Fort Worth Mighty Mites
Image and Artwork by Fort Worth Historical
There was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Masonic Home Mighty Mites—a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, despite being outweighed by at least thirty pounds per man, were the toughest football team around.
They were asked to play an exhibition game against Sherman High School, which was a class a school who wanted a tune-up game before the start of the Texas state high school playoffs. Sherman won the game 97-13, but the masonic team was paid $250 to make the trip and play the game. That money became the foundation of the school's athletic budget, something it had never had before
In the 1930s & 1940s, fans in Fort Worth flocked to Friday night football games at La Grave and Farringdon Field to see their favorite teams play. Farrington Field became known as “The House the Orphans Built”, thanks to a school constructed over a century ago that sat atop a hill overlooking Fort Worth. The purpose of the school was to house and educate orphans of the Texas Freemasons. It was a humble project – but life at the Fort Worth Masonic Home was about to change for a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death when they became the toughest football team around.
Life at the Fort Worth Masonic Orphanage was not an easy one. In the beginning, the school did not even own a football. That is until “Rusty” Russell arrived. An unassuming World War I veteran who became a teacher and football coach in 1927. Russell was confident he could make the players into winners.
The team practiced with baking soda cans for footballs that were donated by Mrs. Russell. Once coach Russell took over the team, he decided that they should compete in the class B division of the Texas Interscholastic League. In their first game against Mineral Wells, Russell made a deal with the opposing coach that if the Masons won the game, they would get to keep the football. The masonic players were so excited about the prospect of having their own football that they went out and won the game 34-14. That season, the team posted an unbelievable 8-2 record.
Officially, the team was known as the Fort Worth Masonic Home Masons, but a sportswriter for the Fort Worth Press, had nicknamed the scrawny team the Mighty Mites and the name stuck.
In 1932, the Mighty Mites moved up to the much tougher Division 7A. Some schools in the division had as many as 2,000 students while the Masonic Home had less than 150. While most high school teams at the time had about a dozen plays in their playbooks, coach Russell’s playbook had over 700.
Wearing hand-me-down uniforms, the Mighty Mites went undefeated in the regular season that year.
The game that they were most memorable for was when they advanced all the way to the State Championship in 1932 and played Corsicana High School. The Mighty Mites fielded only 12 players while Corsicana had 44.
The stadium in Corsicana seated about 6,000 spectators. Temporary bleachers were set up to expand seating to 12,000, but a crowd of around 18,000 rowdy fans packed the stadium.
The game ended in a scoreless tie, but because Corsicana had a 4-1 advantage and were declared the winner.
Many years later, the Texas Interscholastic League, changed its interpretation of the 1932 state title game. Today the game is considered a tie, meaning that the Masonic Home and Corsicana were co-state champions that year.
Through 1942, the Mighty Mites excelled on the field and became an inspiration to people all across the country during the time of the great depression.
The Masonic Home dropped football after the 1942 season because there were not enough boys to field a team. The school did resume a football program after World War II, but it competed at the lower-class B division and never regained the kind of notoriety that it had before.
Russell went on to be the head coach at SMU from 1950-1952.
Several students from the Masonic Home football team went on to have great success in life after leaving the school.
Dewitt Coulter, class of 1943, went on to play college football at west point and later in the NFL for the New York Giants. He was inducted into the Texas High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1970.
Harrison Miller Moseley, class of 1938 valedictorian, attended TCU and went on to work with Albert Einstein on the Manhattan project, which created the world’s first atomic bomb.
In 2005, the Masonic Home closed its doors. Today, only a few artifacts remain of the place that helped shape the lives of so many Texas orphans for 121 years.
Written by Michael Govea of Fort Worth Historical, June 2021
