This Week in High School Sports History: On Halloween 1986, Russell Gunter Set a Record That Still Stands

High school sports history is filled with remarkable moments that have mostly disappeared from the larger story of American sports. This Week in High School History looks back at significant, unusual, and sometimes forgotten events in high school athletics.

For the Week of Oct. 26-Nov. 1:

It almost sounds like a Halloween prank.

Straughn (Ala.) football coach Steven Tucker kept calling Russell Gunter’s number.

By the end of Straughn’s 22-21 season-ending loss to Coffee Springs on Oct. 31, 1986, Gunter had rushed a national record 72 times for 324 yards.

“He doesn’t have real good speed, but he has tremendous endurance,” Tucker was quoted as saying in an Associated Press article.

“People always asked me if I was worn out or exhausted, but I really don’t remember being any more exhausted than several of the other games,” Gunter said during a 2014 interview with the National Federation of High Schools. “My mom would always give my legs a rubdown when I got home, so the next day I could be back up helping my dad with the crops on our farm.”

Coffee Springs’ quick-strike scores allowed Straughn to possess the ball for large stretches of the game. Coffee Springs scored on a fake punt, an 80-yard pass, and a kickoff return. The rest of the night belonged to Straughn – and the 5-foot-10, 180-pound senior Gunter.

“It was a cool night, and he was getting two, three, four, five, six yards a carry,” Coffee Springs coach Julius Head said after the game. “We were playing defense almost all of the time.”

“Their offense was hardly on the field,” Gunter told the NFHS. “And we were just pounding a traditional I-formation offense down their throats five yards at a time.”

Ultimately, the game came down to the final play. Straughn drove to the Coffee Springs 4-yard line with four seconds remaining, but a field goal attempt missed. The 22-21 loss left Straughn wth a 5-5 record and ended Gunter’s high school career.

Initially, there were questions about the official carry total. Coffee Springs had Gunter for “only” 60 carries, but documentation was forwarded to the NFHS, which confirmed the 72 carries and national record. Forty years later, it still stands.

Gunter’s performance surpassed the 62 carries set by Roy Ensey of Snyder (Okla.) in 1963 and matched by Steve Williams of Trinidad (Texas) in 1977. Interestingly, the closest anyone has come to Gunter’s performance since was Dalton Romro, who carried 61 times for Melbourne (Ark.) on Halloween night in 2014.

News of Gunter’s performance spread after it was reported in the Birmingham News. USA Today included the news brief in its “Across the USA in Sports” segment on Nov. 26.

“The following day, I started hearing about it and the next thing I know I’m getting newspaper clips from family and friends from across the country,” Gunter told the NFHS. “Then, I found out I was in USA Today, and people were talking about me on TV. At first, I wasn’t happy about the record because I was worried that my yards-per-carry average wouldn’t look good and that it might hurt me with recruiters. It’s funny looking back at it now.”

The 1986 season was Gunter’s only one as a starting tailback, but he proved to be a workhorse. He had two other games with more than 50 carries, and for the season he ended with 428 attempts and 2,079 yards.

Gunter earned Class 2A first-team all-state honors by both the Birmingham News and Alabama Sports Writers Association. He briefly played football at Mississippi Delta Junior College, but gave it up to help on the family farm. He recently retired after 33 years in the Air Force Civil Service, and he resides in Florida.

“At the time, I had no idea that I had broken a record,” Gunter told the NFHS. “My running backs coach Brent Zessin was the person who keyed in on it. He investigated it and broke the news ‑ if it hadn’t been for him, that record might have never been recognized.”

Also This Week in History

Oct. 29

1920 – Rex Thomas of Sapulpa (Okla.) set two state records, one that still stands, in Sapulpa's 153-0 football victory over Guthrie. Thomas scored seven touchdowns and converted 21 extra points. His 21 PATs and 63 total points both set state records at the time. His 21 extra points still stand as the state record and remain one of only four nationally documented games with 20 or more PATs by a single player. A week later, Sapulpa routed Broken Arrow (Okla.) 131-0, yet Thomas did not play.

Oct. 30

2014 – Scott Siegler of Edward H. White (Fla.) is the last known player to convert multiple drop kicks in a high school football game. Siegler converted two extra points via the rarely used drop kick in a 49-3 win over Terry Parker (Fla.).

This Week in High School History is compiled by Sheldon Shealer, a sports historian and lecturer at Mount St. Mary’s University, whose research focuses on the history and development of American high school football. Shealer compiles entries from newspaper accounts, state and school records, historical publications, archival collections, and other documented sources. Special thanks to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), whose records help preserve high school sports history.

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