Guided by legendary coach Freddie James, the Cowboys won the 1988 5A state championship with a 31-14 win over Converse Judson. During the 1988 playoffs, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) attempted to remove Carter for using a player ineligible for an allegedly failing grade. The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) challenged the determination of the TEA in court and received a restraining order allowing them to continue play. Carter won the case in district court, Judge Joe Kendall ruling that the DISD, not the TEA, held the final authority to determine its students' grade. (The DISD had ruled that the student passed.) The UIL and TEA appealed Judge Kendall's decision and the appellate court refused to hear it, declaring the case moot. In spite of the court's rulings, the UIL voted in 1991 to officially strip the title from Carter and award it to Judson. The DISD, weary from years of legal proceedings, decided not to further contest the matter. One player famously signed his letter of intent to play college ball while lounging in a hot tub, adorned in gold jewelry. Five days after winning state, three football players robbed a Jack in the Box at 2:30 a.m., pantyhose pulled over their heads. It would be the first of 21 robberies that police connected to 15 Carter neighborhood teenagers, including six from the football team. "If stupidity were a crime, you would all deserve life without parole." "The typical American male lives vicariously on Sunday afternoons in the fall and winter through the lives of football heroes. However, when it comes to violating the law, at the courthouse it simply doesn't matter that you can run the football." "While you never shot or killed anyone, the defendants before this Court cumulatively committed in six months' time more armed robberies than Bonnie and Clyde did in their lifetime..."

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