Earl Campbell

by Asher Price

  We haven’t had a confrontation: Edwards, “Darrell Royal: Sad End.”

  When I come back: Hand, “Royal Mess.”

  I don’t think this can: James Walker, “Texas Wishbone Pulled,” Dec. 30, 1976, Fred Akers folder, Stark Center. No publication information included with clipping.

  uninvited to appear on: Denne H. Freeman, “Akers Surviving Pressure,” Bryan–College Station (TX) Eagle, Nov. 13, 1977, 1B.

  We’re so young we hold hands: Douglas Looney, “Down and Out Can Be Upsetting,” Sports Illustrated, Oct. 16, 1977, 24.

  It is evident by our: Medina, “Dear Longhorn,” May 9, 1977, in Dale, “Frank Medina.”

  When you’re a wishbone fullback: Jim Trotter, “A Heisman for Earl?,” Austin American-Statesman, July 10, 1977, H1.

  A promotional tour of likely: Kirk Bohls, “Campbell Discovers Girdles, Heisman Big Part of Future,” Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 19, 1977, C1; David Casstevens, “The Man who Follows DKR Knows a Challenge,” Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, July 1977.

  It came down to Earl’s and Earl’s got a lot of obstacles: Bohls, “Campbell Discovers Girdles.”

  I need to know, Mr. Campbell: Earl Campbell, thetylerrose.com/the-col-lege-years; Miller, Tyler Rose, 94–95.

  I don’t know and I would get hot: “The Earl Campbell Story: Winning Personality,” in Earl Campbell folder, Stark Center; see also, Blair, Earl Campbell, 84–85.

  I can remember the days: “Frank Medina,” undated UT Sports Information Service press release, folder “Frank Medina, 1954–1993,” Stark Center.

  In church the other day: Robertson, “This Year the Real No. 20,” 109.

  Watching Earl go through: Miller, Tyler Rose, 97.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been: Trotter, “A Heisman for Earl?”

  Beautiful women in the Neiman-Marcus: Morris, Courting of Marcus Dupree, 427.

  As part of the 1936 Texas Centennial: Negro Achievement Day, cosponsored by the Dallas Negro Chamber of Commerce, was a big deal. In 1946, 115,000 African Americans attended the state fair, and black schools closed for the day. A parade to the Hall of State culminated in the presentation of the Most Distinguished Negro Citizen Award. The schedule for Negro Achievement Day in 1955, the year of Earl Campbell’s birth, included performances by Louis Armstrong, a twins contest, a beauty contest, parades with marching bands, black 4-H Club demonstrations, and, the crowning event, a football game between two all-black colleges. This enthusiasm troubled Juanita Craft, a Dallas activist with the NAACP, who worried that African Americans were implicitly acquiescing in the segregation of the state fair by enthusiastically attending on the one day set aside for them. In 1951, observing how hard it was to raise money to pay for the civil rights legal struggle, she wrote to the executive director of the NAACP in New York that the 182,347 African Americans who attended the fair spent at least three dollars each for entry to an event that essentially preserved segregation, while “we have to beg for two dollars per year to fight Jim Crow.” See R. N. Burrow, “Juanita Craft: Desegregating the State Fair of Texas,” Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas 16, no. 1 (Spring 2004).

  intense emotional discomfort: Foundation for Community Empowerment, “A Great Park for a Great City,” July 31, 2017, available at scribd.com/docu-ment/355374502/A-Great-Park-for-a-Great-City-Final#download&-from_embed.

  It makes you feel like: Ibid.

  Heading into the 1977 matchup: Details of the 1977 Texas-OU game, including comments from Campbell, Akers, and McEachern, are from Looney, “Down and Out.”

  “Randy is Dandy” T-shirts: McEachern, 100 Things Longhorns Fans, 214.

  Without taking anything away: “News and Notes from the Southwest Conference,” Oct. 11, 1977, Fred Akers folder, Stark Center.

  I set a couple records: Author interview with Rick Ingraham, July 2017.

  The pork chops and dressing: UT Sports Information Service press release, Oct. 16, 1977, Earl Campbell folder, Stark Center.

  Ann Campbell rearranged her schedule: Bohls, “Earl: A Trip with a Star.”

  One of her front teeth: Newman, “Roots of Greatness,” 98.

  I don’t think she could ever: Blair, Earl Campbell, 91.

  On the line was the: Technically, if Texas had lost to A&M and if A&M had lost its next game, against Houston, Texas would have gone to the Cotton Bowl.

  All I wanted to do: “Thousands Cheer ’Horns,” Austin American-Statesman, Nov. 22, 1977, A1.

  If an Aggie and a: The content of the racist message was reprinted in two letters to the editor printed in the Daily Texan’s “Firing Line,” Nov. 22, 1977: Joe Feagin and Devon Gerardo Peña, “Pursue UT Racism,” and E. A. Saenz, “TV or Cowboy Racism.”

  The sign was put there: “Investigation Clears Cowboys,” Daily Texan, Nov. 22, 1977, 2.

  I feel sorry for those and I’m not trying to tell you: Bohls, “Earl: A Trip with a Star.”

  We do wonder if we’re: Some details of the 1977 matchup between UT and Texas A&M are from Douglas Looney, “What a Way to Wind It Up,” Sports Illustrated, Dec. 5, 1977, 20.

  Earl, I really expect 170 yards: Bohls, “Earl: A Trip with a Star.”

  If you poured a cup of coffee: Bohls, “Campbell Was Unstoppable at Texas,” Austin American-Statesman, July 28, 1991, clipping in Earl Campbell file, Stark Center.

  couldn’t catch a cold: John Pirkle, Oiler Blues: The Story of Pro Football’s Most Frustrating Team (Houston, TX: Sportline, 2000), 159.

  Some teammates called him and He never caught: Bohls, “Campbell Was Unstoppable.”

  How bad do we want it?: Looney, “What a Way.”

  If he doesn’t win: Jerry Wizig, “Aggie Says Give Campbell Heisman or Throw It Away,” Houston Chronicle, Nov. 27, 1977, sec. 3, 7.

  Grab, hold on and hope for help: Looney, “What a Way,” 20.

  Earl is the best running back: Dave Campbell, “The Great Tyler Rose, Texas’ Man for All Seasons,” Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, Jan. 1978, 25.

  People Run Over: UT News Release, undated, Earl Campbell folder, Stark Center.

  A group of two dozen Orangebloods: Undated two-page list titled “People Attending the Heisman Awards,” Earl Campbell folder, 1974–2006, Stark Center.

  was not a Madison Avenue creation and stigma of advertisement: Gordon H. White Jr., “Heisman Trophy ‘Show Biz,’” New York Times, Dec. 7, 1977, D12.

  Only a day before, Ann Campbell: Jim Trotter, “Mama Campbell Has Her New York Debut,” Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 9, 1977; author interviews with Rick Ingraham and Henry Bell III.

  I play football when I: Jim Trotter, “Earl the Same in New York or Austin,” Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 9, 1977, G1.

  Robert Lipsyte, “Behind the Easy Smile, O. J. Was Hard to Read,” New York Times, June 19, 1994, sec. 8, 2.

  I think my biggest thrill: Buchholz, “Echoes of Earl,” Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 12, 1998. Buchholz recounts an exchange he had with Campbell when he was a student journalist at UT.

  I am not a football player: Trotter, “Earl the Same in New York.”

  This isn’t what I came: Miller, Tyler Rose, 111.

  PART III: HOUSTON

  Interviews for this section were conducted with David Barron (Sept. 2017), Leon Beck (Feb. 2018), Gregg Bingham (Jan. 2018), Kirk Bohls (Aug. 2018), Ken Burrough (Aug. 2017), Dave Casper (Summer 2017), Gator Conley (Feb. 2018), Curley Culp (Jan. 2018), Joel Dinerstein (Mar. 2017), Mickey Herskowitz (Nov. 2018), David Lopez (Aug. 2017), Carl Mauck (Aug. 2016), John McClain (Nov. 2018), Dan Pastorini (Aug. 2016 and Aug. 2017), Dale Robertson (Aug. 2017), Erna Smith (July 2017), Mike Trope (Oct. 2016), and Barry Warner (Nov. 2018). Quoted material from these interviews is generally not documented further in the notes. Many of the articles cited below are from Dale Robertson’s clipping file (DRCF), which consists of newspaper clippings pasted into spiral-bound notebooks. Many of these articles do not include dates or page numbers.

  When Satan came
to Houston: The poem was sent to the newspaper by a reader; reprinted in David McComb, Houston: A History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).

  When I was in Cleveland and he considered the trade: John Pirkle, Oiler Blues: The Story of Pro Football’s Most Frustrating Team (Houston: Sportline, 2000), 108.

  We had no friends: Kenneth Turan, “Bum Phillips—The Genuine Article,” Washington Post, Dec. 21, 1980, F1.

  National Football League’s garbage can: Pirkle, Oiler Blues, 108.

  Team owner Bud Adams: Background information on Adams came from some of the interviewees listed above; Pirkle, Oiler Blues; and Ed Fowler, Loser Takes All: Bud Adams, Bad Football, and Big Business (Atlanta: Longstreet, 1997).

  The Astrodome, which opened in 1965: I. A. Naman, “Domed Stadium Air-Conditioning Design,” ASHRAE Journal, June 2009.

  Events hosted in the dome: Lee Hockstader, “Once the ‘Eighth Wonder,’ Now a Relic,” Washington Post, June 8, 2003, A1.

  In a 1977 survey of players and In the condition the field: Dale Robertson, “Dome Could Pull Rug Out from under Oilers,” Houston Post, DRCF.

  If the Astrodome was: Dale Robertson, “Oilers Agree Training Facility the Pits,” Houston Post, Sept. 20, 1979, DRCF; Robertson, “New Facility for Oilers to Be Delayed,” Houston Post, no date on clipping, Clipping Notebook 1978–79, DRCF.

  To be real honest and The Dolphins practiced here: Robertson, “Oilers Agree Training Facility.”

  I smelled a rat and Leon, you’re gonna be: Robertson, “New Facility for Oilers.”

  At Cutter Bill: Chris Lane, “A Glimpse into the Wild Ride of Cutter Bill Western World Is a Texas Time Capsule,” Houston Press, Mar. 2, 2016, houstonpress.com/arts/a-glimpse-into-the-wild-ride-of-cutter-bill-west-ern-world-is-a-texas-time-capsule-8205931.

  Absolutely no one was wearing: Joe Simnacher, “Judi Buie: Texan Kick-Started Craze for Cowboy Boots in New York,” Dallas Morning News, Apr. 16, 2003, 5B. Simnacher’s story quotes a 1982 interview with Buie.

  By the following November: Jason Mellard, Progressive Country: How the 1970s Transformed the Texan in Popular Culture (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013), 172–174.

  The man who managed to bring: O. A. “Bum” Phillips and Ray Buck, He Ain’t No Bum (Virginia Beach, VA: Jordan, 1979); Curry Kirkpatrick, “Hallelujah. He’s. Uh. Bum,” Sports Illustrated, Oct. 27, 1980, 70-82.

  Gillman, who as a nerdy kid: Bob Wolf, “Under Sid Gillman, the Charger Era Came to Pass,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 16, 1989, part 3, 1.

  He favored hand-tooled boots: Dale Robertson, “Boots for Bum,” Houston Post, DRCF; the story of Phillips’s boot-buying habits is filled out in Kirkpatrick, “Hallelujah.”

  I’d like to get him into: E. M. Swift, “Scorecard,” Sports Illustrated, July 30, 1978, 12.

  Texas wasn’t blocking well: Bum Phillips and Gabe Semenza, Bum Phillips: Coach, Cowboy, Christian (Brenham: Lucid Books, 2010), 103.

  You know the old cliché: Dale Robertson, “Oilers’ Rights to Tyler Rose Come Cheaply,” Houston Post, DRCF.

  just doesn’t sound right: Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 357.

  It’s not fashion: Mellard, Progressive Country, 190.

  The spot was Gilley’s: Author interview with Gator Conley, Feb. 2018; Michael Ennis, “The Conqueror Worm,” Texas Monthly, Aug. 1980, 122–127; Aaron Latham, “The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America’s Search for True Grit,” Esquire, Sept. 12, 1978; John Spong, “Urban Cowboy Turns 35,” Texas Monthly, June 2015, texasmonthly.com/the-culture/urban-cow-boy-turns-35; Bob Claypool, Saturday Night at Gilley’s (New York: Delilah/Grove, 1980); Billy Porterfield, The Greatest Honky-Tonks in Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1983).

  The per capita income: Ray Marshall, Employment of Blacks in the South: A Perspective on the 1960s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 11.

  In black barbecue joints: Robb Walsh, “How the Texas BBQ Boom Marginalizes Its African-American Roots,” FirstWeFeast (blog), June 17, 2016, firstwefeast.com/features/2016/06/texas-bbq-overlooks-african-ameri-can-roots; J. C. Reid, e-mail to the author, May 2018.

  More than 1.5 million people: William K. Stevens, “Houston, Fastest Growing Big City, Showing Signs of Having Hit Prime Time,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 1981, A20.

  The unemployed pour into town: Jan Morris, “City of Destiny,” Texas Monthly, Oct. 1981, 130.

  Pasadena, home to oil refineries: C. David Pomeroy Jr., “Pasadena, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, June 15, 2010, tshaonline.org/handbook/on-line/articles/hdp02.

  redneck end of the hippie-redneck spectrum: Mellard, Progressive Country, 178; see also Rachel Graves, “Urban Cowboy, 25 years later,” Houston Chronicle, May 15, 2005, A16.

  carouse at the all-white Gilley’s: Details about Earl Campbell at Gilley’s are from author interviews with Leon Beck (Feb. 2018), who handled publicity for the club, and Gator Conley (Feb. 2018).

  saloon cowboys: Aaron Latham, Perfect Pieces (New York: Arbor House, 1987), 9.

  escape from the overwhelming complexities: Ibid., 16.

  The story was obvious: Spong, “Urban Cowboy Turns 35.”

  Come on over: David Maraniss, “Dear Earl: Campbell Runs On, Only Now He’s Carrying Advice,” Washington Post, June 12, 1990.

  He, in turn, embraced: Dale Robertson, “’Davy Crockett Wouldn’t Have Asked for a Raise at the Alamo’: Same Old Earl, One More Verse,” Houston Post, Clipping Notebook July 14, 1982–June 20, 1983, DRCF.

  Earl was the whitest black man: Author interview with Dale Robertson, Aug. 2017.

  His grandmother could have: Jan Reid, “Gambling on the Gamblers,” Texas Monthly, Jan. 1984, 154.

  It probably hadn’t helped: Author interview with Mike Trope, Oct. 2016.

  I mean, he didn’t know what: Author interview with Witt Stewart, Oct. 2018.

  These black guys spend money: M. Cordell Thompson, “Discrimination in Football Nothing New,” Jet, Nov. 15, 1973, 68.

  the average NFL salary was $25,000: Debra Bell, “US News Questioned Football’s Future Nearly 45 Years Ago,” US News, Feb. 1, 2013, usnews.com/news/blogs/press-past/2013/02/01/us-news-questioned-pro-foot-balls-future-nearly-45-years-ago.

  They wouldn’t give another black: Peter Gent, North Dallas Forty (New York: Morrow, 1973), 76.

  Through the mid-1960s, the Oilers: Thompson, “Discrimination in Football,” 68.

  But in 1966, the Oilers: “Negro Quota System Dropped by Houston Oilers,” Jet, Nov. 23, 1967, 57.

  Still, into the 1970s: Jonathan I. Brower, “The Black Side of Football: The Salience of Race” (PhD diss., University of California at Santa Barbara, 1973), 115, 116, 123. The racial makeup of teams from the South was 29 percent African American; for teams from other parts of the country, it was 35 percent.

  Even in the strict business: George Plimpton, Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback (New York: New American Library, 1974), 168.

  Fear. They all got too much: Gent, North Dallas Forty, 131.

  If there’s one thing: UPI, “Campbell Sweeps Awards with MVP,” Brownsville (TX) Herald, Dec. 29, 1978, 1B.

  driving through Palestine and Corsicana: Avrel Seale, “A Rose by Any Other Name,” Texas Alcalde, September–October, 1994, 12.

  I want it: Brad Buchholz, “Echoes of Earl,” Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 12, 1998, 1.

  Mr. Scott, I need a car: Wally Scott gave me a copy of the notes for his father’s unpublished memoir; see also Fowler, Loser Takes All, and Pirkle, Oiler Blues.

  Hop in my Rolls: Kirk Bohls, “Earl: A Trip with a Star,” Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 4, 1977.

  at each Pro Bowl: Pirkle, Oiler Blues, 172.

  to build a house: Kent Demaret, “Earl Campbell Eats Up Yards, but He and Wife Reuna Measure Their Gains in Acres,” People, Sept. 8, 1980, people.com/archive/for-fans-earl-campbell-eats-up-yards-but-he-and-wife-reuna-measure-their-gains-in-acres-vol-14-no-10.

  It’s going to be simple: Pirkle, Oi
ler Blues, 131.

  All this money don’t make: Bruce Newman, “The Roots of Greatness,” Sports Illustrated, Sept. 3, 1979, 98.

  one of the town’s reservoirs: Asher Price, “Austin as Dry as San Angelo?,” Austin American-Statesman, May 15, 2011, B1.

  I’ll never forget one starry night: Kirk Bohls, “Earl to Open Up on TV on Monday,” Austin American-Statesman, June 24, 2013, C1.

  I remember one time he and It was the second day of camp: Bill Sullivan, “Former Teammates Remain in Awe,” Houston Chronicle, July 29, 1991, 1C.

  A poor man’s Joe Namath: Dale Robertson, “Oiler Quarterback Scarred but Remains Confident,” Houston Post, Jan. 6, 1979.

  She may be why Pastorini: Kevin Cook, The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless ’70s—The Era That Created Modern Sports (New York: Norton, 2013), 182.

  Every quarterback wants: Dale Robertson, “Never a Rookie like Earl,” Dave Campbell’s Arkansas Football, Winter 1979, 62.

  If y’all think about it: Bum Phillips, The Best of Bum: The Quotable Bum Phillips, with David Kaplan and Daniel Griffin (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1980), unpaginated.

  has two speeds: Norman Chad, “Week 3,” Washington Post, Sept. 21, 1980, washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1980/09/21/week-3/55e90a46-06e1-47a9-8aaa-fc978721537b/?utm_term=.ccefa4d0becd.

  You know what he reminds: Barry Lorge, “The Earl of Campbell,” Washington Post, Dec. 27, 1978.

  Mamma, Don’t Let Your Babies: Newman, “Roots of Greatness,” 98.

  If you could count to three: Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, Out of Control: Confessions of an NFL Casualty (New York: Putnam, 1987), 263.

  Your blue pen is for: Ibid., 83.

  The Oilers’ style: Dale Robertson, “NFL Record to Define Oiler’s Image,” Houston Post, Clipping Notebook July 14, 1982–June 20, 1983, DRCF.

  Dallas players are made: Dale Robertson, “It’s Bum and Tom and Never the Twain Shall Meet,” Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, Mar. 1979, 19.

  Everybody makes fun of: Phillips and Buck, He Ain’t No Bum, 21.

  Thursdays were beer-keg days: Kirkpatrick, “Hallelujah,” 76.

  You won’t fight for anyone: Author interview with Dan Pastorini, Aug. 2017.