SLC Article in the Houston Chronicle

UNTLifer · December 15, 2006

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Dec. 14, 2006, 11:28PM

Years of the Dragons

From the countryside near Fort Worth, a dynasty called Southlake Carroll has risen up to dominate the Texas postseason

By DALE ROBERTSON

RESOURCES

OTHER 5A DYNASTIES

• Austin Reagan (1967-68, '70): The Raiders were the last powerhouse before Texas football integrated.

• Converse Judson (1992-93, '95): The Rockets also played for the 1996 and '98 Division I titles and won again in 2002. They were runners-up to Euless Trinity last year.

• Odessa Permian (1965, '72, '80, '84*, '89, '91): The Panthers' "Mojo" never produced back-to-back titles, but were mythical national champs in 1972 and '89.

* — Shared with Beaumont French after a 21-21 tie.

SOUTHLAKE - Save for the six seasons he was with the Oilers, Mike Renfro had spent his adolescence and adult life in Tarrant County, residing in or around Fort Worth, where he'd been a sure-handed wide receiver for TCU.

Nonetheless, the community of Southlake wasn't on his radar screen until he drove out this way about a decade ago to check out a piece of property he'd heard about.

"Truthfully," Renfro said, "I'd never heard of the place."

But what he found here in the far northeastern corner of the county impressed him. The countryside south of the Grapevine Reservoir was perfect horse country, which mattered, because he had several that needed pasturing. Massive upscale development was already encroaching on the rolling hills from all directions, but the Carroll Independent School District's exploding tax revenues had built some beautiful new facilities and had earned a reputation for both academic and athletic excellence.

That also was important to Renfro because his two young sons wanted to follow his football footsteps, just as he had with his father Ray, a longtime receiver for the Cleveland Browns.

Renfro bought five acres just down the road from Carroll High School. Behind the spread was a potholed landing strip with a weather-beaten sign that read, "Land at your own risk." Danny White, Renfro's quarterback when he finished up with the Dallas Cowboys, flew in one afternoon to visit.

"Today, there's 600 new houses back there," he said. "The runway's long gone."

Renfro's oldest boy, Clint, would grow up to play for Southlake Carroll's back-to-back state and mythical national championship teams in 2004-05, earning a scholarship to TCU in the process. And Clint's little brother, Ford, is a backup receiver for the current Dragons, who play Allen at Texas Stadium on Saturday seeking a fifth consecutive berth in a Class 5A title game.

No Texas school at the highest classification has reached the final five years running since Waco High did it in the 1920s, when there was only one division. Riding a 46-game winning streak, Carroll also hopes to become the first top-level school to win a fourth title in five seasons.

With roughly 2,600 students split over two campuses one for freshmen and sophomores, the other for juniors and seniors — it barely qualified for the 5A Division I bracket this year after winning Division II championships in 2004-05.

Affluent community

Southlake separated from its neighboring suburbs, Keller and Colleyville, only by traffic lights — has a population of 25,000, with a median household income of $135,000. The median price of a home exceeds $350,000. African-Americans make up fewer than 2 percent of the population, a ratio reflected in the Dragons' roster. Star running back Tré Newton is black, but his father, Nate, is the former Cowboys lineman.

When Southlake incorporated in 1956, the local population was barely 500. There was no town per se, just farms and ranches and a few solitary houses. Barely 15 years ago, the main drag, FM 1709, was a bumpy two-lane blacktop.

"We had a Food Lion (grocery story) and, I think, a McDonald's when we moved here in 1992," said Tom Dunaway, a software sales executive who was transferred into the area by IBM, which had built a sprawling complex nearby. "You saw more cows than people."

Today, FM 1709 is East Southlake Boulevard, a seven-lane expanse of concrete, on the flanks of which seemingly every franchise in the United States has a storefront. The dozens of trendy boutiques and restaurants that jam the chic new Town Center — designed to look like an old town center with its tasteful red brick and stone motif — aren't quite Rodeo Drive opulent, but they're close.

For better or worse, the ostentatious trappings of suburban consumer culture in America are unabashedly displayed. These days, branch brokerage houses, day spas and plastic surgery clinics outnumber feed stores and beer joints 10 to 1. Try to find a dive to talk a little Dragons football and you wind up in the Farpointe Wine Bar, where the retail shop is out of a $78 bottle of Châteauneuf-de-Pape a noted oenophile critic had gone gaga over.

The Dragons, by and large, are children of privilege. The team parking lot is full of large accessorized pickups and even a smattering of luxury sports cars. However, while most concede the players are "rich kids," to hear the townspeople speak about their young green-and-black-clad heroes, none of them are spoiled rich kids.

"The coaches and the parents keep them really well-grounded," said Jerry Vossen, who runs a New Balance shoe and sports apparel store on 1709. "Garrett Hartley (a former Southlake kicker who's now an Oklahoma Sooner) came in to apply for a job. He answered every one of my questions with 'Yes, sir' or 'No, sir.' That's the way they all are."

Overachieving players

Although 10 Dragons were offered scholarships to Division I universities last season, Southlake players tend to be viewed as overachievers, for which the parents deserve a share of the credit. Because mom and dad are highly motivated and success-oriented, the kids tend to follow suit.

Also, the regimented Carroll "system," which fosters football excellence from middle school on, has been in place since Bob Ledbetter coached the Dragons to three 3A state championships between 1988 and 1993.

Todd Dodge has further polished the pipeline in his seven seasons as the Southlake coach. A former Port Arthur Jefferson passing legend — he was the first Texas high school player to throw for more than 3,000 yards in a season — and Texas Longhorns quarterback, Dodge is responsible for the Dragons' early 21st-century dynasty.

But his decision to accept the University of North Texas head-coaching job presents a new challenge to Southlake's dynasty. Announced Tuesday, it roiled the community, especially parents of freshmen and sophomores who were eagerly waiting their opportunity to take charge of Dodge's sophisticated spread passing attack, an updated version of the old run-and-shoot.

On to North Texas

Some argue Dodge is making a sideways move, or even a step backward. He won't be on payday, though. As celebrated as he has become in building Southlake football into a Texas behemoth, he hasn't busted the high-school pay scale. His salary, less than $100,000, is said to be increasing fivefold in the move to Denton.

For all of Dodge's high-tech offensive gadgets, making 40-plus point explosions routine, Renfro thinks the coach's greatest feat has been to keep a group of teenagers who are bombarded daily by myriad distractions and temptations focused solely on the next game, season after season after season.

"We're teased by the other communities in the area about living in a bubble up here, with our high tax rates, million-dollar homes and lots of successful people," said Renfro, who is the director of business development for the Lone Star Park horse track in Grand Prairie. "But the bubble (Dodge) has created can be an awesome advantage.

"His thing about protecting the tradition, one of his big sayings, keeps (the players) on track because nobody wants to be the one to mess it all up. Nobody wants to lose."

A show of solidarity

So the players, seemingly ever at risk of becoming too full of themselves, stay humble and keep pulling together, in the same direction. In a show of solidarity, most of them dye their hair blond once the playoffs start.

"What amazes me is how they're always on their game," said Dunaway, who played football in high school. "I remember what I was like at 17, 18."

Dunaway calls himself a fairly typical Dragon fan. Although his son, a Texas A&M sophomore, was never on the team at Carroll, Dunaway rarely missed a home game then and he still doesn't. All of Southlake, not just the players' family members, seems to have taken a devout proprietary interest in Carroll's football success.

Expansion needed

The 11,000-seat Dragons Stadium, as state of the art as a high school venue can be, needs expanding five seasons after it opened. The Southlake playoff games at Texas Stadium will all attract far bigger crowds than Dodge is likely to see anytime soon at North Texas. One, against 5A Division I defending champion Trinity, drew more than 50,000, with a paid gate of 46,000.

When the kids move on, their fathers tend to remain dedicated boosters. Warren Davis' son played for Ledbetter in the early 1990s, but he stayed active in the program as a charter member of the Dragon Council. The nine men on the council, all retirees, volunteer their time to run errands for the coaches and assist at every Carroll sporting event. They're fixtures at football practice.

It was Davis, another former IBM man, who first took Dodge under his wing when he arrived in 2000 and got off to a rocky start, dropping his first three games. The Carroll mystique back then wasn't over the top like it is today, but the Ledbetter era (1979-95) fostered high expectations in its own right.

Losing doesn't compute

"Coach, I've got your back," Davis said he told Dodge after the first defeat. "I told him that after the second one, too. After the third one, I said, 'Coach, I've still got your back, but you need to understand something. The people around here don't know how to spell 'lose.' So you better get things fixed in a hurry.' "

Dodge did. The Dragons finished 9-5 and made the playoffs. Going back to 2002, they have lost just once in 62 starts, in the 2003 state championship game, when Hartley missed a field goal that let Katy escape with a 16-15 victory.

Now, with Dodge departing, the Dragon Nation hopes coaching is only one component of its mighty machine.

"As a guy who knows a little about football," Renfro said, "I've got a lot of respect for Todd Dodge. And a lot of these parents, certainly those who live through their kids from an athletic perspective, have been looking forward to their sons playing for him. So, sure, they're upset and disappointed, same as some of the kids are. But, believe me, that program will survive."

Both the quarterback, Dodge's son Riley, and the explosive Newton are juniors, and Dragon fans brag that the current freshman class is the best in school history.

And further. ...

"Every 5-year-old in Southlake today," Dunaway said, "is already dreaming of being a Dragon, of growing up to experience the glory."

dale.robertson@chron.com

Edited December 15, 2006 by UNTLifer

Eagle1855 · December 15, 2006

I just read this a few minutes ago. The whole article is all about Southlake, with any mention of North Texas limited to a couple digs

Some argue Dodge is making a sideways move, or even a step backward.

This is just an asinine statement. If someone can explain to me how a Div 1 coaching job is any step but forward, I'd love to hear it.

PlummMeanGreen · December 15, 2006

I just read this a few minutes ago. The whole article is all about Southlake, with any mention of North Texas limited to a couple digs
This is just an asinine statement. If someone can explain to me how a Div 1 coaching job is any step but forward, I'd love to hear it.
←

Our hiring of Todd Dodge has really affected some people all walks of life across the entire state of Texas in some strange (and almost funny) ways.

You see, people, many of these "jack-a-lope acting" media types know we are a school just waiting for the right combination of staff to bust out wide open from our "non-BCS'ish" type cocoon and awaken what Hayden Fry still today calls "a sleeping giant." I think that sleeping giant has one foot on the floor as of last week's special announcement.

The main differences now compared to the Fry era is that most of our present "green at the gills" critics are aware that we do (in deed) have the kind constituency located in and around a 25 mile radius of our alma mater's college town location to create something very, very special and at the NCAA D1-A level.

In fact, once we do build our new 35-45,000 seat football palace out at the Mean Green Village to be located right smack dab in the middle on property between 2 major Texas interstates, many of these Negative Ned'sters freely scribing all their cute little snippets non-stop now will suddenly become Bobby Bandwagon-ers toward our athletic program and will write that they knew we could do this all the time.

As my friend SUMG recently said, "even Rick Neuheisel could not have created so much a media frenzy as new UNT Coach Todd Dodge has!" FWIW, and having been an earlier supporter of R.N. as our possible new HFC, I now totally concur with what John and many of you are saying about this exciting new hire in Mean Green Country.

Due note: No big letters in this posts for me to color inside all their lines!

GMG!

Edited December 15, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

foutsrouts · December 15, 2006

I just read this a few minutes ago. The whole article is all about Southlake, with any mention of North Texas limited to a couple digs
This is just an asinine statement. If someone can explain to me how a Div 1 coaching job is any step but forward, I'd love to hear it.
←

If he were moving from say Kingwood H.S. to the University of Houston I don't think he would be making that ridiculous comment. Ive always disliked that jerk!

FirefightnRick · December 15, 2006

Poor Tom Rapp. He was the coach in between Ledbetter and Dodge but because he slipped up a couple of years(compared to BL and TD) he's completely left out. I have read about 6 reports from different papers around the country that gives the impression that TD took Ledbetter's team and continued to win and that just isn't the case. By the time TD got to Southlake the last group of kids to play for BL were in their early 20's.

Rick