When Jason Todd arrived at South Oak Cliff as a coach in 2014, it was what Principal Willie Johnson called a “shitshow.”
With a grass field that flooded every time it rained, a disaster of a locker room, outdated facilities, and a pitiful weight room, the SOC Golden Bears football team was doing the best they could with what they had.
“The building was in shambles,” Todd says. “Everything just needed to be renovated, remodeled, completely torn down, to be honest.”
The team was never below average. In Todd’s first year as an assistant coach, SOC made it to the fourth round of the playoffs where they lost to the eventual champions. Since then, they had been a fairly consistent second-round team, but never were able to finish the job.
Renovations on the school finally began, and things got even harder.
“We just had to find different ways,” Todd, who is now the head coach, says. “The nights were long because we had to bus to different stadiums around the city. Those kids really bought into just the hard work principles.”
And when the renovations were done and the team was awaiting a brand new turf field and fancy new facilities, COVID hit.
“So you go through two and a half years of all that transition and moving, you finally get home, and then it’s a national disaster that happens,” Todd says. “What you thought you were going to be doing, it changed completely. We weren’t even having school. Everything was remote. So then you lost the interaction with the kids, which was another setback.”
That season was shortened due to the pandemic, and the team ended up falling in the second round of the playoffs. But that was part of the turning point.
“We were up with 18 seconds left, the other team returned the kick,” Todd says of that game. “That loss was kind of our rally cry going forward into the future.”
New look
After working so hard with limited resources, things took off when the team finally had facilities that accommodated the level of play they were trying to reach. And when the pandemic calmed down, of course.
The school’s major renovation project was completed in 2020 where approximately 90% of the school was renovated and a pair of additions totaling approximately 60,000 square feet were built.
The renovation included a 2,000-seat competition gym/storm shelter, new administrative offices, an expanded cafeteria, remodeled weight and locker rooms, new roofing, and interior and exterior renovations throughout the campus.
“When we were having to bus to different locations, the kids wouldn’t get home till 10 p.m., 10:30 p.m., but they were still competing,” Principal Johnson says. “We didn’t even have a home practice field, but we were still building.”
Going through that rough time of transition ended up making SOC even stronger.
“All that work kind of carried over when we came back and everything fell back into place,” Todd says. “We came back to a turf field, new locker rooms, new weight room. Everything was modified and kind of evened up the playing field a little bit.”
The improvements made things a bit more attainable for SOC, which had already established a culture of hard work and discipline.
“The one thing I always said is that it’s been consistent, no matter from what we didn’t have to what we do have now, it’s always been about the kids and hard work,” Todd says. “We’ve always had our foundation of hard work.”
Champions
The 2021-22 season for the Golden Bears changed everything.
“We’re consistent in what we do, we kind of always believe in doing what puts them in the best position,” Todd says. “Football is a trend game. People follow trends. What we try to stick with is we get trendy with some things we do, but we stick with old school principals — running the football, playing great defense and playing special teams. You know, if we can do those three things, we have a chance to win and be successful.”
In their first championship season, SOC played competitively against Duncanville during their non-district slate, which showed them the potential they truly had. The Duncanville Panthers were, and still are, one of the best 6A schools in the state as they won back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023.
“We felt like, man, we have a chance to be really good,” Todd says.
The season was building up to Aledo, the powerhouse in 5A.
“We were able to pull [the Aledo] game out, and once we won that game, the kids just felt like there’s nobody that could beat us,” Todd says. “Now, it was more of a mental thing. We got over that hump. The only way we lose this thing going forward is if we just slip up and don’t prepare for somebody.”
The team battled their way through the playoffs and made it to the championship, where they defeated Liberty Hill 23-14 for their first state title in school history. With this win, SOC became the first Dallas ISD school to win a state championship in football since 1950.
The team went on to win their second consecutive state championship in 2022 by defeating the Port Neches-Groves Indians 34-24, becoming the first Dallas ISD high school to win back-to-back football state championships.
“Once you’ve actually been into a place and walked into a particular place that you know how the rooms look, you know how to maneuver yourself through it,” Todd says of their second championship.
But getting there wasn’t quite as easy as the year prior.
“It wasn’t the same type of ride,” Todd says. “I would say the first year was more like being in a sports car. We were just on the highway, just cruising with it. The second year we were more in the ATV type of ride. It was more bumpy. People gunning for you. You got to overcome some injuries and different things like that. So the second year was more bumpy, but we got to the same destination.”
Last season, the Golden Bears cruised to the championship game yet again, but fell to Port Neches-Grove in a controversial championship game. Principal Johnson joked that they “got cheated.”
In a rematch of the previous year’s title game, PNG scored a late touchdown to beat SOC.
Before that touchdown drive, PNG, trailing 17-12, recovered an onside kick at SOC’s 47-yard line. SOC seemingly stopped PNG on 3rd-and-11, but SOC was penalized for pass interference and that moved PNG up to the two. The call drew plenty of boos from the SOC side of the stadium.
But the team is not dwelling on the loss, Todd says. They are taking it as a lesson.
“PNG actually performed better and they coached better than we did in the fourth quarter, and they came out victorious,” Todd says. “They were the better team at the end of the day. And you know what we got to do is rebound and say, okay, that loss, that’s a lesson. We’re going to learn from that and use it to prepare us for the next time when we’re in that moment again.”
An impetus of change
The success of the football program influences the entire school, Principal Johnson says.
SOC is on the map, and the students have pride.
“For three years in a row we’ve played from before school to semester break,” Johnson says. “It’s ingrained in our culture. We believe that we can win athletically and academically. It’s infectious, so everyone wants to be the winner. The teachers, of course, are not on the field, but they can win in their classrooms. So it raised the expectation for our whole staff.”
When Johnson first got to the school, the student population was at about 800. It has now grown to 1,600.
“Our kids are coming back. They don’t go to the suburb schools. They don’t go to the charter schools,” Johnson says. “It’s a culture shift, and it’s intentional. We’re in the papers, we’re downtown, we’re in the lights, we’re at the airport, we’re everywhere. People want to see that. They want to be a part of that.”
Academically, the growing student population has also stepped up.
”When you start talking about 1,600 kids at a school built for 1,350 and they’re performing at a B level, that’s unheard of,” Johnson says.
Johnson first started as a coach for SOC in 1992. This was his first school, and he’s been here to see it grow and thrive throughout the years.
When Johnson was coaching, the team never made it past one or two rounds. Seeing his team win championships is a pleasure, and Johnson is on the sidelines at every game.
“No one ever predicted that South Oak Cliff, the African American inner-city school, would be in three consecutive state championship games and win two,” Johnson says. “It’s been a transformation, and it’s infectious. We’re winners here, and everyone wants to be champions. That is why the football team is the impetus of change.”
Continuing the legacy
First home matchup of 2024. Duncanville, the reigning 6A Division I Champions. SOC is coming off a shutout loss to North Shore, 35-0. Duncanville has won this matchup the last five years.
Damond WIlliams flips the field on the first play as he runs 46 yards to the Panthers 29 yard line. Quarterback Carter Kopecky throws a series of incomplete passes and the Golden Bears settle for a field goal on the first drive.
SOC draws first blood. Not the ideal outcome, but promising for playing against the reigning 6A champions. All the little victories count when you’re playing at the caliber of SOC.
A Duncanville receiver is wrapped up on an open tackle on their first play for a gain of two as the SOC defense begins to flex its muscles. The defense was victorious as Duncanville was forced to punt on their first possession.
Mikail Trotter takes after WIlliams as he rushes for 44 yards, but the Golden Bears ultimately settle for a field goal attempt. Wide right. Duncanville scores on the next drive and SOC will need to step it up.
Unfortunately, the Golden Bears’ efforts fell short as the Panthers took control of the game and cruised to a 34-12 win.
But it wasn’t a total loss for SOC. They have established a tradition of scheduling a very difficult non-district slate. By squaring off against the best squads in the state, they see what they are truly capable of and where the gaps are.
“We feel like we play the most physical schedule, probably in the state of Texas,” Todd says. “When you see North Shore, that’s probably the most physically dominant team that’s coming out [of] Houston for the last 10 years. When we play Duncanville, that’s the most dominant team that’s coming out of DFW. And then when you look at Longview in East Texas, that’s the most consistent, dominant, physical football team coming out of East Texas.”
The first three games are a challenge before gearing up for their district matchups, the ones that truly matter in terms of playoffs. Todd says nobody else is as physical as the teams they play in the first three matchups.
“Once we figure that out, and I see how we adjust to that, I know going forward, nobody won’t be able to kind of replicate what I’m seeing at these first three games,” Todd says. “We throw them in the fire.”
Kopecky came to the school as a sophomore when the team won its first championship. He trusted that he would get his turn at quarterback, and his time has come. For him, losing the championship game again is not an option.
“The feeling after that game, I don’t want to do that again,” Kopecky says. “Losing. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate it more than I like winning.”
Handling the pressure as the quarterback for one of the best teams in the state is no easy feat, but Kopecky says he relies on the confidence gained from practice.
“The way I look at it is, I’m just playing the game I love with a bunch of guys that also love the sport. So we go out there and just show off,” Kopecky says. “When we practice five days a week it’s just routine at this point, like we practice against the best of the best in our defense. So when it comes game time, it’s nothing new.”
