During the next few weeks The Bowie News will be looking back at sports teams that accomplished big things for their communities.
The third team we are looking at is Bowie High School’s 1952-53 boy’s basketball team that would win the program’s third straight state title.
Both the photo and text were taken from the school’s yearbook from that year. If you have any memories of this team or time in Bowie’s history, we would love to hear from you.
The Bowie High School Jackrabbit basketeers fashioned another record-breaking cage season in 1952 and 1953 with their third consecutive state championship and an unbeaten season of thirty four wins.
The state top honor gave Bowie High School the honor of being the only team in 33 years of state tournament play to win three consecutive titles.
Five other schools had shared the honor with Bowie of winning two straight state championships.
The cage squad coached by R.E. Mattingly and M.L. Massey proved best in three invitation tournaments against the best high school teams in North Texas. The first tourney win for Bowie was in the First Annual North Texas College Meet at Denton. The Rabbits won over a field of sixteen teams and topped Poly of Ft. Worth in the finals 56- to 51. Poly was defending class 4-A champions.
The Bowie quintet then sacked up the championship of the Decatur Invitation Meet and made their record four titles in five years in that meet. In their own meet the Bowie boys downed a strong field including a decisive 87 to 60 victory over Wichita Falls in the finals.
Individual honors were won in each meet. Temple Tucker, Stanley Airington, and John Carver were selected on all three all-tournament teams and repeated the honor in the state meet by making all-state along with Bennie Hill.
Tucker was selected for the ‘Best Sport’ award at Decatur, and Bennie Hill won this honor in the Bowie Meet. The Bowie game starting five included Tucker, Carver, Airington, Hill, and White for most of the season games.
This combination established a state meet scoring record in the final game by chalking up 81 points against Dumas.
The 81 to 44 victory over Dumas was also a record in margin for a final game in the meet.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.