Lockhart Lions sports history

By Harry Hilgers                 

    Since I am 98 years old, a former football player for Lockhart, and a former football coach, myself, I am qualified to name the best players and the best coaches in Lockhart Lions history.  Here goes:

1. Billy Chesser.  Great running back, very elusive. In the late thirties.

2. Ralph “Rooster” Roberts.  A big, strong, tackle.  Would have been a college player but joined the Navy.

3. David Smith.  Fine quarterback that was a good one at A&M. Our first good passer.

4. J.B. Harris. A big, bruising runner who enjoyed hitting defenders. Played in 1943

5. Caldwell Lester.  A punter so good was later a player for LSU.

6. Dee  Powell  One of the very best tackles to ever play for the Lions. Later, an assistant at Alabama under his college coach, Bear Bryant.

7. Isadore Zaleski. A tough, Polish boy who is still one of the best runners in our history.

8. Don Pfefferkorn. Outstanding halfback on a great team in 1947. Beat our rival New Braunfels 47 to 0. 

9. Don Hewlett. Travis Raven was his coach, the same coach that later led Reagan of Austin to the first National Championship.  Don was a good passer.

10. Eugene “Hoot” Masur.  The best Coach in our history and a Lockhart boy to boot. Coached here in the 19 thirties before moving on to other towns.

11. Travis Raven.  The best Coach in the later years, the fifties.  Later, coached the only National Champion, Reagan Raiders. 

   We have one boy who is still the only one that is in the Longhorn Hall of Honor.  Tom Gambrell, Capt. of the 1915 baseball team who was the only player in NCAA history to hit “Back to Back” or consecutive home runs, one right handed and the next one, left handed.  That is a record that has never been duplicated and likely never will be. Tom was my father in law.  We also have another man who is in the Hall of Honor not as a player but as a Coach.  Lan Hewlett, U.T.s first “brain coach” who was the man responsible for keeping players eligible at a time when that was not only necessary, but vital to the team’s winning record. His primary and first assignment was to keep Earl Campbell eligible.  Before that, he was a Science Teacher at Lockhart High School and former player for the Lockhart Lions.  I suspect, but don’t know, that we might be the only town that has two boys in the Longhorn Hall of Honor.