1985: Call Him The Comeback Coach
A Park Cities celeb, Frank Bevers couldn’t stay retired long
By Meredith Shamburger | Special Contributor
Frank Bevers is still praising Highland Park High School after all these years.
“[I] had a great stay there,” he said in a phone interview this week. “No other place like Highland Park High School, I’m telling you.”
According to an April 11, 1985, story in Park Cities People, Bevers stepped down as head football coach after intestinal surgery but still worked for the district.
HPHS hired Bevers as head coach in 1974, although the call that would eventually get him the job had a rocky start. Bevers said he was coaching at Mineral Wells when a man named Winston Power called.
“He called and said they had a job opening in the Park Cities — Highland Park High School. Would I be interested?” Bevers said. “I said, ‘I’m always interested in finding a better job than the one I’ve got.’ ”
But when Bevers asked if Power was the superintendent or athletic director, Power said no.
“I said, ‘Sir, you probably called the wrong guy, ‘cause I don’t apply for jobs through parents and that type of thing,’ ” Bevers said.
Things improved when Power explained that he was going to be the next superintendent and that his responsibilities included picking the next football coach. Bevers would coach football at HPHS for the next 10 years, becoming the school’s winningest coach until Randy Allen recorded his 135th win last October. Bevers cites hard work, as well as the football players themselves, as the reasons for his success.
“[We] went through a great cycle of kids that could play well and did play well through high school and college,” Bevers said.
Soon after stepping down as coach, he retired completely. Bevers said he had every intention of staying retired, but he came back as head football coach in 1988.
“[HPISD] wanted me to do it for three more years,” he said. “So I did it three more years, and they said, ‘Well, why don’t you do it one more?’ ”
Though Bevers told HPISD officials they needed to find someone else to do the job, he stayed on for one final year and then retired for good in 1992. Since then, Bevers and his wife have moved to Rockwall, where Bevers said he’s “just kind of been piddlin’ around out here.”
The former head coach still attends some Scots football games and keeps in touch with the guys who played for him.
“The best part of the whole deal is to see those guys grow up, mature out, go off to college and become very successful whatever they decide to do — whether play pro football or go into real estate or just whatever it might be,” Bevers said. “It’s just so good and so rewarding.”
Meredith Shamburger is an intern for People Newspapers and a journalism student at SMU.
1985
On Feb. 10, Highland Park High School student Anna Louise Weston, 16, was fatally shot by her boyfriend, Hillcrest dropout Kenneth Douglas Canada, who said it was an accident. In December, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years’ probation. That sentence was revoked in 1987, when the first of several other offenses occurred.
On July 24, Highland Park High School senior Ward L. Huey III survived being shot by 65-year-old Betty Stein, who lived across Westchester from the campus and had a history of disputes with students. In November, she was convicted of felony aggravated assault. She was sentenced to 10 years’ probation and fined $5,000.
CHANGES AT THE TOP
On April 22, Bob Dixon became University Park’s police and fire chief. A Dallas Police Department veteran, he replaced David Beidelman, who took job at a security company the previous December.
On Dec. 10, Highland Park High School principal Tom Munroe was named the district’s director of planning and research.
HIGHLAND PARK HIGH SCHOOL
Valedictorian: Wendy Koop
Salutatorian: Pam Wildenthal
Blanket Award: Koop and George Seay
Homecoming Queen: Julie Woods
IDLEWILD DEBUTANTES
Linda Joyce Abernathy, Adrienne Lillian Akin, Martha Louise Armstrong, Shannon Kalita Armstrong, Ana Magdalena Esteve, Isabel Maria Esteve, Ruth O’Donnell, Emily Lee Roberts, Eveline Lee Touchstone
Isn’t it Wendy Kopp? Not Koop? Who went on to start Teach for America?