going, particularly poor Jeff Davis, whose coach said after the 124-point defeat, "They would have beaten a good college team today."
Friends began to wonder if Tyson could coach one. An executive at The Dallas Morning News wrote Knute Rockne in the spring of '27, asking him to recommend Tyson for an opening in the Southwest Conference.
Rockne complied a few days later. He called Tyson, whom he had met at his coaching schools in Dallas, "one of the finest coaches I ever met, college or high school" and said he was "as capable from every angle as most any of the college coaches I know."
Because of the close relationship between Tyson and Rockne, a rumor circulated that he had accepted a position on Rockne's staff in 1931, just a few weeks before Rockne's plane crashed in a Kansas field.
Tyson later told Thomas Turner, who grew up from Hillsboro to head The News' Central Texas bureau, that Rockne never actually offered him a job.
"But he made it plain," Tyson told Turner, "that anytime I wanted to leave Waco and join his staff, he'd be glad to have me."
As it turned out, Tyson took a sabbatical in 1931 anyway, going to Stanford for a year to study under Warner. He came back in '32 to Waco teams that weren't as dominant anymore.
Other coaches, studying his methods, started to catch up. He had one more great team, reaching the state finals in 1939 against Lubbock. The Tigers lost, 20-14. The next season, Waco went 3-6-1, Tyson's first losing season since 1913. He brought the team back to 8-2 in '41, just missing the district title.
The Controversial Dismissal
In spring 1942, the Waco school board suddenly and unanimously voted to fire Tyson after an 8-2 season, two removed from a year he took the Tigers to the state finals. No reason was given.
Four months later, the school board met and asked Tyson for his resignation. He refused. So the seven-member board met again the next night in executive session, voting unanimously to fire him. Assistant coach Clyde Martin also was fired, and principal G.M. Smith was reassigned as a classroom instructor.
New Paul Tyson Field dedicated at Waco High School: March 4, 2022
Newspaper reports indicated that the board fired Tyson because it'd been more than a decade since the Tigers were regular state title contenders. He'd spoiled them, defenders said. Some said it was because, at 55, he was too old, or that he'd made enemies with a board member.
But, for any of those reasons, it seemed unthinkable: How could Waco High fire Paul Tyson, the man who revolutionized Texas high school football and may have been its greatest coach?
Some said it was just evidence of his affection for his players. Others said they were signs of something darker.
The rumors got so bad that Tyson even instigated an investigation to clear himself. But it did nothing to stop the whispers, which grew too loud for the board.
"I'm sure that's true," said Bob McCollum, 78, a star of Tyson's '39 state finalist team. "The rumors just followed him, and the school board got all they could stomach. it all the time, and they just fired him to pacify all the people raising trouble."
Dudgeon, who later served on the school board, said he went back through meeting notes and found no records to indicate why the board acted as it did. Turner, who researched the story for The News, said the board apparently fired the principal for defending Tyson.
Turner said he never found any evidence of sexual abuse by Tyson. He talked to scores of players, and a couple said they thought Tyson was gay but offered no proof.
Most of the players acted as if they wanted to fight him for asking."There was absolutely no proof," Turner said. in town, and no one could prove anything. George W. Bush is going through now with the drug rumors. got out of control, and he couldn't stop it. older and a little seedy, a little out of it. stubborn person, and he wouldn't change his ways."
It was a sad ending."
Later Years and Legacy
Tyson never got over his dismissal. Neither did his players. club. homesickness for his hometown of Santa Anna.
Tyson took a job as an instructor at Dallas' Woodrow Wilson High in 1942, then spent three mediocre seasons as football coach at Beaumont South Park. He went back to Dallas in 1946 as football coach and athletic director at Jesuit College Prep. But he left after a year, claiming poor health. He seemed like an old man to Eddie Joseph, a sophomore tailback on Jesuit's team in '46. Joseph spent some time in the hospital in the spring of '46 with a broken leg, and Tyson came by to visit him every night.
"He would draw a crowd, especially all the older people," said Joseph, now director of the Texas High School Coaches Association. "He talked about the old days and the great ballgames. He was a fine, neat old man."
Joseph remembered that and Tyson's "big old playbook. He tried to run all those great plays that he'd done in his career. And it was just too much. His repertoire was too great for us."
As for the rumors, Joseph said he didn't hear any until after Tyson left Jesuit. Like the rest, he said there was no proof.
From Jesuit, Tyson went to Westminster College in Tehuacana as an instructor. He stayed two years before accepting a job as football coach at Daniel Baker College in Brownwood, a school with a history as one of the worst programs in Texas college football.
He went 2-6-2 in 1949. He couldn't have enjoyed it much. Since he was fired in 1941, he'd never strayed too far from Waco. In 1948, as the Tigers were on their way to another state championship, Tyson would appear a...
In 1955, Coach Tyson was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
Relocation of Paul Tyson Field
Several athletic fields near Waco High School will be relocated to make room for the expansion of the Extraco Events Center. Waco ISD recently signed off on an agreement to do a land swap between McLennan County and the City of Waco for the project to move forward.
Paul Tyson Field will be demolished and rebuilt where the City's Cobb Recycling Center and some of the Lake Air Little League fields stand. The Lake Air Little League and Challenger fields will also be relocated to make room for the new buildings. The addition will allow the Heart O'Texas Fairgrounds to improve livestock activities and add space for athletic tournaments.
"They're going to get a facilities for livestock shows, where they can host youth volleyball and basketball. Our athletes, soccer, track athletes and middle school athletes will get a new facility and then ball players will get a whole new set of fields," Waco ISD School Board of Trustees President Pat Atkins said.
In 2017, voters approved an increase of the hotel-motel occupancy tax and rental car tax to fund the $34.1 million project. Atkins said students will be able to continue using the Paul Tyson field, which has a 9,000 seating capacity, for soccer practice, track and middle school sports until the new track and soccer complex is built.
The county will pay $2.4 million on the new stadium that will have a 500 seating capacity. Waco ISD plans to discuss paying to include additional seating and locker rooms.
According to Waco ISD, during construction of the new fields, players will be able to use the existing fields.
Waco Spokesman Larry Holze said the city plans to choose another location to replace the recycling center. There is no timeline currently for the demolition and construction of new facilities.