FANTASY

A GROUP OF W.T. WHITE HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI PUT ASIDE EVERYTHING TO RELIVE THEIR GLORY DAYS

Story by LISA KRESL

Photography by MICHAEL AINSWORTH

Didknow?you

You can support W.T. White High School’s athletic program by emailing Athletic Director Tony Johnson at tonyfjohnson@ dallasisd.org.

It was the mid-’90s all over again when 60 middle-aged Longhorn football players took the field at Alfred J. Loos Stadium this past summer. The athletes ordered matching Nike jerseys and shorts for the occasion. Four cheerleaders chanted V-I-C-T-O-R-Y. Coach Chas Briscoe led the old boys onto the field, congratulating them on the men they had become.

The scene was out of a high school football playbook. “The guys played rough like they were still in high school, and they are so competitive,” says Angela Baird Arredondo, who was a W.T. White Longhorn cheerleader in 1994.

She balanced a fellow former cheerleader on her shoulders during the game.

“There were lots of tumbles, lots of falls, lots of tackles, and it was supposed to be flag football. I cannot believe no one got seriously injured.”

It was current W.T. White athletic director and coach Tony Johnson, along with alumnus Samori Brown, who proposed a “flag-football” reunion as a way to inspire Longhorns from their generation to support the school and its students. They plan to make it an annual event. Meet some of the reunion-goers, what they were like in high school and how they live now.