AUSTIN, Texas — Anderson High School has been an engine for education, a vehicle for change and a train on track to connect the past to the present.
The school has done so by teaching about its history with tributes to distinguished alumni. One distinguished alumnus is the focus of this story.
Dick "Night Train" Lane was a standout football player for the Yellowjackets in the 1940s. He went on to have an illustrious career in the NFL, known for setting the single-season record for interceptions and for his vicious style of tackling.
"The necktie tackling. The clothesline. The facemask. All that was banned because of him," said Richard Walker Sr., Night Train's son.
In 1974, he was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Walker and his brother, Richard Lane Jr., are in the process of putting together a documentary on their dad, focusing on the undocumented part: the start of his life and the end of his life in Austin.
"We are on a mission," Lane said.
They had a film crew from out of state join them. Together, they're putting together a story with primary sources.
"We know we're going to be able to speak to people like Leroy Bookman Jr. Leroy Bookman Sr. played also with Night Train," Lane said. "We will also speak to people that run the alumni association for the old L.C. Anderson High School, Mr. L.M. Rivers. There's a couple of young ladies there, Beulah Jones and Robby Jones, these young ladies are very instrumental in the community of Austin."
The story also has elements of a Shakespearean tragedy.
"As a child, he was thrown away as a baby. As an infant, wrapped up in newspaper, put in a garbage can," Walker said.
"I believe he was approximately three months old," Lane said.
"He was found by the lady who adopted him, which was our grandmother," Walker said. "The people that come from nothing seem like they're the ones that want it the most."
Other moments of the story read more like a comedy.
"He was playing pool and I guess one of the gentlemen lost the game of pool and didn't want to pay up," Walker said.
"The guy tried to take off and leave, so as the guy was headed to the door, Night Train grabbed a cue ball and clanked him across the head. And everyone around him was like, 'Cue Ball!'" Lane said.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Richard 'Night Train' Lane
The end of Night Train's life left his family in mourning and left suspicions of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, unanswered.
"The NFL didn't want to acknowledge it because we don't have brain matter for them to dissect to say, 'This is what happened to your dad,'" Walker said.
"To think that he didn't suffer from concussions and different things throughout his career is just ludicrous," Lane added.
Yet it also brought them closer and is now bringing them closure.
"It was the first time I actually met my brothers," Lane said, referencing his father's funeral in Austin in 2002. "I knew of them since the age of about 8 to 10 years old. I knew of them, but they never knew of me."
That moment connected a family.
"I would love to say it's been a dream come true, but there is no dream here, this is simply reality," he said.
At the funeral, they discussed the next steps to honor their dad and decided on a documentary – a documentary that's connecting the dots.
"[It's] capturing a very important piece of his life right here in Austin, Texas," Lane said.
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