THE FIRST GOPHER FOOTBALL TEAM At the end of the 1923 school year, the school board decided that Grand Prairie High School should have a football team in '24 and authorized the district to spend $200 on uniforms and find a coach. Of course, the coach had to be a volunteer as no money was authorized for a salary. The volunteer turned out to be Ben E. Grimes who had attended Minnesota University, where the mascot was the Golden Gopher. Mr. Grimes volunteered to coach the team on the condition that the team's mascot would be the Gopher. Mr. Grimes traveled by interurban all the way to Dallas to Ring & Brewer uniform store, which was then the supplier of athletic uniforms. Originally intending to purchase bright red uniforms, Mr. Grimes learned that the uniforms would cost somewhere between $400 and $600 and thus was forced to leave empty handed. A week or so later, he received a call from Ring & Brewer and was told that another school had ordered 26 uniforms that were supposed to be green, but turned out to be blue. Ring & Brewer offered the uniforms to Mr. Grimes for $200. The first football team took the field in 1924 marking the inception of the Grand Prairie Gophers and Big Blue!