PackAttack

Do not have a Track topic here, but Track does coinside with football much of the time. Lufkin Boys won First place at the Willie Ross Relays in Lufkin on Wednesday, while the Lufkin Girls finished 4th. Boys Standings - 1st - Lufkin 143 points, 2nd - Center 118, 3rd -Longview 95, 4th Hudson 94, 5th Jasper 73, 6th Carthage 70 and 7th- Douglas 24. Girls Standings - 1st - Longview 159,points, 2nd - Carthage 93, 3rd - Hudson 90, 4th - Lufkin 66, 5th - Center 65, 6th - PCA 39, 7th - Douglas 35, 8th - Jasper 29, 9th - Central 20 Mike Mosley, Evan Young and Renold Guadarrama excelled in multiple events for the Panther boys team, while Alizaye Simpson and Mary Todd helped lead the the day for the Panther Girls team. get all the individual team statistics here in this article of the Lufkin Daily News. https://lufkindailynews.com/sports/lufkin-boys-place-first-in-willie-ross-relays/article_f7f955a7-a864-54ca-888f-44f74ca26f7d.html

Interesting article in the Lufkin Daily today concerning the selection of a new Superintendent by next June. More importantly it spoke of budgets and staffing and enrollments. Since COVID UIL enrollments across the State have either gone stangnant or declined a bit. More are Homeschooling their children, and private schools have increased their enrollments. The district is using Mr.Curtis Culwell of Culwell Consultants, who also achieved dynamic success with the Garland ISD as their Superintendent for 14 years. His firm was hired by LISD to look into the issues of the district after two consecutive years of deficit budgets. https://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/lufkin-isd-school-board-considers-staffing-and-declining-enrollment/article_9e020b27-39ae-5e42-bb8e-eb9dc29052e2.html My hope is a new and successful rebirth of the district can occur with new leadership, that it will trancend all across the spectrum of the district from academics, disipline and order. One on my wish list includes a return of some football success here. Currently the boys basketball and baseball program, girls volleyball are having better success than the football program. Girls softball has found a resurgence this season, boys and girls soccer have remained at a competitive level making the playoffs every year. Lufkin ISD has some work to do to get back to the efficient district it can be, if the right administrators and the right Superintendent are leading the way. IMO the district has not trended as well since the days of David Sharp who retired (1996-2005) as Superintendent back in 2005. Not to discount Roy Knight as Superintendent, I love Mr. Knight, he walked into a great set up and just kept things status quoe and didn't upset the cart right into his retirement. Roy could never find raises for teachers, and stuck with familar faces, not a rocking the boat guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Ms. Goffney came in and turn a few things around, but she was not here long enough to truly evaluate, she was looking for a step up when she got here, and did find that step as the Aldine ISD Superintendent. Lynn Torres, will be remembered for the $75 Million Bond in 2018 for a new Lufkin Middle School complex, and of course the fabulous Panther Activity Center and the outstanding Baseball and Softball Complex on the LHS campus. Something that John Outlaw had wanted and pushed for in his time as AD/HC at Lufkin. I believe all of these leaders can be evaluated in different ways for their high and low accomplishments as Superintendents in Lufkin. Some will never forget Purple Rain, a throne and a leave of absnece shortly there after?? It's unfortunate because the $75M Bond made huge advancements for the Lufkin school district as a whole. In fact it's awesome. Dynamics and demographics in both the population and business atmosphere have changed considerably since the days of David Sharp. Do not profess to know the future of public schools. I do know Homeschooling and Private schools have grown for a reason. Academics, disipline, safety are all key for families and their children, and important to the future of those students who really want to advance in their life beyond high school. I applaud the district board for taking these steps and realizing the need to reaching out to qualified entities to help them make choices for a better district in the future. My hope is there is a bright future for Lufkin ISD, and though I'm further removed than I've ever been in my life, I still live here, and want the Lufkin district to be the best they can be.

Lady Pack Softball lost 2-1 tonight in a hard fought opening district game in Lufkin with #7 Ranked Huntsville girls tonight.

Lufkin blanked Dayton 10-0 on the at home tonight. Pack are now 11-5 and 4-0 in district play. Panthers will be at home against Kingwood Park on Friday.

Still no week #3 game on the Panther football schedule. The try for someone from Louisiana did not pan out. Most teams schedules are full, may have to reach out for someone further away and meet them half way. That two week wait for the appeal process caused a wrinkle in securing that extra game. Don't understand many things about this, probably should have signed up a full schedule on realignment day, then readjusted things after the appeal approval. Hope they get it worked out soon.

Lufkin Baseball with a big 4-0 win in Lufkin over a ranked New Caney Porter team to move to 3-0 in district play and 10-5 on the year. Complete game shut out by Austin Linsey.

This how I wish our O Line would play. That is one big kid, and just a junior. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/bHpvKcRektMnDNVs/?mibextid=ZdeZu0

What happen to make Cobb having a change of heart to not to step down after Ditsworth-Flores and Co. graduated? I can hardly watch them, the pitch taking with runners on base??, not taking opportunities to drive runs is so frustrating for me to watch. Then again they have won a lot of games playing that conservative style. So what do I know?

SCHEDULE CHANGE...tomorrow night. Lp vs Porter Baseball game has been moved to Lufkin. 1st pitch scheduled for 6:00pm. We'll have LIVE Video coverage on the Lufkin Gametime App or at www.lufkingametime.com

One thing not mentioned here are the number of players who not only excel on the field, they also excel in the classroom. Lufkin has had several of them. When you see some these guys over the years headed to Notre Dame, Washington, Texas, TCU or West Point on scholarships, there are some good academics to go with their athletic ability. I still believe that players exercise a set of rules to abide by within their own group, by holding each other accountable. No player group wants to deal with bad apples either because it affects them all as a whole. That is where Senior leadership should come in to keep level chemistry within the group.

Yea, that's one area I'm confident Quick handles the proper way IMO. Parents??? Ehh, thankfully I'm not in that position, whew, wouldn't want to deal with some of it. Remember when I coached those youth years, most parents were real good, a few were real horses rears. I asked an ump to kick out my assistant coach one time, and had him escorted out of the park one game. His 12 year old son was pitching and complained to me his arm was hurting, so I was going to removed him from the game. His father, my assistant, stormed the field and told him to suck it up and stay in the game. The kid was crying in pain, his dad shook him and call him a wimp. So I told the ump he wasn't suppose to be on the field berating his son. He was kicked out, but he removed his son from the team, and then petitioned to go to the best team in the league. He was denied and then went out to Hudson. The worst I've ever witnessed. We called the game, both teams and parents were too shocked to finish.

The Lufkin Panthers spent the tournament portion of their schedule looking for consistency in the lineup. If the last two days of the Integra Classic are any indication, they may be hitting their stride at the right time as the Panthers closed their own tournament with a 7-0 win over the New Caney Eagles Saturday afternoon. Panthers (8-5) have a pair of road district games over spring break as they travel to Huntsville at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday before playing at New Caney Porter at 6 p.m. Friday.

What is the hidden message here?, don't hire an Alumni as your coach? LOL SMH, I've grown not to have any feeling about it one way or another. That's how far I've been pulled down. The past and present board has allowed this once credible football program to slide into nothing special to talk about in Texas football. Lufkin ISD honors and talks about, and just about lives on the John Outlaw way and his legend. Well, what we have now was never his way!!!!! Everything this program has been the past 5 or 6 years runs contrary to, and you might say obliterates everything John Outlaw tried to build here IMO. I guarantee HE would not have wanted to be part of where this program exist today. No matter what happens, whether someone new comes in here or not someday, it would take a good 4 or 5 years to turn around the complacent lack of winning mentality that exist today. These kids do not know what it takes to win big games. They try to blame it on COVID, or playing in an extremely tough district the past two or three years, I call BS. In the 83 year history of Lufkin Panther football before Coach Outlaw arrived, the Panthers had won a total of 14 playoff games. In his 17 years as the leader of the Pack, the program added an additional 27 playoff victories against 14 losses. Coach’s record in Lufkin was 174-45-1 for a 79% winning record. He overcame most any obstacle or for that matter any highly competitive district he was a part of coaching against. No excuses from him. Since Outlaw passed away in 2011. Lufkin has won 6 playoff games and lost 9 under Quick (85-50) in 12 year. Even with what Outlaw did accomplish here some may say it pales in comparison to other coaches like Todd Dodge, Scott Surrat and Randy Allen. Maybe even John King. In all honesty, what he accomplished here was remarkable since football had such few playoff successes before he arrived, or since his time here. Pretty special football coach for sure, could sure use another one like him.

Lufkin Baseball (7-5, 1-0 district) picked up a big 4-0 win over Brazoswood in the Integra Baseball Classic Friday evening. The Pack will play New Caney on Saturday at 2 PM.

Lady Pack Softball routed Rusk 11-1 on Friday evening. Lufkin 11-7 will host A&M Consolidated on Monday at 1:30 PM.

Lufkin Soccer (8-4-8 and 4-2-4 district) dropped a 3-2 decision at Nacogdoches. The Pack finished in 3rd place and will next host Tyler Legacy in a playoff tune up game on March 18th.

Lady Pack Soccer (8-9-1, 7-3 district) scored two goals late to defeat Nacogdoches 2-0. They now enter the playoffs as the 2nd place team in district behind Kingwood Park.

The Panthers pick up a 4-3 win over Port Neches - Groves on a bases loaded walk this afternoon after some early morning delays. Brazoswood vs. Lufkin coming up this evening.

How did UIL allow Oak Cliff Faith Family to participate? A private church school??? They beat Lancaster and played a ton of Nationally Ranked private schools. These 4A teams are no match for them.

That's about the way I figure too. Not bad road trips overall. Tyler or possible Longview on the road is tough. PAM is a big district game. I figure Beaumont United and Barbers Hill are huge too. Don't know enough about everyone else.

ONE THING I HAVE NOTICED about these teams playing at the State Championships, they all make their FREE THROWS and DON"T turn the ball over much. The little things that make a difference over and above talent.

This is the best 2024 Lufkin Football schedule I can put together from some research of other schedules. Aug 30th - vs Longview TBA Sept 6th - vs Nacogdoches - Home https://www.nacisd.org/o/nac-isd/page/football Sept 13 - TBD Still searching around, possibly a Louisiana team. Sept 20th - @ Tyler - Away https://twitter.com/TylerLionsFB/status/1760037349738627214/photo/1 Sept 27th - vs Barbers Hill - Home * :https://twitter.com/abseckbhfb/status/1760748788589707487/photo/1 Oct 4th - @ Beaumont West Brook* - Away https://twitter.com/football_brook/status/1762891999567315264/photo/1 Oct 11th - Oct 18th - vs Baytown Sterling - Home * https://twitter.com/RSS_RangersFB/status/1760711062167376246/photo/1 Oct 25th - Nov 1st - vs Beaumont United - Home * https://twitter.com/BmtUnitedFtbl/status/1760460367380037816/photo/1 Nov 8th - @ Galveston Ball - Away* https://twitter.com/GalvestonFB/status/1762146996893225251/photo/1 The only other district schedule not out there is Port Arthur Memorial, this to determine that game date and our off week. I'm putting my money on an away game to PAM on 10/25 and an OPEN WEEK for 10/11.

Lufkin bats couldn’t string hits together as Lufkin dropped a 4-3 eight-inning decision to Bullard in the opening game of the Integra Classic at Lufkin High School Thursday. The tournament will resume at Lufkin and Nacogdoches today. Following is the schedule for today’s action. Lufkin High School: Lufkin vs. Port Neches-Groves, 9:30 a.m.; Port Neches-Groves vs. New Caney, 11:45 a.m.; New Caney vs. Bullard, 2 p.m.; Bullard vs. Brazoswood, 4:15 p.m.; Brazoswood vs. Lufkin, 6:30 p.m.

No news that I can find. LHS last day of school is May 22nd, 2024 so I assume the Spring Game would be the week before, somewhere around May 15th or 16th. Depends on certain things panning out. My hope is we open at home against Longview on August 30th, Tyler has us scheduled game #4 , on Sept 20th at MF Rose. Nacogdoches will be on Sept 13th, it was on the road last year but that is no bearer of where it will fall on the schedule in 2024. That game three location is probably a road game, just guessing at this point. Stuff like getting schedule information out around here quickly has never been a priority. I do know we play at Galveston Ball on Nov. 9th, which is last game on the schedule.