6 man History

I found an article in the 11/5/1943 Comanche Chief about Blanket playing a 6 man game with Comyn the week before. This was probably the first 6 man game Blanket played.
 
If any denizens of Gustine or Sidney are on here, if you have access to old annuals from 1943-1945, there were a lot of scheduled games that had no mention of scores in the Comanche Chief in those years. Also, Blanket has a lot of unfilled scores in those years.
 
Sidney, Gustine, and Comyn were perfect examples of the mechanization of agriculture after WW2 drastically dropping the populations of small towns. Larger farms with less help needed to run them sent the ag workers off to the local large towns looking for work. From the few articles in the Comanche paper about them in the 1930's and early 1940's, they would regularly get 20-25 kids out for football every year.
 
So 1958 was the first year where teams with enrollement less than 100 could choose between 6 or 8 man. What district was the experimental district in 1957?:)
 
1958 was the first year of sanctioned UIL 8-Man football. Liberty Hill and Smiley played an 8-man game in 1957 and those two teams were in Distirct 12 8-man in 1958...so Im guessing some teams in that district, if not all of them were your "experimental district in 1957"

1958 8-Man District 12: Buckholts, Hutto, Kyle, Liberty Hill (didnt play), Pflugerville, Prairie Lea (think they discountined their season in 58 at some point), Smiley

Pflugerville won district, regional (bi-district was a bye)
 
Your real close. The experimental district was District 22-B. It consisted of Hutto, Kyle, Nordhelm, Pflugerville, Prairie Lea and Smiley.

Yes some of districts 22-B non-district games were played as 8-man as well. Mostlikely as promotional for the game.

The UIL stated that they wanted to make a move to 8-man. The Director of the UIL stated that it was harder to get referees for 6 man. Also, said the rules of 8-man were generally the same as "normal play" (reffering to 11-man). further he stated, that the 8-man game appeared that it would spread to the other Districts quickly.

Kerville Mountain Sun, September 12, 1957

:)
 
The last 8-man game played in texas was the 1975 Six and EIght annual Coaching school. It was suppose to be in Brownwood that year.
 
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