SAN SABA, Texas — San Saba High School's football team is unique in that it is the only football team in the U.S. called "The Armadillos." But, there is something else really unique about the team... they plan on Friday nights on a graveyard.
San Saba was founded in 1854. It soon had a population of roughly 800. Any town that size, especially in that time, needed a graveyard. One was developed and soon people were laid to rest there. By 1878, county commissioners stopped all burials at that cemetery and established another.
The old cemetery had been donated, so the land went back to the original owner, who in turn donated it to a church, with the understanding they would maintain it. The agreement also called for the land to revert to the original owner if the church didn't maintain it.
The church let the property go, soon cattle and goats were grazing on it, trash was being dumped there and it became overgrown with weeds. The family of the original owner took the land back and asked the families of everyone buried there to claims their remains re-bury their loved ones at the new cemetery.
Most claimed their family members and reburied them, but not everyone. Since the headstones had been knocked over and moved around by the cattle, no one really knows how many graves were not moved. In the meantime, the original owners donated the land to the school, which moved a few remaining graves...then built Rogan Field.
For the past 80+ years, the San Saba high school football team has played here. It has affectionately become known as "The Graveyard!" When former UT quarterback Colt McCoy's father was head coach, he hung a sign reading "Welcome to the Graveyard" over the opposing team's locker room.
The sign didn't set well with some, so it was removed. Now, it proudly hangs over the entrance to Rogan Field. The community has embraced the name and even has fun with it by placing fake headstones at the end of the endzone. They also have something they call "The Graveyard Effect."
Players and coaches say it happens often...a player, mostly on the opposing team will be in the open and for some inexplainable reason, trip and fall. "Self tacklization" is what former head coach Ronnie Schulze calls it. Schulze has coached here for 47 years and says he has seen it more times than he can count.
But it not just opposing teams! Levi Glover, a senior on ths year's team says he's had it happen to him more times than he's like to admit. Glover says it goes through his mind every time it happens. And apparently it's not just players. Tara Tharp is a former Armadillos cheerleader.
Tharp says one night, during a game the squad was doing backflips across the field, and out of nowhere she fell. Tharp says "It had to be a spirit"... then laughed at herself! It is part of their history now, and something everyone embrasses.
Former player Jake Lackey says in a way, they are paying tribute to the people under the field. He says if they hadn't have built their stadium, it might be houses or a commercial building. Now, it's a memorial of sorts to people who would have been long forgotten...if it hadn't been for "The Graveyard."