Earl Austin Jr. is celebrating his 30th year as the sports editor at the St. Louis American. To commemorate the occasion, Earl has put together a list of 30 of the top high school games that he’s witnessed during those 30 years. The third installment is a rivalry day in Mid-October of 1994 when he witnessed two big high school football showdowns. It was Hazelwood East vs. Hazelwood Central and East St. Louis vs. East St. Louis Lincoln.
The day of October 15, 1994 was a memorable one for me during my career of covering high school football.. It was a big “Rivalry Day” with several matchups between long-time adversaries on the schedule. I love those rivalry games.
I had several choices as to which of the games I would attend that day. In my neighborhood in North County, Hazelwood East was playing host to Hazelwood Central. There was a small-school showdown with long-time rivals MICDS and John Burroughs.
Over on the East Side, East St. Louis and East St. Louis Lincoln had a big game scheduled in the still fairly-new Clyde C. Jordan Stadium. The Hazelwood East-Hazelwood Central game is always great and this particular matchup pitted the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the St. Louis area against each other. I have been attending this game for many years.
However, it was the game over in East St. Louis that had me most intrigued. East St. Louis has long been a statewide power in Illinois with many state championships on its resume. However, this East Side team was a little different. The Flyers were a good team, but not quite the juggernaut team of years past. They had suffered two losses and were still trying to get things right after a 61-13 loss to Hazelwood East in Busch Stadium earlier in the season. Meanwhile, their cross-town rivals from Lincoln were fielding one of its best teams in years and they entered the game with supreme confidence. This dynamic made for some interesting banter in the week leading up to the game.
Much of the talk around East St. Louis during game week was that this was the year that Lincoln was going to upend the mighty Flyers. It hadn’t happened since 1978 and the games were not particularly close. East St. Louis was rarely an underdog in football; and especially against Lincoln.
“This wasn’t just an East St. Louis thing, it was an East St. Louis vs. Lincoln thing,” said Maurice Scott, an East Side alum who was also the radio voice of the Flyers games. “The talk was in the barber shots, the gas stations, the McDonald’s. It was everywhere. The Lincoln folks were coming at me all week.”
“There was a lot of talking back and forth, but they felt like they had the edge on us,” said Lawaun Powell, who was East St. Louis’ starting quarterback. “A lot of people thought Lincoln was going to beat us that year. They were very confident.”
I made the final decision to take in two games that day. And I was not disappointed. I started off the afternoon at Hazelwood East for their big showdown with Central. More than 5,000 fans were on hand to see the nationally-ranked Spartans take on their district rivals.
However, I was keeping close tabs on the East Side-Lincoln game while listening to Maurice’s broadcast on my walk-man radio. Another interested observer that day was my friend Bernie Miklasz, the lead columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bernie took a day off from the professional and college sports world to take in some high school football.
As expected, Hazelwood East had a battle on its hands from Central, but the Spartans eventually won 21-9. A 75-yard kick return by junior Ricardo Rhodes sealed the deal for East in the fourth quarter.
At the same time, something was really brewing over on the East Side. Lincoln was really taking it to East St. Louis. Although East Side scored first, the Tigers had taken control of the game and built a nice lead.
Bernie and I were on the same wavelength we both raced to our cars and headed over to East St. Louis. When I walked into Jordan Stadium, what I encountered was a sight to behold.
The stadium was filled to capacity with more than 10,000 strong. One side was filled with East St. Louis fans dressed in blue and orange. On the other side, Lincoln fans dressed in black and orange jammed the bleachers. Fans were also lined up around the track. The Lincoln marching band was putting on a show in the stands. The atmosphere was electric. It was high school football nirvana with a touch of the HBCU experience mixed in..
“It sounded like a NCAA game,” Powell said. “It was exciting to see all of those people in the stadium. Both sides were packed to capacity. It was definitely the place to be in East St. Louis that day.”
What made things more exciting was that Lincoln was leading 19-7 at the end of the third quarter. The Tigers were just 12 minutes away from knocking off East St. Louis for the first time in 16 years. And you can tell the Lincoln fans were tasting it.
However, the Flyers were not ready to throw in the towel and they displayed their championship mettle. Midway through the fourth quarter, Powell hit receiver Rodney Session on a slant pass and the speedy receiver turned upfield and raced to the end zone for a touchdown. The East St. Louis side of the stadium exploded and I can vividly remember legendary head coach Bob Shannon violently pumping his fist with each stride by Session on his way to the end zone.
“When we scored that touchdown, that really pumped us up,” Powell said. “All of the momentum had switched to our side.”
The Flyers defense held strong on the next possession and forced a Lincoln put. The Flyers then put the ball in the hands of their standout tailback Kevin Beard. Despite being a little banged up, Beard became the sole ball carrier. It was Kevin Beard left, Kevin Beard right and Kevin Beard up the middle. The drive ended with Beard’s five-yard touchdown run to give East St. Louis a 21-19 lead.
It was a tremendous comeback by East St. Louis, but there was still time on the clock and Lincoln had one more chance to pull it up and make their dreams come true. A long pass to big-play receiver Keith Rodgers got the Tigers right where they needed to be. Rodgers had put a charge in the stadium in the third quarter with a 90-yard kickoff return for a score that put Lincoln in front. His last big play put the Tigers in field goal range with a chance to win it.
And so it came down to a 30-yard field goal to decide the game. The entire crowd was in suspense as the kick had plenty of distance. However, it drifted off to the left and it was no good.
The thrill of victory on the East St. Louis side was exhilarating while the agony of defeat on Lincoln’s side was heartbreaking. Crushing. The Tigers had played a great game and had come so close, but the Flyers’ championship moxie showed up when it mattered the most. That was the difference.
As I look back on this day, I can say with confidence that it was one of the most electric high school football atmospheres that I’ve seen in my career of covering prep sports. I could not stop talking about it for weeks. Bernie also wrote a beautiful column about the two games for Sunday’s Post-Dispatch.
“To me, it was the real grand opening of Jordan Stadium,” Scott said. “It was a day that the entire city of East St. Louis celebrated the stadium. It wasn’t a team from Chicago or a playoff game. It was all about the community of East St. Louis.”