55 Years of Greatness!
With all the excitement in recent years regarding the current success of Tampa’s Plant High School football team including their defeat of Manatee several years ago for a state championship, we think it’s important for us, that is, our own class, specifically, to take a second and remember some very special moments for us but not for our then-arch rival Plant! It was 1954, and there we were, all sophomores and just as new to Manatee as was the recently-formed huge Western Conference loaded with high school football teams from all over the Tampa Bay area. We played very well that first year, well enough to give Plant their first real scare late in November when we were trailing very late in the game, 19-14. However, while only 6 points from victory the Panthers prevailed and won that inaugural conference championship. Such was clearly not the case the next year in 1955 as our guys, now juniors and seriously ready to “take it to’em,” took th...
