Powell’s 1957 playoff games

Powell’s best season in school history just might be 1957.

That season, the Panthers went 11-0 on their way to winning the Class A championship, beating Rawlins 19-13 in the semifinals and Torrington 40-6 in the championship game — and both games were on the road.

But how good were these Panthers, really?

Now, you can see for yourself — thanks to the son of a former Powell player who has uploaded films of Powell’s two playoff games to YouTube.

The films were uploaded by Wesley Fryer, who noted on his Flickr account that his father, Tom Fryer, was Powell’s quarterback in both games. He also noted on his YouTube profile that the game film was digitized by Biff Beck, a PHS graduate from that era.

You can read more about the process of digitizing and uploading the films on Fryer’s blog by clicking here.

The videos. Please note that these were the Class A playoffs, not the Class 4A playoffs as listed on the videos:

First half of Rawlins-Powell semifinal (if it’s not showing up below, click here):

Second half of Rawlins-Powell semifinal (if it’s not showing up below, click here):

First half of Torrington-Powell championship (if it’s not showing up below, click here):

Second half of Torrington-Powell championship (if it’s not showing up below, click here):

There are plenty of interesting things to note about each video. What do you see that catches your eye? (I will post some more later about what interests me in these videos.)

This is a fantastic collection of videos; props to Mr. Fryer and Mr. Beck for taking the time to preserve and share them with the world. I would love to see more films like this from this era!

–patrick