A program from a 1963 football game between Lindale and Grand Saline.

LINDALE — With homecoming brings back alumni from multiple decades.

One alumnus of Lindale High School that was at the Eagles’ homecoming game against Athens on Sept. 29 was Ronny Fisher, who graduated from Lindale in 1966.

Fisher was a quarterback of the Eagles. He is a veteran of the United States Army, earning two Purple Hearts in Vietnam.

Fisher joined Kenny Smith on OnTheCall.net during halftime of the game.

“This is a true homecoming,” Fisher said. “The football field is definitely different than when I played. I would love to play on it.”

FOOTBALL

Fisher played for the Eagles from 1962-65 and reminisced about his high school football playing days.

“We played against Grand Saline and Van — don’t even bring that up. I just started wearing a red shirt about six months ago, the first red shirt I’ve had. We played Kaufman and Mineola, pretty much the same bunch around here.”

He talked about some of his teammates, including Tony Phelps, James Ralph Jordan, Larry Bateman, Tommy Williams, Dennis Lackey, Jimmy Don Phelps and Edward Buddy Munn.

“My favorite play, there’s two of them,” Fisher said, “one was 187 trap, and the other was 187 trap pass. Those were my favorite plays. I probably called them the most. Back then, I called most of the plays.”

Fisher brought with him a program from the game against Grand Saline on Nov. 15, 1963.

“That season, we were 8-2,” Fisher said. “We were co-district champs with Van. We should’ve beat Van. Just one team got to go (to the playoffs), and they beat us, so they were the ones that got to go.

“We had a great football team that year. Matter of fact, before the season, there were at least four teams that were rated in the top 10 in the state of Texas.”

Fisher said he was thankful for his teachers and coaches, especially the late Bobby Ashcraft, who was a physics teacher.

“He made a big impact on me, and he helped me a whole bunch when I was in the seventh and eighth grade,” Fisher said.

“I never did like playing quarterback. I always wanted to play split end. The only reason I started playing quarterback is James Ralph Jordan and Burt Ford in the seventh grade, one of them was sick or was hurt. We were warming up, running seven or eight yards and across and then 10 and 15 yards and across. Coach Ashcraft said, ‘does anybody know how to throw the ball?’ I said I can throw it (while raising left hand), and from that day on, I was the quarterback. I would tell them every year that I did not like it. I wanted to catch the ball.”

Fisher recalled the rivalry with Van, one that is still going today, noting that he still doesn’t like to wear red. But he also shared a story from the rivalry.

“I remember right here on the southwest corner was the old fieldhouse, it was right here basically where we’re at right now,” Fisher said. “Of course it had concrete steps that you had to go up and down into the fieldhouse, and you had to be pretty careful with cleats going up concrete steps

“Anyway, we were playing Van, and Lindale had never beat Van much until my freshman year, and it wasn’t because of me. When we got there, Coach (G. Leonard) Cannaday and Coach Al Sanders, they were sitting there on those steps and had a package in their hand with a bow on it. We were all coming over from the high school, and they made us gather around. We said, ‘what’s that, coach?’ They said it was on the steps when they got there. We opened it up, and it was a pair of ladies red laced undergarments from the Van Vandals. You talk about getting fired up. We went on and beat them 18-6 that year.

“Boy, we were mad. Of course, they came over here one year and put diesel, put Van, V-A-N pouring diesel on the football field. But anyway, four or five years later, we were talking to Al Sanders, who was the defensive coach, and I said, ‘Al, about that red ladies underwear, did they really send that?’ He said, no, we did that ourselves. It worked, didn’t it?’”

SERVICE

Fisher later got drafted. He said, “When I got drafted, I didn’t want to be a marine and I didn’t want to spend four years in the Navy or the Air Force.”

At the time, men had the choice to enter the Navy or the Air Force with a four-year commitment or voluntarily join the Army which was a two-year commitment.

Fisher joined the Army. He said he went through basic training at Fort Bliss in El Paso and infantry training at Fort Ord in California.

“I have not been back to California since and will not go back,” Fisher said. “When I left California that day, I said I’ll never be back and that was in 1969. I then went to sunny Southeast Asia, better known as Vietnam.”

Fisher shared stories of injuries he received.

“It’s pretty tough to talk about,” he said. “I got two Purple Hearts. First one was just a little bit of shrapnel, nothing to it, they had to doctor me a little bit.

“The second one, I spent nearly two weeks at a local hospital and then they sent me back out in the field. That second one, was on Nov. 13, 1969. On that day, I want to mention his name, BFC Ronald lost his life that day, and I always think of him every day. Another bad time was Nov. 3, 1969, I want to honor this guy, Sgt. John Henry Wilson, he lost his life on that day. And they were in my unit. And there were a lot of others. It was tough.”

Fisher then shared the story of Wilson near the end of the halftime segment that he also shared at Grand Saline High School on Veterans Day in 2020. Fisher said his point man, Salazar he called him, would take two-hour turns running point. But Salazar had a medical issue, so Wilson and Fisher would alternate running point. He said Wilson was sick to his stomach, so Fisher said he would do his two hours and then Wilson’s two.

“About three-quarters of the way through, he got to feeling better, he came out there and he said, ‘Big Tex, I’m going to go ahead and take my time,’” Fisher said. “I said I would finish it, and we argued back and forth, but he said he felt a whole lot better. I said OK, and about three minutes later, as I was walking back, a sniper shot and killed him. That’s tough to live with. Why that came out that day when I was talking to the high school on Veterans Day, I don’t know. It ain’t easy.”

Fisher shared a story of when he was in Pleiku and running into Munn, who was also in the press box at Eagle Stadium on Sept. 29.

“Edward, I call him Edward, everybody else calls him Buddy, he was in the Air Force, and I was in the Army,” Fisher said. “We were going to be staying two nights in a row on a football field. Of course I knew Buddy was there, so I got a hold of him. He came and picked a buddy of mine and me up and we got to spend the night on beds and sheets and had flushing commodes and showers.

“We got to spend one night with him. We were supposed to stay two nights. Well when me and my buddy, Tom, got back, it was early in the morning, we had orders we were fixing to pull out and go to Jackson Hole before we went to Cambodia.

“It’s a good thing we did. Because later on, I got a letter telling me that the Vietnamese hit the football field the next night. So if we would have been there, that would have been bad business for our whole country and battalion. Buddy said it was just holes and craters there.”

More than 50 years after being teammates at Lindale and seeing each other in Vietnam, Fisher and Munn were together once again at a football game in Lindale.

It was indeed a homecoming.