I received some requests via text and email to post this, so I'll apologize up front for the length. I'm still working on my book and this will most likely be included. As an addendum, I want to dedicate this passage to one senior in particular. All of our senior players are to be thanked and congratulated for their perseverance and for "buying in" to the new regime when they could have folded their tents and just played out the string. However, they led by example and have fought to finish in admirable fashion. But, above all...this season, Nate Boyer, I salute you. _________________________ Every year at this time, my nostalgia meter starts to tilt toward the hot zone a bit more than normal. When I hear "Senior Night" referred to, I am reminded of the final time I suited up in what was then just "Texas Memorial Stadium"...a day that came all too quickly for a kid that had been raised in the shadow of that stadium. My exposure to Texas Longhorn Football dated back literally to birth…or even a little before the actual event. I was born on the Tuesday after the 1952 Texas-Oklahoma game at what native Austinites of my era referred to as “Old” St. David’s Hospital. According to reports from my folks, I was in attendance at the big game on October 4th, ten days before my actual entry into the world, when Texas hosted Notre Dame in a tough, hard-fought 14-3 loss to the Irish. I was there, but obviously had an obstructed-view ticket… The next week, Texas journeyed to Dallas for the annual blood-letting on the hallowed Cotton Bowl field with those aforementioned reviled occupants of the territory just north of the Red River. The outcome was not favorable for the Longhorns as they suffered what ultimately was the final loss in a 9-2 season, 49-20, to the then-12th-ranked Sooners. After likely overhearing some enthusiastic (albeit muffled to my ears) vocal encouragement from my Dad…along with some vocabulary words I probably shouldn’t have heard for a couple of decades while he and Mom listened to the Texas-OU game on the radio, I began executing my exit plan in order to be able to hear and see things a little more clearly. After all, it was football season. Mom’s labor pains landed her in the hospital that night and I apparently was not in as big of a rush to make my appearance for a few more days. After Dad kept coercing Mom and her hormonal cravings with everything from foot-long chili cheese dogs from the Split Rail to spicy enchiladas from the newly-opened Matt’s El Rancho to speed up the delivery process, I made my entrance at 9:21 a.m. on October 14th. Back in those days, it was not uncommon to keep the mother and newborn in the hospital for observation for a few days, so it was in my case. That decision did create a bit of a logistical problem for my proud Daddy, though. He was able to officiate his high school football game assignment on Friday night, with Mom’s blessing…mainly to get him out of the hospital and allow him to burn off some pent-up anxiety and stress. The doctor had indicated that we would be discharged from the hospital early on Saturday morning, which would allow Dad to continue working on the chain crew for the Texas home football games and that day’s contest against the Arkansas Razorbacks. As luck would have it, an “emergency” (perhaps a later tee time) postponed our departure from the hospital and Dad was fit to be tied. He called another football officiating buddy to take his spot on the chain crew and waited out the doctor’s arrival to sign us out. Once released just after the Horns and Hogs kicked off, Dad pointed the old Pontiac land yacht toward Martin’s Kum-Bak Place or “Dirty’s” to get Mom her long-awaited cheeseburger and chocolate malt, and then headed toward Memorial Stadium. He wheeled the car into the north end driveway with a wave to a buddy of his at the service gate and parked beside the little frame house that the groundskeeper, Mr. Franklin, lived in on the stadium grounds. Dad bundled me up in his jacket and the hospital-issued blanket and took me inside the stadium, down on the black cinder track that surrounded the thick grass field to see my first Longhorn football game and show me off to his buddies…at 5 days old. Oh, yeah…the Longhorns stomped the Piggies that day, 44-7 while enroute to a SWC championship and a 16-0 Cotton Bowl victory over Tennessee. I’ve hardly missed any games since. When I think back to the whirlwind experience that led up to my last appearance as a player in the stadium that was also my sanctuary, I remember how many times I thought to myself, "This is the last time I'll ever..." and then fill in the blank for whatever it was that I was doing. The night before the game at our team meal, I looked around at the faces of my fellow seniors and tried to detect any signs of the melancholy I was feeling. They seemed upbeat, cheerful, and glib in spite of the empty finality that I was experiencing. We boarded the bus to the team hotel...for the last time...checked into our rooms...for the last time...and so it went all night and into the next morning. We had our last team breakfast and then climbed back on the bus to go back to Jester Center for meetings, one last pre-game meal, and then the last walk down the hill to the locker room, then located under the west side stands. For the first time in my football career, I was actually hesitant to begin getting dressed in my uniform. We were confident that we'd be going to a bowl game after this contest with the 9th-ranked, 8-2 Aggies, but knowing it was the last time I'd suit up and go through pre-game warmups at home was hitting me in a way I'd never imagined. While sitting on the bench in front of my locker, I stared at the contents of the stall and memorized how it was laid out...our managers put our pads in our game pants and hung them up on the wooden pegs on the right side of the locker...shoulder pads hung on the left...a fresh shimmel t-shirt folded neatly on the lower shelf of the locker with a brand-new jockstrap on top of the shirt. A pair of game socks, white with a burnt orange top, along with my own white tube socks that I wore outside of the game socks were folded on top of my game shoes on the lower shelf.. It was a cold, windy day, so the managers had hung long-sleeved white undershirts in our lockers if we chose to wear them. On the top shelf of the locker sat the two items I so cherished as a child...the shiny white helmet with the iconic Longhorn on the side, always facing toward the field on game day, and the folded, simple burnt orange jersey with our number on front and back and the two small stripes around the sleeve. No TV numbers on the sleeve or shoulder...no "TEXAS" emblazoned on the front. Everyone knew who we were. Finally, I began the ritual I knew so well, but would only repeat in a then-unknown locker room one more time at a bowl game...but never again in the comfort of home. I hung my street clothes up, put on my jock, socks (always the left sock first), t-shirt, then slid into the smooth, cool game pants. The game uniform fit more snugly, more neatly, and smelled more crisp and fresh than our practice uniform. You felt bigger, tighter, tougher, and better in the game gear. While dressing in the reflective silence of that old locker room, I wondered about what thoughts went through the minds of the legions of Longhorns that had prepared for their last home game in that same room. What did Bobby Layne feel?...Jackie Crain?...Walter Fondren?...James Saxton?...Tommy Ford?...Did they dread this moment as much as I did? I put my shoulder pads on, tied the laces in front, and cinched up the straps under my arms. When I unfolded the crisp, new burnt orange jersey, I held it in front of me for awhile and admired the stark white numbers and the sleeve stripes set off by the unique orange color, almost glowing under the fluorescent lights above our heads. As I began to gather the jersey from the bottom and begin pulling it over my head, I inhaled deeply thearoma of a brand-new garment and slowly started stretching it over my pads...thinking, "This is it...the last time I'll put this jersey on in this locker room..." A teammate abruptly snapped me out of my nostalgic trance by grabbing my jersey from behind and pulling it over my pads. As I turned, I saw that he was in the "turtle mode" with his jersey stuck on his pads and I reciprocated the favor without words and went back to the bench in front of my locker. Putting my shoes on was the last idiosyncratic, superstitious ritual I followed before completing my ensemble with white wristbands, tucking a small white towel in my belt, and putting on eye black. My shoes had to feel just right before I could proceed and I lace them tightly, tie them, walk around, and then loosen the laces, walk around, and then tighten them up again. Probably a nervous habit, but I did the same thing through 25 years of officiating football and still find myself seeking complete foot comfort to this day. As I sat, stretching my hamstrings in front of my locker, Coach Royal came through from the coaches locker room and firmly announced, as he had done for years, "Specialists, 5 minutes." Then, he did something he'd never done before...to me, at least. As he strolled past me on my left, he reached his hand around and patted me on the right side of my face and gave me a sort of a quick hug to his side. I looked up and he smiled wryly, winked, and said, "You okay?" I nodded, mumbled, "Yessir, Coach." I think he knew what I was feeling. After all, I had been around since Coach and Miz Edith came to Austin, greeting and sending the team off at the airport, serving as a ballboy and generally being underfoot around him since I was 5 years old...and now, it was coming to an end. Funny thing was, after Coach did that, I snapped out of my funk and grabbed my helmet, raring to charge up those old concrete steps and onto that rock-hard Astroturf for my last pregame home warmup. The man definitely knew which button to push and when to do it. We went through our warmups and things began to feel fairly normal as the Aggies cockily tried to disrupt our routines, popping off every time they intentionally stepped into some of our drills. You see, all they had to do to go to the Cotton Bowl was beat us since we had stumbled against Tech early in the season in Lubbock, and wound up on the wrong end in the "Miracle on the Brazos" in Waco a couple of weeks before. We had also dropped a heartbreaking 16-13 slugfest with the Okies, but that was when it was a non-conference game. Our season resembled that of this year's team with injuries and unfulfilled expectations. As we trotted off the field at the conclusion of warmups, I was ready to just stay out there and get started. The Ags had us plenty riled up and we were pumped more than we had been since that OU game. I looked up in the stands to find my parents and sisters...I think they, along with some of the other senior players families, had been doing a little crying... As we charged down the steps and back into the locker room, I felt a surge of energy throughout the room and the feelings of "The Last Time" blues had disappeared, drowned by the anxiety of getting back up and kicking A&M's ***. Guys were jumping around, screaming and pounding each other on the shoulder pads, loudly exhorting each other to crush the sh!t out of the cocky ******** from College Station. Coach Royal came in, stood up on a bench, and suddenly...you could hear a pin drop as we all took a knee and turned to hear what he had to say. Coach had already caught us off guard earlier in the day when we went to our Special Teams meeting in the Jester Center Auditorium and as he began the droning presentation on the overhead projector, "Press the kicking game for it's here the breaks are made. Kickoff team, be onside, stay in your lane...oh sh!t, guys...you know what to do. Go kick their ***!" We screeched in joyous laughter and headed out the door like it was the last day of junior high. Now, Coach was serious. He looked out at us with those steely eyes, firm jaw, and reddened cheekbones and said, "There are quite a few of you that will never play on this field again. This is what it's come down to. You've seen how they're struttin' around out there and you've heard 'em laughing and taking you pretty lightly. We can't go to Dallas, but we can sure screw up their travel plans. Seniors, lead 'em out." We let out the yells of a season of frustration and charged to the front of the locker room and began assembling in the foyer outside the equipment room window where "Mr. Jim" Blaylock presided for so many years. I had been fortunate enough to help out in that equipment room since I was a kid and had been generally terrified of Mr. Jim's gruff demeanor, but he had treated me better than most of my teammates during my playing days and he gave me a little salute and a smile as I prepared to head out the door at the front of the pack. I knew then that he had put all the brand-new items in my locker that day as his way of sending me on my way. Getting a new pair of socks from Mr. Jim was usually impossible unless they were worn so thin that you could read the newspaper through the heels... As we headed out the door and went through the crowd that lined our path from the dressing room to the steps to the field under Section 5, I heard my Dad say, as he had done for every game since my high school days, "Keep your head down, Son." That was his reminder for me to keep my eye on the sweet spot of the ball and follow through. At that point, the thought that all this was never going to happen again was still quashed by the immediate task at hand, which was to remind our opponent that we were in our house and they couldn't talk and taunt their way to the Cotton Bowl. They still had to get past us in Memorial Stadium...which they had only done ONCE at that time since the stadium opened in 1924, a 34-21 win in 1956, the year before Coach Royal arrived to re-establish normalcy in the series. Back in those days, the pregame player introductions were live camera shots on the field. We were lined up and would step to a spot on the 20 or 25 yardline that a production assistant would be motioning for us to hit, stop and face the camera as the commentators like Chris Schenkel or Lindsey Nelson would read off our number, name, position, class year, and hometown. Coach had the starting seniors lined up to be introduced and we stood and watched the preening, posing, grinning Aggies go through their intros, dancing off camera and wildly weaving back to their bench area. When the TV cameras got to us, our guys were seething and as a buddy of mine that watched the game on ABC that day told me later, "Man, when they got to y'all, there wasn't a slack jaw amongst ya'...Y'all were PISSED!" And we were. Pissed enough to get off to a 17-0 lead before most folks got settled in their seats enroute to a 32-3 thrashing of the Aggies and a total derailment of their Cotton Bowl party plans. In fact, they didn't even go a bowl game, while we went to the Gator Bowl...but we won't talk about that one for awhile. Things went so bad for the Ags that one of their tubas fell apart while the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band marched during halftime. We heard the roar from the crowd while we were in the locker room, but had no idea that it was basically raucous laughter directed at that mishap. When the game was almost over, I began to get the empty feeling of sadness again, although awash in the revelry of sweet victory over the now-downtrodden Aggies. At the final gun, we celebrated the win, waved good bye to the Ags, and lingered awhile on the field until we saw Coach Royal finish his on-field interviews and start heading toward the steps. We knew it was time to follow, and we triumphantly wove our way through the throng of fans lining our path back to the dressing room. I found my family and we had a good, old-fashioned group hug, fighting back tears. I told them not to wait for me this time...it might be awhile before we came out. Since it was cold, they agreed and headed home. They knew. After we all got inside, The Longhorn Band paraded over from their section in the east side stands and serenaded us from outside the locker room as we hugged, hollered, and congratulated one another. Coach climbed up on a bench and thanked us for a great effort and then introduced the Gator Bowl representative who invited us to play Auburn in Jacksonville, which we enthusiastically accepted...even though we knew we should have been headed to Dallas to play in the Cotton Bowl for the 7th straight year...if we had taken care of our business against Baylor. As the excitement died down, it was time to slowly peel off that beloved uniform. I had been asked to do a couple of radio and TV interviews, and I happily kept my uniform on while other teammates had stripped down to at least their t-shirt and pants. When the microphones were put away, I sat in front of my locker, tuned out the managers hollering, "Jocks, socks, and t-shirts in the hamper; take your pads and belts out of your pants and pile 'em here! You can keep your jerseys!" I didn't move for awhile...just sat and listened to the laughter and shouts coming from the steamy shower room, breathed in the smell of sweaty jerseys mingled with Atomic Balm and adhesive tape. As I began to untie my shoes, our trainer...and my friend...Frank Medina came over and gave me a hug. Then we both lost it. He was very emotional, but also one of the strongest men I've ever known. Standing about 4'11", he was still a big man to me...he watched me grow up in that stadium and he knew how much I loved being a Longhorn. I still do. If you're at the game this Thanksgiving, please try get in your seat in time to applaud and honor those seniors. There will be those whose names are familiar to us all, and those that have toiled in anonymity for the past 4 or 5 years, walk-ons and squad members that have contributed on the scout team, along with student managers and trainers that are marking their last game in Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, too. My thanks to all that have worn the uniform. Even though they have a couple more games to play, it'll still be difficult to take that jersey off for the last time after their last home game. Know that this is an emotional time for these young folks and though there are times that we, as fans, may have thought that they haven't been the best...they've at least given their best...for Texas. Hook 'Em.
Always a GREAT read TJ - thanks. I was a Jr.. during that remarkable 1974 season. Salute the Seniors Sat. night!
I was at that game. Cold, windy, but it didn't matter the ags were done before 1 minute expired in the 1st quarter. And the half time entertainment was provided the Aggy tuba player's instrument self-destructing as he marched! That was hilarious, the whole crowd cheered and laughed! I've tried to be there every T-day or T+1 but none have been as great as my first game Aggy game in Austin 40 years ago. Great story and thanks for the memorie TornJock!
I must have gotten some tiny particle in my eye after I read that. It did bring back some fond memories, as I have stood outside that old locker room, close to the steps, many times. I played baseball in college, and while we didn't have a special day for seniors, I can promise you that taking off that uniform for the last time is a sad, and emotional situation whether there is a special ceremony, or not. I live out of state, so I won't be at the contest tomorrow, but I heartily concur with getting there early, and giving those kids a huge round of applause for all they have experienced. Thanks for the memories, TornJock, and the reminder.
Nice read and great memories for you. I attended that game, my last as a student as I graduated law school in the spring. What a great start - two minutes in and the aggies were finished. It certainly was an up and down season. The loss to OU was bitter with Texas in control until the fourth quarter Earl fumble followed by the Billy Brooks end around for the game winning TD. Similar to the 1976 tie game. Man that hurt. Even with the loss, that was one of the most intense and exciting live athletic events I have ever attended. Best wishes for the seniors tomorrow. Assuming Coach Strong sticks around a few years, they will be the ones remembered for putting Texas back on the track to excellence.
I expected nothing less than what was delivered. Were you an Amazon vendor I would give this five stars and comment on your page! B, we are overdue for that burger by a few years. I'll always remember that ride for the Baylor game. I listened and learned so much. We also got good BBQ at Mueller's on Manor for the pre-opening. Thank you, Longhorn.
Very cold and windy; our hotel was full of aggy fans. And it was 14-0 in the first 52 seconds. It was my first Thanksgiving day game in person and I knew it was something special. Thanks for your post.
Great story! My grandfather played in the '52 season and was All American the following year. I am really enjoying reading about this era, so interesting!
