They’ve Become Really Good Losers : But Prairie View A&M; Hopes Not to Set Futility Record Tonight, When Grambling Could Hand Panthers 51st Loss in a Row

The message on the roadside sign can be read only on the way out of Prairie View A&M;, a last-chance plea, perhaps, to the stampeding of reporters who swoop in for the kill and speed away down U.S. 290 with their delicious stories of despair.

“Men were born to succeed, not to fail,” the sign says.

How incongruous the words seem here, at this crossroads, in the eye of this storm.

Tonight at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, barring nuclear disaster, the football squad at Prairie View will break the collegiate record for consecutive defeats with its 51st. The opponent is Grambling State, the outcome a foregone conclusion.

Pick a score: 55-6, 68-0, 48-2.

And expect that something stupefying will occur. It always does. Last week, the Panthers jumped out to a 6-0 lead against Tarleton State and then did a foolish thing in trying their first extra point of the season.

Nsikan Udoyen, a Nigerian “kicker” recruited from a swimming class, was summoned for his maiden attempt and shanked a low liner off the back of a teammate.

A Tarleton player scooped up the loose ball and took off for the far end zone and two points.

Udoyen, whose previous game experience amounted to elementary school flag football in Morocco, gave chase.

“I couldn’t catch up with him, basically,” Udoyen said of the play.

Prairie View lost, 44-6.

That was the school’s 50th consecutive defeat, tying Division III Macalester College in Minnesota in the annals of football futility.

Up in St. Paul, Macalester, those masters of defeat--the school recently ended a 38-game losing streak--is readying the erasers.

“It will be nice to get our name out of the book,” Andy Johnson, the school’s sports information director, said of the doleful record.

For Prairie View, there is no stopping this. The Panthers have lost four games this season, by scores of 50-8, 35-0, 68-6 and 44-6. They last savored victory on Oct. 28, 1989, when they defeated Mississippi Valley State, 21-12. In 1991, they lost to Alabama State, 92-0 (it was 72-zip at the half).

Once a national black collegiate power, winner of five national titles in 11 years under Billy Nicks in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, Prairie View has gradually bled to death.

The vein was first opened in the 1960s with the coming of integration, when area universities began siphoning away the best black talent, and was effectively drained in 1989, when Prairie View was rocked by a financial scandal in the athletic department.

The president shut the program down in 1990. Football returned in 1992, but it was wearing a straitjacket and muzzle.

Scholarships were no longer being offered.

The annual budget for the 15-sport program is $849,000. Texas A&M; allots about $3 million annually for football alone.

Prairie View plays with hand-me-down pants donated by the Houston Oilers.

Ron Beard, the 10th coach since Nicks retired in 1965, was fired this summer after going winless in 44 games.

His replacement, Hensley Sapenter, is a Panther alum who played on Nicks’ 1958 national title team. When Prairie View called, Sapenter was 55 and recently retired after 19 years as athletic director for the San Antonio School District. He had not coached since 1972.

Friends thought he was more than nuts. They called him things.

“Couldn’t print it if I told you,” Sapenter said before Thursday’s practice.

His staff? The special teams coach also coaches baseball. The receiver coach is also the women’s basketball coach.

Doug Fowlkes coaches the defensive line . . . and tennis.

Sapenter knows what he’s up against.

“You make $100 a week and I make $10,” he said. “I take my 10 and do the best I can with what I got.”

He came back to Prairie View because no one else would. He remembers when nobody laughed behind this school’s back. Otis Taylor played here. Ken Houston. Clem Daniels.

“It’s my school and it’s a chance to give back,” he said.

Give back to what?

The alums ran for cover years ago. The school recently sent out donation request forms to 30,000 alumni and got back 150.

In other states, at other schools, you pull the plug and call for a priest.

But not in Texas, apparently, and certainly not at Prairie View.

“No football in Texas? Good night!” said Frank Jackson, the school’s unofficial historian and director of student initiatives and development. “It’s religion. Men have sold their souls for this stuff. We still want it. This is necessary. This will be a blessing.”

Men were born to succeed, not to fail.

For all their miseries, and their mounting losses, Prairie View players have stood tall and taken it.

A few years ago, in a game at Alcorn State, opposing fans spat on them.

But the band played on, dwelling not on the next loss but on the prospect of that precious first victory.

Every player has his own idea how the streak will end.

Torrance Brooks, junior wide receiver from Houston:

“I see us counting down the last five seconds of the game, then dumping Gatorade on the coach.”

Leonard Smith, senior center, who is 0-37 as a Panther:

“We win on the last play of the game. We get the ball with 1:30 left, drive down the field. The QB hits Brooks in the end zone, a 20-yard pass, a post route, the stadium goes wild; 26-20.”

Udoyen, who hasn’t yet perfected the extra point kick, thinks he will be the man.

“If I kick the winning field goal, I’ll redefine the extremes of happiness.”

Then there’s Michael Porter, a junior tailback, and his dream.

In it, he leaps like Marcus Allen over the goal line for the game winner with no time left. Teammates carry him off on their shoulders. It’s a mob scene back at Prairie View, located 45 miles outside Houston. They have a parade through campus.

“And then,” he said, “I’ll go to a press conference.”

This much is certain.

Porter is, by far, the most sought-after Panther by out-of-town interlopers.

He starts tonight’s game having never won a varsity game, in high school or college. His record stands at 0-56, soon to be 0-57.

“Maybe I can find something to laugh about in all this, but it’s hard,” he said.

Details are vague as Porter recalls his last victory, recorded as a ninth-grader on the junior varsity squad at Houston’s Jefferson Davis High.

He remembers what happened afterward.

“We went out and saw the varsity play,” he said. “And they lost.”

His team’s nickname in high school was . . . the Panthers. The school colors were purple and gold, same as Prairie View’s.

There have been few brushes with glory.

Once, in high school, Porter’s team was leading Austin High by five points when the quarterback fumbled the snap and an opposing player picked it up and ran the other way.

Last year, against Texas Southern, Prairie View had the ball at the TSU two-yard line when time expired. Final score: 20-13.

And this 1994 nail-biter against Southern:

“Our guy drops two touchdowns and we lost, 21-7,” Porter said. “You figure.”

When the National Enquirer got wind of his story, the tabloid sent him a “lucky” blue dot to wear in his helmet for good luck. The Enquirer claimed the lady who last adorned the dot won the lottery.

Porter put the dot in his helmet.

He did not win the lottery.

Prairie View did not win the game.

Porter refuses to become an object of pity.

“I don’t want anybody feeling sorry for me,” he said. “I’m up here to get an education, No. 1. When I’m on the field, at a certain point, if we’re getting blown out, I stop looking at the scoreboard. It’s all about playing football, being a man. You just don’t quit.”

A loser?

“Nobody has had the guts to call me that,” he said.

*

Frank Jackson says football must not perish at Prairie View, that it is part of the fabric of a proud black college established in 1878 as part of a post-Civil War reconstruction plan to facilitate the transition of blacks from slaves to wage earners.

Football is life; life is football.

“It would be like going to America, England and France and saying, ‘We’re taking away your army,’ ” Jackson said. “These are your warriors.”

Jackson said the scandal of 1989 was a huge setback, but that it should not be a death knell. Then-Coach Haney Catchings and other department members were indicted on allegations of fraud in an expense-reporting scheme.

Catchings was the only one convicted, pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. He received a fine and probation.

Jackson said the program, under Sapenter, is going to turn the corner.

Yet it is difficult not to look into the faces of the players and wonder why they must continue.

“I’ve got nothing but admiration for these kids,” Jackson said. “They take a beating, week after week, get humiliated, yet they find the resolve to do it again. It’s like Gandhi facing the English empire. He knew he was going to get pounded. . . . When we ever pull off that victory, we’ll have a holiday.”

Prairie View can expect another pounding from Grambling, led by legendary Coach Eddie Robinson. In fact, had Grambling not lost on a last-second touchdown by Central State last week, Robinson would be seeking victory No. 400 tonight in the ultimate showdown of haves and have-nots.

Opponents have battered and bruised the Panthers, but have yet to crush their spirit.

Credit Sapenter for this.

“It’s not a sin to get knocked down in this game,” he said. “The sin is to stay down.”

Sapenter actually has his team thinking it can beat Grambling.

“I don’t think Grambling has super-human beings,” he said. “They have kids, just like we have kids. You’re in bad shape when you let people intimidate you with their name.”

Smith, the center who has lost 37 games in a row in college, is not conceding an inch.

“You’re in for a major upset,” he said. “ You can quote me on that. Grambling’s down, they’ve lost two in a row, there’s a lot of turmoil down there, I hear. This is the time to surprise them.”

The streak?

“If this is the hardest thing in my life, then life shouldn’t be too hard.”

You might think Prairie View players can’t wait to end the agony and get on with their lives.

But Smith and Brooks say they’d like to become coaches when it’s all over.

Men are born to succeed, not fail.

Michael Porter, a 57th consecutive loss staring him straight in the face, stares straight back.

“I love college football,” he said. “There’s nothing like going out and hitting someone, making a nice run. When you actually do it, it’s something different. You can’t do it in the stands. If you quit, you can’t do it either.”