Legendary Longhorn James Street Dies

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In my mind's eye, I can see quarterback James Street scrambling and passing for the University of Texas during his college football career in the 1960s.

Street died today at the age of 65.

Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News recalled Street's role in executing "the best play [coach] Darrell Royal ever called" — the fourth–and–three play action pass that set up the winning touchdown against Arkansas in the "Great Shootout" in Fayetteville, Ark., on Dec. 6, 1969.

The Shootout was a rarity in college football at that time — a game between the top two ranked teams in the nation.

"Street made [the play] work, his pass falling six inches behind two sets of Arkansas hands and into Randy Peschel's," Sherrington writes, "setting up the winning touchdown in a 15–14 game that won Texas a national title. In the process, Street made believers out of every teammate, coach, Longhorn and Razorback."

I guess that was true. I grew up in Razorback country. Ever since I was old enough to follow football, I pulled for the Razorbacks on autumn Saturdays, and the Shootout broke my young heart.

But I guess Sherrington is right. Street made a believer out of me — or, at least, his 20–0 record as Texas' quarterback coupled with Texas' victory in December 1969 convinced me.

(The memory still hurts even after all this time. I truly believed Arkansas would win that game.)

As much as I admired Bill Montgomery, Arkansas' quarterback in those days, I have to admit that I wished the Razorbacks had Street — in much the way that fans today wish their team had Peyton Manning.

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When the game was over, Street joined Royal to accept the plaque from President Nixon proclaiming the Longhorns national champions.

But Street and Royal knew they still had to defeat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day — which proved to be a formidable task.

I watched that game — and wished again that it could be Arkansas playing for a national title against Notre Dame.

Instead, the Razorbacks lost the Sugar Bowl to Archie Manning and Ole Miss that day. The loss was meaningless, of course, compared to what the Razorbacks had lost a few weeks earlier — and what they could have won on that New Year's Day if they had beaten the Longhorns.

But it was Street who left the Cotton Bowl as the unblemished quarterback of the national champion.

Happy 75th Birthday to Razorback Stadium

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Today is the 75th anniversary of the opening of the football stadium on the campus of my alma mater, and a season–long celebration is planned.

I am speaking of Razorback Stadium at the University of Arkansas. Actually, since 2001, it has been known as Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. (Reynolds was a philanthropist who studied journalism at the University of Missouri and went on to own newspapers in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Reynolds' newspapers launched the Donrey Media Group, which was active in both journalism scholarships and internships when I was in school.)

The Razorbacks only won twice in 1938, but one of those victories came in Razorback Stadium's opener. The victory came against Oklahoma State, 27–7.

It's been expanded twice since I was in school there. They've added all sorts of bells and whistles — as well as seats — since the last time I was there. When I was a student, the only lights in the stadium were designed to allow players to practice, not to illuminate a night game for television. But Razorback Stadium has lights now — along with one of those huge screens at one end of the field.

Even so, I'm sure it would feel much the same to be there — even after all these years.

There have been lots of changes starting with the conference affiliation. When I was growing up, the Hogs competed in the Southwest Conference, but they've been in the Southeastern Conference since 1992. And today, the Hogs are 3–1 to start a season for the eighth time in the last 25 years (they started 4–0 four other times).

This Saturday, they will come home to face Texas A&M, an old Southwest Conference nemesis.

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Back in the summer, I saw an online contest to pick the most significant game ever played in Razorback Stadium. I didn't participate in the contest — I meant to, but I was short of time when I saw it, and I told myself I would go back and cast a vote, but I never did — but I've been thinking a lot about the question it posed.

If the question had been asked about War Memorial Stadium, the Hogs' home in central Arkansas (and much closer to the town — now small city — where I grew up), I think it would be pretty easy. In 1975, Texas A&M was ranked second in the nation when the Aggies came to Little Rock to face the Razorbacks in the season finale.

Teddy Barnes' TD reception just before halftime sparked Arkansas to a 31–6 victory over the previously unbeaten Aggies and a berth in the Cotton Bowl against Georgia.

But the question was not asked about War Memorial Stadium. It was asked about Razorback Stadium.

I went to some significant games at Razorback Stadium when I was a student there, and I know of some significant games that have been played there since I graduated, but only one game came to mind when I read that question. It was played long before I went to a game in Fayetteville.

It's "The Great Shootout" between top–ranked Texas and second–ranked Arkansas in 1969.

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I have written of that game before. The Texas game was always the most important game on the schedule when I was growing up, no matter what the records were. The fans in Arkansas would have worked themselves into a frenzy even if both teams came into the game winless.

But the 1969 game was unique.

It was a rare meeting between the top two teams in the nation, and network folks were so certain that Arkansas and Texas would beat all of their other opponents that year — and be #1 and #2 in the polls — that they persuaded the schools to move their game from its traditional slot in mid–October to the first weekend in December, when no one else was scheduled to be in action, and the Hogs and the Longhorns could have the spotlight all to themselves.

In the days before conference championship games — and even national championship games — it was a fitting capper for college football's 100th season.

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It may have been the greatest disappointment of my then–brief life when Texas edged Arkansas, 15–14, and was given a plaque proclaiming the Longhorns the national champions by President Nixon, who was, I believe, the first sitting president ever to visit Fayetteville. Texas coach Darrell Royal accepted the plaque from the president — even though he knew the Longhorns still had to overcome Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day.

And I watched it all on my parents' black–and–white TV. I don't remember how old I was when I first saw a Razorback game in color. All my early memories are in black and white.

Most of my memories of Razorback Stadium also involve Frank Broyles because he was Arkansas' coach when I was growing up. He was always there, always on the sideline, always doing his weekly TV show on Sundays (which, in those pre–cable days when teams were limited to one or two in–season telecasts per year, was usually the only way I could see footage of the Razorbacks in action).

Once, when I was a student at the University of Arkansas, I did a brief phone interview with Broyles. I must confess, I was a bit starstruck. I mean, here I was talking to the man I had watched roam sidelines since I was a child. I can't really say I idolized him. But he was a familiar figure to everyone in Arkansas, and I felt like one might if speaking to a movie star.

Broyles was no longer the coach by the time I interviewed him. He was the full–time athletic director, but he patiently answered my questions (which I realized, at the time, could have been more professional — but what the heck? I was a student), and I wrote up a story for the school newspaper.

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Interestingly, while the stadium is known, officially, as Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, the playing surface is known as Frank Broyles Field. That is something I have encountered at other schools, too — including the University of Oklahoma, where I taught journalism for four years. I never attended a football game at OU, but I was well aware of the fact that the football facility was known as Memorial Stadium at Owen Field.

It isn't new to me. It just seems kind of unnecessary, like hyphenated surnames.

But I guess both serve a purpose.

Anyway, it's been 75 years since Razorback Stadium opened its doors. I'm proud to have played my modest role in its development. I witnessed some great moments in Razorback history — and I saw a few Southwest Conference greats from other schools play there. Most of the people who read or hear of those games and players will not know I was there, but I was. I cherish the memories.

Happy birthday, Razorback Stadium — and many more.

Jim Tressel's Resignation

Yesterday, after I heard that Jim Tressel had resigned as the head football coach at Ohio State, I sent an e–mail to a friend of mine.

"Did you hear that Jim Tressel has resigned at Ohio State?" I asked.

"It had been building for some time after that stupid bowl decision," he replied. "Probably good for both the school and him. He'll get a job next year very easily at a top program."

I completely agree with his first sentence — and I agree with the second as well. I'm not so sure about the third. I'm kind of inclined to think this is it for Tressel — or that it may be a few years — possibly several years — before he returns to the sidelines.

It's hard for me to say, though. Tressel's decision really caught me by surprise — although, in hindsight, my friend's observation that this "had been building for some time" makes sense — and it may take me awhile to absorb it all.

Others don't seem as surprised.

Brett McMurphy of CBS Sports, for one, wants to know — What took so long?

"Any other coach would have been tossed aside months ago," he writes. "Tressel must have attended — and graduated cum laude from — the Richard M. Nixon School on how to handle a crisis situation. Yet another example: The coverup is worse than the crime."

That helps frame things for me. Tressel does remind me of Nixon in his determination never to admit to wrongdoing. Even his "defense" of his players' violations of NCAA rules against selling memorabilia — that these problems could be avoided if athletes were paid — smacks of the kind of arrogance I have come to expect from Ohio State coaches.

Which brings me to Mike Lopresti of USA Today, who put into words a thought that kept going through my mind.

For reasons I had not been able to pinpoint previously, Tressel's sudden departure reminded me of the demise of another legendary Ohio State football coach, Woody Hayes, who belted an opposing player following a turnover in a bowl game.

They were "[t]wo smart, determined, successful coaches [who] came to messy ends, each from [a] self–induced crisis."

Hayes was arrogant, too — in a different way, perhaps. But each in his own way believed that he and the Ohio State football program occupied a special zone. In that zone, Hayes was entitled to fetch a roundhouse to the chops of an opposing player on national TV, and Tressel was entitled to look the other way while his players ignored the rules by which all others must live.

("If the president does it," Nixon famously said, "that means it is not illegal.")

Nevertheless, Tressel was maybe the only thing sports fans in Ohio had going for them these days. Lebron James left Cleveland for Miami — where he will start playing for an NBA title tonight.

The Cleveland Indians are clinging to first in a pitiful American League Central, but they got hammered the day Tressel announced his resignation, and it is far from certain whether they will still be playing in October.

The Cincinnati Reds, thought by many to be a sure thing for the playoffs when the season began, are in a tailspin; they've lost seven of their last 10 games, and they are currently third in the National League Central.

And probably the less said about the Browns and the Bengals the better.

Tressel's status among suddenly embattled (and presumably embittered) Ohio sports fans may improve. After all, by the time he died, Hayes was remembered for his triumphs on the gridiron and not his indiscretion in the Gator Bowl.

And Nixon, too, was eulogized in glowing terms — nearly two decades after he resigned the presidency.

Time does have a way of healing all — or, at least, most — wounds.

A Painful Memory

Today, during the first half of the Alabama-Florida game, they mentioned that this was the first time in 39 years that the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the Associated Press poll faced each other in December.

I remember that game. It occurred exactly 39 years ago today, December 6, in 1969. It was the Arkansas-Texas game.

Some folks called it "The Game of the Century." And some folks called it "The Great Shootout."

I grew up in Conway, Ark., which is in the central part of the state, and the Arkansas campus, where the game was played, is in the northwest corner of the state, about 120 miles away.

But geography doesn't matter in Arkansas. Whether you live in Texarkana to the southwest, Blytheville to the northeast or Monticello to the southeast or anywhere in between, just about everyone pulls for the Razorbacks.

And, in 1969, there was no cable. There were only the three major networks — and some restrictive regulations that limited the number of TV appearances a program could make during the regular season.

ABC's Roone Arledge made a deal with Arkansas coach/athletic director Frank Broyles to move the game to the end of the season, meaning an exclusive national viewing audience — and Arledge threw in a pledge that the president, Richard Nixon, would attend the game in person.

Arledge also promised to televise Arkansas' season opener the next year, which was against Jim Plunkett and Stanford.

In return, Broyles had to assure Arledge the footing would be good, so he installed AstroTurf at Razorback Stadium.

It was a gamble that Arkansas and Texas would win the rest of their games and play in a showdown of unbeaten teams as the regular-season finale for college football's 100th season.

The gamble paid off. Both teams were unbeaten. Nixon arrived after the kickoff, but in time to see most of the game. He was accompanied by politicians from both states, including a young representative from Texas named George H.W. Bush.

It's hard to imagine, these days, how incredible the hype was for the game. In their book "The Razorbacks," veteran Arkansas sportswriters Jim Bailey and Orville Henry called it "The Day The Nation Watched," and it truly was.

The day was raw and damp, as I recall. We lived in a hilly area and depended on the old-fashioned TV antenna to pick up signals from the Little Rock stations. The weather interfered with the TV signals and, at one point during the game, the wind and the rain knocked it loose. The picture suddenly went haywire.

My father decided to climb up on the roof to re-attach the antenna. I remember watching him climb up the ladder and make his way to the apex of the roof while the wind swirled around him and a cold rain stung him from time to time. From below, my mother called up instructions to him, advising my father not to electrocute himself.

Somehow, he fixed the antenna and we watched the rest of the game from the comfort of our living room. In the cold and the rain in Fayetteville, Texas rallied from a 14-0 deficit with 15 unanswered points in the fourth quarter and won the game, 15-14.

Nixon came down to Texas' locker room and proclaimed the Longhorns the national champions — even though they still had a Cotton Bowl date with Notre Dame on New Year's Day.

The pain in Arkansas the following week was almost too great to describe.

Actually, a much better memory of a December 6 — for Arkansas fans — came six years later. In Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium, Arkansas upset previously unbeaten and second-ranked Texas A&M, 31-6, to win the Southwest Conference and advance to the Cotton Bowl, where the Razorbacks beat the Georgia Bulldogs, 31-10.