Updated Wednesday, July 16, 2008 7:17 PM

On the wall at one of the first newspapers I worked for, somebody had posted a sign that read, "Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas."

Bill Spinks

A couple of years ago, I realized we had a problem: We had kept season-by-season results on file back to 1998, but had no readily-available way to look up a given score before that.

We had no way of looking up, for example, the last time Collinsville had beaten Celeste, or the last time Whitesboro had posted two shutouts in a row.

That situation launched me on my current quest for the Holy Grail: Results for every single high school varsity football game that's ever been played on Texomaland soil.

How far back do I want to go? To the very beginning. Yes, all the way back to the 1800s if need be.

Obviously, most schools didn't start to play football that early -- for example, Pottsboro didn't pick up the sport until 1972 -- and the University Interscholastic League didn't start sanctioning football until 1920.

Surprisingly, I have gotten lots of mileage by using something unheard-of to the old leather-headed gridders of yore: the Internet.

Web sites like THSFpedia and the Lone Star Football Network have been a big help, as well as several local sites (yes, Monte Walker, I'm looking at you.)

Football historians like Joe Lee Smith, Dr. Christopher Boehme and others have been really chipping away recently on the storied past of the Texas game, and have done an awesome job -- yet so much is left to be done.

Their job is truly a monumental one. I'm just trying to do my part for a tiny slice of the Lone Star State.

When there are gaps to fill in, I go to the trusted source: Microfilm copies of the Sherman Democrat and Denison Herald.

In fact, probably 99 percent of the results I seek are on those little spools. But slow-pokey microfilm technology has yet to catch up with the technologically faster-paced Aughts.

Right now, I am working on district results season-by-season, and although the going has been slow, I've gotten as far along as 1981, although I've been working (in fits and starts) on part of the 1950s. But I've only scratched the surface.

The interesting facts I've uncovered so far:

* Every team in Sherman and Denison's district in 1951, at some point in midseason, either had 111 points scored for it or against it. (That's what you discover by doing manual math. Look it up, kids.)

* The only Pottsboro coach to skipper the Cardinals for only one varsity season was the very first one, the late Jim Henderson, for whom the Cards' stadium is named.

* Perhaps the worst season ever turned in by a Texas squad might have been by the 1987 Cumby Trojans, who failed to score a point all year and were outscored, 478-0. (After that, Cumby did not return to the gridiron until 2002.)

Eventually, I hope to have every Texomaland team broken down season-by-season and to have series records for each against all opponents.

That even includes extinct programs such as Tioga and Westminster, and also formerly-extinct ones (namely, Savoy and Trenton) that are set for revival very soon.

If any reader has a reasonably-complete history of football scores for their team, I would be very happy to incorporate it into this project.

Right now I have complete seasons for Sherman and Denison -- to a point. We shall expound on that at a later time.

In addition, thanks to the research of others, I also have fairly-complete seasons for Bonham, Howe, Pilot Point, Callisburg, Tom Bean, and Celina.

The latter will be an interesting study because Celina racked up 49 victories before 1958, when the Bobcats first fielded an 11-man squad and historians like to begin chronicling their fabled backstory.

Texomaland has a very strong football tradition that gets even stronger every year.

I hope I can do it justice and not do a half-vast job.