This article is featured in the 2022 summer edition of Dave Campbell's Texas Football.

Minutes after South Oak Cliff won the 5A Division II state championship, Dallas ISD’s first in over 60 years, head coach Jason Todd pulled a Blow Pop out from his pocket during his post-game interview on Bally Sports Southwest.

“I brought my lucky Blow Pop too, Freddie!” Todd laughed as he walked off camera.

It was a subtle tribute to legendary Dallas Carter head coach and Texas Black Sports Hall of Famer Freddie James, who notoriously coached on the sidelines with a Blow Pop in his mouth. Although SOC’s accomplishment, on paper, is seen as the first Dallas ISD football championship since 1958, many in the city still view James’ 1988 Carter Cowboys as the last true Dallas state title winner, despite the UIL formally stripping the team of the crown later that year.

They’re still the gold standard for what an inner-city program can be. A true son of South Dallas, that team kickstarted Todd’s aspiration to one day be a football coach.

“(Carter) actually started a lot of the things that inner-city football is all about and I want to keep a lot of those traditions going,” Todd said.

The most notable of traditions comes in the form of attitude. Where some may see arrogance in South Oak Cliff, others see confidence.

There’s a swagger to the Golden Bears, a program with an almost entirely minority student population (Just under 70 percent Black and just under 30 percent Hispanic), on and off the field. Coaches all wear matching jumpsuits; they have a much more lax pregame routine that often contrasts the boot-camp style of some other top programs. Before the title game, the staff even bragged to running backs coach Keith Davis that he’ll likely become the first Texas high school football coach to win a state title while wearing a gold grill on the sidelines, which he wore for every game.

“They’ll try to look down on somebody here wearing a gold grill but like I’m saying, that’s a part of some cultures in the area that we grew up in,” Todd said. “The gold grill doesn’t define (Davis). He’s a college graduate, he’s a great mentor for these kids. He’s a great coach and a great teacher.

“I may need to get me one if we win again.”

One glance at the home side during the 5A DII final and the confidence resonates; it’s infectious. Just ask any of the 45,000-plus in attendance, many donning the SOC all-white in honor of late assistant coach Warnie Hill, who passed away in 2019. Todd and his staff are some of the most vocal on social media. That’s all encouraged as long as they take care of business during the game. It all stems from that influence of James’ Carter Cowboys that carried a similar swagger.

“I want to blaze our own trail just so that you can be an individual in this game, and you can be on social media,” Todd said. “You can be a part of the community; you can do all those things and still be successful. It’s just, it’s not one way to win and be successful.”

The first Tweet that Todd sent out the morning of the game was about as matter-of-fact as you can get: “It’s already written!!!!!!!!!!”

“He’s Don King. He knows how to sell a fight,” South Oak Cliff defensive coordinator Kyle Ward said.

Across the field from them that Saturday morning was Liberty Hill, a school virtually SOC’s opposite in terms of both demographics and legacy, with multiple state title runs under its belt over the last few years. And just the day before, the 4A DI championship presented a similar contrast between Austin LBJ and Stephenville.

LBJ became the first Austin ISD school to make the championship game since 1973, and did so suiting out no more than 30 total players on a given Friday night, often considerably less than their 4A DI counterparts. Across from them was Stephenville, a perennial power used to winning at the highest level and consistently producing top-level talent. Although the Jaguars lost, their run to the title game, like SOC’s, resembled something larger.

“Understand what you’ve done this season, you’ve made history,” LBJ head coach Jahmal Fenner told his team after the state title game. “We’re gonna hold this trophy high and we’re going to hold our heads high because we’ve done something great for our community, that’s so much bigger than us.”

And he was right.