While attending the Cassville football game versus Monett a few weeks ago, my nephew Silas asked, “When was the first time Cassville played Monett?”
This seems to be a perfectly reasonable question to ask someone labeled a historian sitting right next to you. However, I told him I’d have to get back with him, as I didn’t have the information at the top of my head.
At one time, I may have squirreled away such a fact, but I’ve found recently as the gray hairs creep in, the details sneak out. Fortunately, we live in a digital age where information can be reliably stored and accessed outside my noggin.
After searching through some online newspapers, the best answer I can come up with for the first scheduled meeting between Cassville and Monett in high school football was to take place on Nov. 21, 1924.
But, according to the newspapers, that game was called off because Monett wanted to send their second team to play Cassville, and Cassville refused to play anyone but the first team.
In 1924, Monett was a “Class A” team while Cassville was “Class B.” Instead, Cassville played Lamar, another “Class A” team and defeated them at Cassville by a score of 6-0, scoring a touchdown in the last three minutes.
The Lamar paper excused the poor outing by stating, “It’s about 80 miles to Cassville, a rather long trip just to play a game of football. Spectators say our team would have won on fair decisions.”
Blaming the officials for a loss seems to be ingrained into the game. Another incident reported at game by the Lamar paper was, “The yell leader for the team only got about one half of his first yell reverberating up and down the hills when the sheriff nabbed him and told him just one more yell and it would be the jail for him.”
That would have been during the last part of Ed Roberts term as Sheriff. While the rivalry between Lamar and Cassville is still heated, hopefully we no longer threaten to throw their cheerleaders in the Barry County Jail.
The following week, Cassville ended the official season by beating Seneca, 18-0, on Thanksgiving, so it’s unclear whether a Monett contest was ever played that year.
The Springfield paper mentioned that an unofficial game may be scheduled after the season was over, and “School Notes” column from the Cassville paper lists the game as win for Cassville, but they may have been counting it as a forfeit.
Monett didn’t appear on the 1925 Cassville football schedule, but in 1926, Monett beat Cassville. 44-0, perhaps the first official high school football game between the two schools.
The first year for a Cassville High School football team was in 1921, according to the “School Notes” column in a Cassville newspaper that same year. During the 1921 season, Cassville played the Wheaton football team twice, with the first game ending in a Cassville victory and the second game ending in a tie. The team also lost twice to Marionville and Aurora.
But, in 1922, the paper stated, “There will be no school football team this year.” I guess the first season must have been a little rough. The American Legion in Cassville also had a football team in the 1920s. A 1923 article has the team being defeated by Ozark Wesleyan College of Marionville 13-2.
However, football was still being played before the 1921 season, just not organized by the school, as stated in 1898 Cassville paper, “The boys are enjoying the new (to them) game of foot-ball, and find the hard work excellent exercise.” A paper in 1900 also stated that, “We have been informed that Exeter will soon have a football team.”
The whole of Barry County seemed to be catching football fever. An opinion in the 1901 Cassville paper declared, “Playing football or baseball on Sunday in Cassville should be stopped by the authorities. Sunday is not a day for general sports.”
Time has proven otherwise. Like the start of most traditions, the beginnings tend to be murky and unclear, but the resulting impact is clearly felt in the present. The sport that was new to the area 125 years ago now dominates Fridays in the fall and the airwaves on Saturday and Sunday. It makes you wonder, what new thing of today will pass the test of time and dominate the culture in a century from now?
Will the great-grandchildren of this generation spend their weekends at the pickleball court or watching eSports? Or will they simply cling to our current traditions and still watch a Sunday football game.
I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as they root for the home team.
Jeremiah Buntin is a historian at the Barry County Museum. He may be reached at jbuntin@barrycomuseum. org.
