The Paris News

Farewell old girl, it’s been a good run.

Fans, players and coaches were on hand Friday night to give an impressive sendoff to historic Noyes Stadium.

Almost seven decades of history were highlighted during a 15-minute ceremony following Paris High’s 50-6 thumping of the Bonham Warriors, which was the final varsity game to be played at the 68-year-old stadium.

Most of the fans who attended the game stayed to help bid farewell to Noyes Stadium, which opened in 1941. Six former head football coaches were on hand, along with dozens of former players, cheerleaders and band members.

L.V. Morrow was one of the oldest former Wildcats to witness the final game at Noyes Stadium. The 84-year-old played in the first football game at Noyes Stadium in 1941, so it was fitting that he was on hand for the final one.

“It certainly is a grand stadium, a mighty good place to play football,” Morrow said. “I watched a lot of games here over the years. Sixty-eight years, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.”

Morrow also remembered the 1942 season under longtime coach Raymond Berry that finshed 9-1.

“Coach Berry said that was the best football team he ever coached. We were supposed to win state that year, but we ended up losing one game to Denison.”

Former Paris High coach Phillip Nance did the coin toss prior to the game, using a 1941 half-dollar for the special toss.

Those who could not make it to Friday’s game were there in spirit and their memories were either read or their voices heard on a audio recording that was played during the post-game ceremony.

On that recording, former Paris High coach Allen Wilson recalled a comeback victory at Noyes in 1988 when his Wildcats were down by two touchdowns with two minutes left in a rainstorm against Dallas Thomas Jefferson.

“(Marcus) Cornbread Henderson scored on a 70-yard touchdown on a draw play and we ended up winning that game. That always stuck with me, the condition of the field and the way we came back to win the game. We also went on to win the state championship that year. That’s just one of the memories that stuck with me about playing at Noyes Stadium,” recalled Wilson, who has been coaching at Dallas Carter since 2002 after leaving Paris and guiding John Tyler to a Class 5A state title in 1994.

“I put up a lot of numbers in this stadium,” said Larry Click, a star Wildcat athlete from 1952-54 who went on to play at SMU and briefly in the major leagues. “This is still a nice stadium. I don’t know whether they will tear it down or what they will do with it, but it’s still a nice stadium.”

Longtime Paris High cross country coach and former football and track player Jim Davis is another former player who visits and uses Noyes Stadium, saying it’s his “home away from home.” Davis played for the Wildcats from 1958-61.

Roy Castleberry, a 1953 Wildcat, said, “I was born about two blocks from that stadium and I can remember them pouring the concrete and building it.”

Former head football coaches on hand Friday night were Nance (1967-74), Benton Rainey (1995-2001), Gerald Jack (1975), David Clapp (1994), Bill Hicks (1978-82) and former athletic director/head basketball coach Mike Long.

Former Wildcat and NFL standout Raymond E. Berry was also a part of the ceremony through a recording, as was Gene Stallings, who played for Paris High, coached in the NFL and coached the University of Alabama to a national championship in the 1990s before retiring to his ranch north of town.

“Even though I know we need a new stadium, it’s going to be a little sad for some of us who played there years and years ago,” Stallings said on a recording.

Two former Wildcat players are currently coaching at Paris High and they will help be a part of the move to the new school and stadium in 2010. Bill Sikes and Michael Johnson were both a part of the final game at Noyes as coaches.

“I was one of those watching games in the 1960s at Noyes Stadium. I played at Paris under three different head coaches in the 1970s,” said Sikes, a 1979 Paris High graduate who is currently an assistant football and head baseball coach. “Some of us don’t know anything but Noyes Stadium. There have been too many big games here that I have seen for me to talk about just one. Part of me is sad to see it end here, but there is also excitement about playing in a new stadium.”

Johnson agrees.

“I remember when I was 7 or 8-years-old playing football here. Then to play here when I was at school, it’s a lot of memories for me at Noyes Stadium,” said Johnson, who has been an assistant coach the past 13 years at Paris High, and was on the 1988 state championship football team, and the 1989 state championship baseball team. “I’m a Paris Wildcat, that’s all I know, and this stadium holds a lot of memories for me.”

PISD has been leasing the stadium from Paris Junior College, which no longer plays football. PJC information officer Margaret Ruff said the college has no immediate plans for the stadium other than to hold intramural games there.

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