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(Editors note: The following story, written by former Herald Democrat sports editor Todd Hutchinson, was first published on Dec. 30, 2004.)

Don Campbell was a high school junior in 1964, and he was worried more about school, and especially football, that year. Campbell was going to be the starting quarterback for Shermans Fred Douglass Panthers in the 1964 season.

Campbell had one of the finest seasons a quarterback could have, leading the Panthers to the 1964 Prairie View Interscholastic League Class 2A state championship.

He was a great athlete, still is. Just take him out on the golf course and see, former Fred Douglass head coach Ed Hunt said. He won a state championship in tennis, hit almost .700 in baseball and was the starting quarterback from his sophomore year.

Hunt said he made one of his biggest mistakes with Campbell, encouraging him to play football in college.

Football was everything to me then, Hunt said. I was young then and hadnt been out of college too long. If I would have encouraged Don Earl to pay baseball, he would have been a millionaire.

Campbell may not be a millionaire, but he and his teammates created millions of dollars worth of memories during that magical season.

Fred Douglass is now used as an alternative school/head start campus by the Sherman Independent School District. In 1964, Fred Douglass School was where black kids attended school.

Although the Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education case which desegregated Americas public schools was a decade old in 1964, it was being implemented with all deliberate speed albeit slowly and Sherman was no different.

In Sherman, separate but equal was still in vogue, although the racial climate was not as heated, as it was, for example, in Philadelphia, Miss. where James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered, prompting an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department which culminated in the first successful prosecution of a civil rights case in Mississippi.

See more here:
The will to excel: Fred Douglass alumni mark anniversary of 1964 state title