Make no bones about it, graves remain under a high school football field in Texas

On the surface, the grass that covers San Saba High School’s football field looks pretty much like every other field in rural Texas.

But what lies below is an entirely different story, one that is told regularly around Halloween..

“Many strange things happen on this field,” is how it’s described on TexasBob.com, a site devoted to Texana.

Rogan Field sits on top of an old cemetery — it’s gone but not forgotten — and is appropriately named The Graveyard.

When the San Saba Armadillos take to the field, they know very well that they are playing over bodies — perhaps ancestors? — that have been buried there for over a century. They also know that when heavy rains pound the field, an occasional bone has been known to surface.

San Saba, known as the Pecan Capital of the World, is about 90 miles northwest of Austin — as the soul flies.

While it sounds like something pulled from “Poltergeist,” the silent supporters supposedly give the home team an advantage over visitors. Brad McCoy, San Saba’s football coach from 1990-94 and father of NFL quarterback Colt McCoy, told Sports Illustrated those bodies offer up assists from time to time.

“A few times, guys from opposing teams have had an open field and have tripped and fallen,” Brad McCoy said.. “Our kids say it’s our spirit hand coming out of the ground to make a tackle for us.”

Years later, the field’s history still gives others that same eerie feeling.

“At times when we played there, a player would trip in the open field and we always knew it was bc of a skeleton reaching up and grabbing us,” one person tweeted.

According to multiple news outlets including the San Antonio Express-News, an early settler’s cemetery that had been prohibited from use was moved in 1935 to make room for a high school football stadium. The land was sold to the school for a mere $10 by the Rogan family, who had grown tired of seeing the cemetery on the land they donated overgrown with weeds, KWTX noted.

But because some of the families of those buried there couldn’t afford to relocate their loved ones, not all the bodies were removed. As many as several dozen may still be buried under the field, Texas Coop Power explained.

Roughly 200 bodies were originally buried there, including many Civil War soldiers, multiple news outlets including KXAN reported.

While it’s not known the exact number bodies remain six-feet under the feet of athletes, it still chills the bones whenever one surfaces.

“I had an athletic period down here last period and I looked down at the hedge,” longtime assistant coach Ronnie Schulze told KWTX. “There was a ball joint from a human that came up from the water. It was definitely human, there was no doubt.”

San Saba isn’t the only school where a supposed final resting place is under a playing field. Neyland Stadium, home of the Tennessee Volunteers, was famous for housing the bones of donated bodies in offices under the field. Though they were moved to a laboratory in 2017, Knox News reports.

So far this season San Saba has a record of 6-3, but only 1-2 at The Graveyard. The Armadillos play their regular-season home finale on Friday, Nov. 4, when there’s a 50% chance of thunderstorms.

And you know what that means.

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