Earl Campbell

by Asher Price

  watching Earl Campbell play: Miller, Tyler Rose, 11.

  no reputation: Author interview with unidentified man on the Cut, Dec. 2016.

  these different things within me: Vincent Mallozzi, Doc: The Rise and Rise of Julius Erving (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2010).

  When I got to the ninth grade: Seale, “Rose by Any Other Name.”

  Earl Campbell got me interested in golf: A. C. Flynn told me the story about Andy Dillard and golf. At five-eight and around 220 pounds, Dillard grew to be nearly Campbellian in girth. A fellow pro once observed, “Andy could stand in front of the sun and cause a solar eclipse.” See Walter Bingham, “One and Only,” Sports Illustrated, June 12, 2000.

  My cousin kind of liked him: Don McLeese, “Hooking a Heisman,” Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 12, 1999, F1.

  At Moore he started learning: Miller, Tyler Rose, 17.

  But in 1971, Campbell’s ability: Jeff Miller, “The Earl of East Texas,” ESPN. com, Nov. 22, 2011, espn.com/dallas/ncf/story/_/page/heisman-dallas-week10/earl-campbell.

  felt a lack of passion: “Earl Campbell: The Tyler Rose,” thetylerrose.com/early-years.

  In the heart of north Tyler: Miller, “Earl of East Texas.”

  two years of what you might call: Mark McDonald, “Team Unity,” Dallas Morning News, Dec. 14, 1994, 1B.

  We had our little boat: Constance Curry, Silver Rights (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin, 1995), 130.

  he would intentionally fumble: Miller, Tyler Rose, 28.

  Campbell and some teammates: David Barron, “Blossoming of Earl Campbell,” Houston Chronicle, July 21, 1991.

  If you score a touchdown: Annie Oeth, “Football Legend Campbell: ‘Just Keep Going,’” Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, Dec. 14, 2014, F2.

  Earl later said he considered: Kevin Sherrington, “Coach’s Tyler Days Are Stuff of Legend,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 23, 2014, C2.

  Lynn King was the epitome: McDonald, “Team Unity.”

  A strong bond developed: Ibid.

  He would body-slam: Author interview with David Barron, Sept. 2017.

  He couldn’t score points: John Spong, “The Great Terquasquicentennial Road Trip,” Texas Monthly, March 2011, 122.

  I didn’t like Corky before: Pat Turner, “Earl Returns Home to Dedicate John Tyler Gym,” Tyler Morning Telegraph, March 3, 1979, 3.

  Earl left; Earl right: Author interview with Sam Kidd, Dec. 2016.

  I’d be so wide open: Miller, “Earl of East Texas.”

  run straight at Campbell: Author interview with Tim Alexander, Mar. 2018.

  developed his passing accuracy: Ron Martz, “Bay Bucs Sign Ex-Raider Quarterback Blount,” St. Petersburg (FL) Times, Sept. 7, 1977.

  People in deep East Texas: Kemerer, William Wayne Justice, 115.

  the 1973 John Tyler squad: Details about the John Tyler playoff victories in 1973 can be found in David Casstevens, “As a Runner, Earl Was King of Them All,” Dallas Morning News, Aug. 19, 1986.

  can’t read, can’t write and My mother asks me if and [Academics] didn’t always interest me: Harvey, “He Was Never Promised.”

  carried six Plano players: Clifford Broyles, “Clifford Broyles,” Bryan–College Station Eagle, Jan. 27, 1974.

  to ignore the pass and he carried my whole team: Jack Gallagher, “Campbell Acts like Superman,” Austin American-Statesman’s Earl Campbell clipping file, undated—“Spring 1974” scribbled on clipping; also see Robert Salas, “Working: A Way of Life, Labor, of Love for Campbell,” Tyler Morning Telegraph, Dec. 9, 1977, 6.

  Mike hesitated for a moment: Dale Robertson, “Never a Rookie Like Earl,” Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, Winter 1979, 63.

  A bull stepped on my head: McDonald, “Team Unity.”

  I looked up into the stands: Campbell, Earl Campbell Story, 21.

  Mayberry on steroids: Author interview with Clyde Nelson IV (Apr. 2017).

  We got used to a bunch of white women: The Joan Brooks comment comes by way of Phil Hicks.

  We even had some beer: Sam Blair, Earl Campbell: The Driving Force (Waco, TX: World Books, 1980), 50.

  Among the scouts and coaches: McLeese, “Hooking a Heisman.”

  PART II: AUSTIN

  Interviewees for this section included Tim Alexander (Mar. 2018), Fred Akers (Oct. 2017), Henry Bell III (Dec. 2016, April 2017), Gary Bledsoe (July 2017), John Sibley Butler (June 2017), Ken Dabbs (July 2017), Douglas Daniels (Nov. 2017), Betty Fine (Mar. 2017), Gary Gallagher (Oct. 2017), Pamelya Herndon (July 2017), John Holmes (Oct. 2017), Michael Hurd (Nov. 2017), Rick Ingraham (July 2017), Alfred Jackson (July 2017), Nick Kralj (July 2017), Bill Lyons (Feb. 2018), Wales Madden (Dec. 2017), Jenna Hays McEachern (Nov. 2017), Randy McEachern (June 2017), Mo Olian (Aug. 2017), Jim Phillips (Aug. 2017), Kirby Sams (May 2018), Wally Scott (Mar. 2018), Erna Smith (July 2017), Tom Swinnea (Apr. 2017), Barry Warner (Nov. 2018), Ron Wilson (August 2017), and Elmo Wright (July 2017). Quoted material from these interviews is generally not documented further in the notes.

  I’d love to go to: The story of the half recruitment of Elmo Wright comes chiefly from interviews with Ken Dabbs and Elmo Wright.

  high-stepping his way: Bob Glauber, “Elmo Wright, End-Zone Dance Originator, Says Cam Newton Has Right to Celebrate,” New York Newsday, Feb. 6, 2016.

  integration of Longhorn football: For the history of integration at the University of Texas, see Dwonna Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres: The Fifty-year Struggle for Racial Equality at the University of Texas (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), and Tom Russell, “‘Keep Negroes Out of Most Classes Where There Are a Large Number of Girls’: The Unseen Power of the Ku Klux Klan and Standardized Testing at the University of Texas, 1899–1999,” South Texas Law Review 52 (Fall 2010).

  to the men and women of the Confederacy: The information about the Confederate plaque was on display at UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History as part of a 2017 exhibition on the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue from campus.

  George Allen, a black life insurance: Neil Foley, Quest for Equality: The Failed Promise of Black-Brown Solidarity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 119. Foley writes that the Austin Statesman reported the “’dark-complexioned Austin youth’ told the professor he was of French-Jewish ancestry. When an investigation revealed Allen was ‘of the Negro race,’ the dean returned his admission fee and barred Allen from attending the class.”

  shall not be used for: The regents resolved on Sept. 29, 1944, that buildings on campus had to be segregated; UT Chancellor’s Office Records, 1941–1971 (mostly 1950–1970), box 9, folder “Negroes,” DBCAH. This set of archives is hereafter cited as “Chancellor’s Records,” with a box number and folder name.

  There is not the slightest danger: Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres, 17.

  It is fairly obvious: Theophilus Painter to D. K. Woodward Jr., Jan. 31, 1948, UT President’s Office Records, 1907–1968, box VG 20/B.a., folder “Negroes in Colleges, 1939–1954,” DBCAH. This set of archives is hereafter cited as “President’s Records,” with a box number and file name.

  never darken the door: Erna Smith, “Blacks Fought to Get into UT,” Austin American-Statesman, Mar. 30, 1975, UT News and Information Service Records, box CDL2/G45b, folder “Black Studies, 1969–1978,” DBCAH. This set of archives is hereafter cited as “UT Information Records,” with a box number and file name.

  But in 1950, the US Supreme Court: The details about the Sweatt case are from Russell, “‘Keep Negroes Out,’” and Gary M. Lavergne, Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010).

  Upon Sweatt’s enrollment: Russell, “‘Keep Negroes Out,’” 18.

  a wooden cross: Lavergne, Before Brown, 275.

  so that his blackness wouldn’t: Joe Frantz, The Forty-Acre Follies (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1983), 205.

  from others of similar age: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), 494. Text of the deci
sion is available from the Legal Information Institute, law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483.

  keep Negroes out of most classes: H. Y. McCown, registrar and dean of admissions, to President Logan Wilson, memo, May 26, 1954, Chancellor’s Records, box 9, folder “Negroes.”

  That June, Marion Ford: Documents regarding the Ford episode—including his rushee card; his correspondence with McCown (and McCown’s correspondence with UT officials); the newspaper article “Houston Negro Seeks Grid Tryout at Texas,” Houston Chronicle; letters among the regents and the state attorney general; and the letter from Shanklin to McCown—can be found in President’s Records, box VF20/B.a., folder “Negroes in Colleges, 1939–1954.”

  Committee on Selective Admissions: The June 1955 report on Selective Admissions can be found in Chancellor’s Records, box 34, folder “Committees—Standing, Admissions Committee.”

  But the report, laying the: The details on standardized testing at UT are from Russell, “‘Keep Negroes Out.’”

  In October 1954, UT was: The Washington State episode is laid out in Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres, 115; Richard B. Fry, The Crimson and the Gray: One Hundred Years with the WSU Cougars (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1998); “Record of Understanding with President Clement French, of Washington State College, Concerning the Football Game Scheduled at the University of Texas between That Institution and This One on Oct. 2, 1954 in Austin,” Chancellor’s Records, box 34, folder “Desegregation”; and correspondence from Clement French to Logan Wilson, Sept. 22, 1954, in the Clement French Records, 1948–1956, at Washington State University.

  entire student section rose: Willie Morris, North Toward Home (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press), 1999, 170.

  One can visualize: The USC memo from Lanier Cox is in Chancellor’s Records, box 34, folder “Desegregation.”

  “Ed,” Ford said: John Maher, “Different Walks of Life: Experience with Racial Barrier Shaped Futures of Curry, Ford,” Austin American-Statesman, March 21, 1995, C1.

  I was a cocky son of a bitch: Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres, 119.

  feels that the coaches: McCown to Wilson, memo, Sept. 19, 1956, Chancellor’s Records, box 53, folder “Desegregation 9/1/56–8/31/58.”

  Wilson issued a confidential memorandum: “Concerning the Participation of Negro Students in Intercollegiate Athletics,” Oct. 13, 1956, in ibid.

  not directly educational in character: This became an overriding approach of UT administrators who dealt with integration over the next fifteen years. “Directly educational in character” is a key phrase, parroting some of the language in the Brown ruling. In June 1961, for example, UT president Joseph Smiley wrote in a draft of a letter to one alumnus that “steady progress has been made with dignity and wisdom with the result that all educational facilities of the University have been open to all qualified students without regard to race or religions permission.” But UT chancellor Harry Ransom, a politically savvy former English professor, reviewing the draft of the seemingly innocuous letter, handwrote a note on the bottom: “Football, etc. dorm contacts, etc., etc., etc. are educational.” At Ransom’s suggestion, Smiley replaced the word “educational” with “academic” in the final version of the letter. The exchange can be found in J. R. Smiley to Jim Dunnington, draft letter, June 15, 1961, President’s Records, box VF 32/B.b, folder “Integration 1960–61.”

  Clinton Givans, an Air Force enlisted man: UT Dean of Students Records Collection, box CDL 2/E.32, folder “Negro Students,” DBCAH. This set of archives is hereafter cited as “Dean of Students Records,” with a box number and file name.

  neither of which will permit: D. X. Bible to Clinton A. Givans, Oct. 3, 1954, Dean of Students Records, box CDL 2/E.32, folder “Negro Students.”

  concerning Negro participation: Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres, 119; H. Y. McCown to C. P. Boner, Oct. 11, 1956, Dean of Students Records, box CDL2/E.32, folder “Integration, 1961–62.”

  Provincialism, of which total exclusion: Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres, 121.

  demanded that lab partners: Chancellor’s Records, box 53, folder “Desegregation 9/1/56–8/31/58”; H. Y. McCown to Logan Wilson and C. P. Boner, May 21, 1957, Chancellor’s Records, box 102, folder “Desegregation”; McCown to Wilson and Boner, Sept. 21, 1956, Chancellor’s Records, box 102, folder “Desegregation.”

  Do you favor allowing participation: For details on the student referendum, I interviewed Mo Olian (Aug. 2017) and John B. Holmes Jr. (Oct. 2017).

  Coffey said he wouldn’t mind: Associated Press, “Coffey Prefers Texas,” Austin Statesman, Mar. 5, 1961, C-1, clipping in President’s Records, box VF 32/B.b, folder “Integration 1960–61.”

  passed the referendum: Joey Holley, “Ernest Goldstein, 89; Pushed for Integration at U. of Texas in ’50s,” Washington Post, May 29, 2008. The give-and-take around the students’ vote can be found in Chancellor’s Records, box 102, folder “Desegregation 9/1/60–8/31/62.”

  should not take unilateral action: President’s Records, box VF 32/B.b., folder “Integration 1960–61.”

  tawdry and suffocating: Morris, North Toward Home, 170.

  He had grown up poor: Biographical details on Darrell Royal are from Jenna Hays McEachern, DKR: The Royal Scrapbook, with Edith Royal (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012); Darrell Royal, Darrell Royal Talks Football (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963); Jimmy Banks, The Darrell Royal Story (Austin: Eakin, 1994); John Maher and Kirk Bohls, Bleeding Orange: Trouble and Triumph Deep in the Heart of Texas Football (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992); and Denne H. Freeman, Hook ’Em Horns: A Story of Texas Football (Huntsville, AL: Strode, 1974). Also, the Darrell Royal Papers at the DBCAH and Darrell Royal vertical file at the Stark Center hold clippings that proved helpful.

  The K in Darrell K Royal: John Maher says he heard that Darrell Royal started using the middle initial K on the advice of Lyndon Baines Johnson. In the era of JFK and RFK, LBJ told him he needed to be known by three initials, for headline writers if for no other reason.

  Last Saturday a Negro: Cooksey’s letter is in Dean of Students Records, box CDL2/E.32, folder “Negro Students.”

  the feeling of our coaches: McCown to Wilson, memo, Nov. 10, 1959, in ibid.

  Syracuse tackle John Brown: Ben Cosgrove, “LIFE at the 1960 Cotton Bowl: ‘Battle of the Hard-Noses,’” Time, Jan. 2, 2014, time.com/3878581/cotton-bowl-1960-when-syracuse-whipped-texas-for-the-national-title.

  Oh, they were bad: Jeff Merron, “‘The Express’ in Real Life,” ESPN.com, Oct. 13, 2008, espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/3634484.

  some pretty uncomplimentary things: Joe Banham, “Racial Dispute Not Called For,” Monroe (LA) News-Star, Jan. 6, 1990, 11-A.

  unanimously agreed that they: W. W. Heath to Thornton Hardie, Nov. 5, 1962, Chancellor’s Records, box 102, folder “Desegregation, 9/1/62–8/1/64.”

  Heath admitted that he: Ronnie Dugger, Our Invaded Universities: Form, Reform, and New Starts (New York: Norton, 1974), 71.

  Under our oaths of office: Press Release, Nov. 9, 1963, Chancellor’s Records, box 102, folder “Desegregation, 9/1/62–8/1/64.”

  asked whether he was currently: Jeff Miller, The Game Changers: Abner Haynes, Leon King, and the Fall of Major College Football’s Color Barrier in Texas (New York: Sports Publishing, 2016), 154.

  is an ambitious young man: Mielly to Ransom, Nov. 19, 1963, and Ransom to Mielly, Dec. 16, 1963, both in Chancellor’s Records, box 102, folder “Desegregation 9/1/62–8/1/64.”

  Just how soon the backfield: Miller, Game Changers, 154.

  that splendid assortment of dentists: Gary Cartwright, “Orange Peril,” Texas Monthly, Nov. 1976, texasmonthly.com/articles/orange-peril.

  was like handing Royal an anchor: McEachern, DKR, 108.

  When I first came here: Jan Reid, “Coach Royal Regrets,” Texas Monthly, December 1982, texasmonthly.com/articles/coach-royal-regrets.

  could have had the courage: Scott Cobb and Daniel Rodriguez, “
Royal Pain: Allegations Still Surround Legendary Coach,” Austin Chronicle, Oct. 4, 1996, austinchronicle.com/news/1996-10-04/524684.

  The same year that he privately: Almetris Marsh Duren, Overcoming: A History of Black Integration at the University of Texas at Austin (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), 15.

  Orange and White Lack Black and Bevo Needs Soul: Author interviews with Bill Lyons and Harriet Murphy, Feb. 2018; see also, “Black Activism Surfaces in ’60s,” Austin Statesman, Mar. 30, 1975, clipping in UT Information Records, box CDL2/G45b, folder “Black Studies, 1969–1978.”

  In a devastating 1972 series: Banks, Darrell Royal Story, 156–159.

  a linebacker named Leon O’Neal: Darren D. Kelly, “Paying the Price for ‘Slow Integration’: A History of Race and Football at the University of Texas at Austin from 1954 to 1972” (master’s thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 2009).

  In 1969, a student questionnaire: Margaret Berry Papers, box 3D122, folder “Black Student Questionnaire,” DBCAH.

  The journalist (and, later: James Toback, “Longhorns and Longhairs,” Harper’s, Nov. 1970, 70. Additional material quoted from this article in the next several pages is not documented separately.

  One of the players pointed: The story of Erwin and the tree cutting has been told many times, including in Asher Price, “UT’s Many Trees Have an Arborist Rooting for Them,” Austin American-Statesman, Oct. 4, 2006, A1.

  The proper thing: Darrell Royal, Coach Royal: Conversations with a Texas Football Legend, with John Wheat (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 33.

  He was still reeling: McEachern, DKR, 118.

  Nothing out in the open: Jack Keever and Robert Heard, “Racism: Royal’s ‘Image’ Bad among Blacks,” Austin Statesman, Nov. 16, 1972, B3.

  Shaw, if you keep playing: Gary Shaw, Meat on the Hoof (New York: Dell, 1972), 209.

  two separate, unlabeled windows: Author interview with John Pope, summer 2017.

  Bear Bryant was big enough: Howell Raines, “Goodbye to the Bear,” New Republic, Jan. 23, 1983, newrepublic.com/article/71262/goodbye-the-bear.