Missing the 1960's

Wrote out a semi long post and deleted it as it got too long. Not perfect times for sure...

So, I will only post some photos since I am feeling nostalgic:

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60’s were my era. Just wish I’d have taken more time to enjoy them.

 

Fall 1963, David McWillams and Scott Appleton with DKR.

 

I was born in 1968. Found this picture to contribute.

 

Fall 1967 6th grade football........yours truly #42 on back row. #45 next to me (Chet Chandler) was only 5th grade but had to play up because of size limit..........he would end up lettering at A&M from 1975-78 at RB, got his Engineering degree and ended up designing the current toll pass system for the State of Florida. #44 on the end would retiring as Asst. Chief of Police in Shreveport. #15 on front row is worth some big bucks as he owns Reynolds Drilling here in Shreveport.........in fact his dad on Right of picture was our coach and started the company (geology degree from U of Arky).

1968 to 1970 was golden years for me growing up..........Longhorns were on top of the world and the Cowboys were pretty salty also.

 

Graduated from HS in '67. After two years in JUCO I started at UT in Sept. '69 in time for second and third NCs.

Yeah, you wish you could have bottled those times and saved them, but they slip away and all you have is memories.

 

Your jersey is way cleaner than everybody else's. Your Mom must have bleached yours or something.

 

Great photo!

That #42 was a big kid! What position did you play? Your team only had 14 players which means everyone probably got a great deal of playing time?

I started playing pee-wee ball in 4th grade in 1963. I was big for my age so I was a RB until 7th grade - Jr. High, when my mediocre speed got me moved to Center and there I stayed through HS.

 

1969 - University of Texas National Champions:

 

Texas vs. #1 Alabama in Jan. 1, 1965 Orange Bowl.
All American LB Tommy Nobis is #60 but most of you know that.

 

1968 - 1972 were some very difficult years in US history.

Makes this year look like a cakewalk in comparison excluding CV19.

 

Tackle both ways thru 8th grade then Tackle/DE both ways in High school.

 

Same here - a great year indeed.

 

Yup.

Off the top of my head in the late 60's for example you had:

A raging meat-grinder of a war in Vietnam that peaked in 1969-1970
The Democratic Natl. Convention riots in Chicago - August 1968
Robert (Bobby) Kennedy assassinated in LA June 1968
Student war protests on campus, riots and take over of colleges admin bldgs
Riots in Watts in LA, Detroit and other cities - summer of 1966 I believe
Various Civil Rights related protests, marches, unrest, etc.
Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated in Memphis April 1968
Manson murders August 1969
Kent State war protests - killing of 4 students by National Guard May 1970

 

And no scholarship limits!

 

There were unless you were Nebraska.

You could take 50 a year. There was a time, however, when academic scholarships didn't count against the 150 limit.

Coaches used to joke that DKR won more games by the kids he kept off the opposing sideline than he did with the ones he put on the field.

 

Can you imagine if that were true today? Alabama, Ohio St., and a few others would be even more dominant than they are today. One of the main reasons for the scholarship limits was to spread the wealth, so that a few schools couldn't hog all the talent.

 

That was from the goal line stand that won the game. One of the greatest goal line stands in college football history, if you ask me.

 

Ah, yes - I remember it well!
I graduated in June, 1968. My college experience was a bit sheltered - unlike places like Cal/Berzerkely, we didn't have anti-war protests at USAFA.

 

I have taken 2 tours of the AF Academy .... long time ago - it was an awesome and inspiring experience! What a GREAT part of our military and America!

Thank you for serving HHD!

 

I got a kick out of the show The Wonder Years, because in the first season the Kevin Arnold character appeared to be starting 5th grade about the same time as the moon landings (which would make him about my age). So that show was a real nostalgia trip for me. But I was annoyed that in the final show the narrator (the adult Kevin) refers to graduating high school in 1974 ... which doesn't make sense time-wise. If he was in 5th grade in 1969-70, he would have been Class of 77 (and the background music would have been Styx, KISS, The Eagles, etc.)

 

#37 was Timmy Doerr, if I remember correctly, which I will readily admit, I may not.

 

I lost six classmates in Nam between January and June of ‘68 including my best friend.

That is what I best recall.

 

^Sorry that you have to remember those losses, huisache. Eleven of my USAFA classmates are on the Wall - I think of them and their sacrifice.

 

Huisache - I am sorry for your loss.
I essentially grew up watching the Vietnam War unfold on TV (as well as a number of other newsworthy events). The Tonkin Gulf incident occurred in 1964 just before I started kindergarten; the Tet Offensive occurred when I was in 3rd grade; the transition to the lottery for the draft (middle of my 5th grade year); the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State massacre, near the end of my 5th grade year; the Paris Peace Accords were signed when I was in junior high (8th grade); and the last American troops were airlifted out of Vietnam near the end of my sophomore year of high school (1975).

Things were more real for my older brother, who graduated high school in 1969. I can’t recall if he was eventually drafted or enlisted voluntarily (this was in 1971). In any case, he received a medical discharge because during Basic he was hospitalized with pneumonia no less than three times. Somehow, between stays in the infirmary he managed to earn a Marksman badge.

Footnote: Those of us who were born in 1958 and 1959 (and the second half of 1957) never had to register with the Selective Service. When registration was reinstated in 1980, it only applied to guys born after 1 January 1960.

 

Neighbor girlfriend had a Marine brother that went to Vietnam in 1968 and died less than 6 weeks after being over there. His name was Mike. The family knew the risk of course, but his death was absolutely devastating to that family. Unfortunately, they were never the same after that. So very sad.

 

This thread will probably now have a lot of replies about Vietnam.... and that is good. Many of us lost someone they knew or loved over there.

What an awful war.... fall 1972, I was # 38 in the draft and after a physical for induction in Dallas, was classified 1A - at the top to be drafted. If peace was not close in Dec. 1972 and the war lasted another 6 months.... my sorry *** would have been drafted. Yes, I would have served.

 

I know of at least 10 in my class that we're either killed or had a family member killed.

Two in the class were smallish in stature and both became tunnel rats. The marine one was killed in a tunnel. The Army one survived the war, but is still struggling with the PTSD.