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Having grown up across the country as a traveling architect’s daughter, Sarah Bellian did not understand why high school sports are important in Southeast Texas.

After a childhood in which she didn’t participate in any team sports, she recently joined a roller derby team in Beaumont and began to understand their importance in local culture.

The sense of belonging was an impetus for the former curator at the Museum of the Gulf Coast to organize the “Southeast Texas Sports: Hometown Heroes” exhibit, which opened Saturday and will be on display through May 4 in the museum’s Dunn Gallery. Bellian, who now works with the Jefferson County Historical Commission in Beaumont, even shed her alma mater Western Colorado University sweatshirt to reveal her team jersey during a speech.

“It has been about a year in planning,” said Bellian, who also solicited help from local sports journalists for entries and information. “When I resigned in November, this was pretty much ready to go, and I came back to put it up with the help of two of our museum volunteers, Stephanie [Orta] and Brittany [Delagarza]. They came late at night and we came in on the weekends and we got this all put together.”

Alumni from past and present high schools in Southeast Texas have donated or loaned high school artifacts to the museum, such as letterjackets, jerseys, helmets, photos, yearbooks and spirit gear. Museum director Tom Neal said such contributions are still being accepted.

“It’s neat to have an area so interesting that you have stories to tell,” Neal said. “And, then, it’s neat to present them here at the museum in a way that people are enjoying them and engaging to all these things. We’ve had so many people contact us about this subject, much like ‘Betting, Booze and Brothels’ but from a different standpoint. ‘Betting, Booze and Brothels’, people wondered if they had any relatives who might have been arrested doing something, and they came in to check. Now, people are coming in out of curiosity, and they like it.”

Just outside the Dunn Gallery, a highlight video from Thomas Jefferson’s 1983 run to the UIL 5A state baseball championship was playing. The team included Xavier Hernandez, the Texas high school player of the year that season who went on to play with five major-league teams (including stints with the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers) between 1989-98.

Greater Port Arthur would not have another state baseball championship team until Port Neches-Groves in 2017.

The history of sports in Southeast Texas is traced back to 1901, when local semi-professional football teams in Beaumont and Port Arthur were playing. Jim Thorpe, widely considered the greatest American athlete before Muhammad Ali, even brought a team to Beaumont to take on the Port Arthur Pirates, a 1920s semi-pro club.

High school sports came to existence in the area in the 1910s, but not before locals frowned upon them because of the misbehavior of fans that sometimes led to unlawful conduct, according to Bellian.

“The development of high school sports as we recognize today is when Tom Dennis took over as the football coach at Thomas Jefferson,” Bellian said. Dennis’ 1929 and 1944 teams won state championships.

Everett “Tootie” Litchfield played on Nederland’s 1957 3A state champion football team and visited the exhibition along with his wife Doris.

“It’s good seeing all this stuff and especially with Bum [Phillips, former Nederland and PNG coach],” Litchfield said. “… It’s [High school sports have] been a big part of Nederland, ever since I was a young kid coming up. People are basically into football, but they go in and participate in more of the sports, girls’ softball, boys’ baseball, and a little bit of everything. They’re getting more diversified on what their likes and dislikes are. It’s been a good learning experience for us.”

Cle Kimble graduated from Lincoln High in 1995. The school’s boys basketball team won the 4A championship that season, and no Port Arthur ISD team in that sport would achieve such a feat until Memorial in 2018.

“It’s just amazing to look at some of the older memorabilia and not necessarily a list of the current but some of the old things you see and how things have changed so much … how things have changed, has transformed, but how it was such a place to be,” Kimble said. Lincoln, Jefferson and Stephen F. Austin high schools merged to form Memorial in 2002.

“Downtown doesn’t look the way it did,” Kimble said. “Gulfway still had restaurants down there, and out towards the mall didn’t have all the restaurants there. It was still a lot of field, there.”

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I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews