MHS State Grid Champs In '48
    Lobos Won 35 Games, Lost Only Two Over Three Year Span'46-'48
        The Monahans News ~~ July 16, 1962

A town by the name of Monahans should call its football team the "Fighting Irish," most anybody would agree, and their colors couldn't be anything but green and white. 

But such was not the case here when the Monahans school has its first football team in 1928.  The colors were purple and gold and the team was called Panthers or Wild cats, according to the, recollection of Bruse Jordan and H. A "Ducky" Clements, members of that first team.  Home games were played on a vacant lot in the north side of town and the only grass was grass burs. they recall.

Marvin Thomas, a graduate of Hardin-Simmons, coached the team in 1928 and 1929 but football was dropped in 1930 and 1931.

In 1932 the schooled resumed the sport, changed its colors to green and white and called themselves the Lobos.  Also W. T. Powell took over as Coach and was assisted by "Stubby" Stubblefield who was not on the school payroll but was just interested in helping the boys.  He now lives in Pecos and is the brother of Leona Stubblefield, local post employee.  

During these early years of the grid sport in Monahans there was generally no more then 13 or 14 boys on the squad and sometimes they played "outlaw" ball each team permitted by agreement to use a couple or three players who were not in school.   

Victories were few and far between, the early ball players recall and the Lobos' efforts were still not crowned with much success during the regime of Toby Greer, a Texas Tech graduate, who succeeded Powell as Head coach.  

In 1939, Roger Cundiff, a graduate of Kentucky Wesleyan, replaced Greer and the Lobo Fortunes took a turn for the better. The Lobos were still not all victorious but they became a power to be reckoned with and in 1941 Monahans won its first district championship.

During the late '30s, the team was sometimes referred to as the Lobos and sometimes as the Green Wave and by this time Monahans also has started playing a Junior High gird schedule.  These youngsters were referred to in the Monahans News as the Green Ripple, a name that has stuck to this date.

When World War II came along and Cundiff was called into service with the Navy but his assistant, Milton McCleskey, was made head coach.  At the end of the 1945 season McCleskey resigned to becomes junior high principal and F.O. Scroggins, who had been his assistant, took over as head man.

For the next three years'46 thru '48 the Lobos were the scourge of West Texas grid circles, winning 35 games and losing only two.  The 1946 record was 11 wins including the regional title against one loss.  In 1947 the Lobos won nine and lost one to Seminole.  And in 1948 the Monahans boys won 15 straight games to sweep to the class "A" State Championship.

At this time there was only two major divisions or classifications in the Texas Interscholastic League athletic program Class A and Class A.  The Class "A" group included those with high school enrollment up to 500 were in Class "AA" while the very small schools played 6man football.