I didn't know it at the time, but among the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers players who performed before my eyes on the Cotton Bowl turf in Dallas, Texas, in August of 1966 was a man embarking on his final season as a pro football player who had achieved an extremely rare feat in gridiron lore. When Alabama's Crimson Tide watched the final seconds tick off the clock at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, a couple weeks ago their junior quarterback Greg McElroy dodged the bullet yet again, keeping his impressive string alive. Both McElroy and Jerry Tubbs, two Texas high school football legends whose careers are separated by over 50 years, never lost a game as high school and college participants. A rare bragging right indeed!
The late Lloyd Brandt, who was married to my cousin Dolores Gupton Brandt at the time, took me and his son Ace to a Dallas Cowboys preseason game near the end of the summer of 1966, when I was preparing to begin my fourth grade year of my elementary education. That memorable Cowboys-Packers exhibition game (as preseason games were called in those days) featured a pair of great NFL quarterbacks from the mid-sixties, "Dandy" Don Meredith of the Cowboys and Hall of Famer Bart Starr of the Packers. I was only nine years old when Lloyd took Ace and I to what was the first professional football game I ever attended. I still have the program from that game played 44 years ago, back when the DALLAS Cowboys still played their games in DALLAS. My cousins Ace and Cindy Brandt used to visit West Columbia frequently when we were all children. Their grandparents, Thurman and Gladys Gupton, lived across the street from the junior high school in West Columbia. Thurman was my father Rex Gupton's older brother and Dolores, Thurman and Gladys's daughter who everyone calls "DoDo," is my first cousin and my dad's niece. So I always looked forward to Lloyd and Dolores bringing their kids to West Columbia for visits because when Ace and Cindy (who is one month younger than me) were in town that usually meant that my brother Cody (who is one year older than Ace) and I got to spend time at Uncle Thurman and Aunt Gladys's house to play with Ace and Cindy. The Brandts lived in Fort Worth back in the 1960s and I always wanted to go to Fort Worth with my cousins to see what life was like in the big city. I finally got my wish near the end of the summer of 1966 when I was allowed to stay with Lloyd and Dolores and their children for a week in August. And the Dallas Cowboys' preseason game against Vince Lombardi's Packers was the highlight of that summer trip to Fort Worth so many, many years ago.
I had a Jerry Tubbs football card at the time so I knew who he was when I watched him play in person at the Cotton Bowl in 1966. My brother and I collected trading cards when we were kids so I was familiar with a number of the pro football players who took the field that day in Dallas. Don Meredith , Bullet Bob Hays, Mel Renfro and Don Perkins were among my favorite Cowboys players from that era. And there were too many Packers greats to even begin to mention. This was the time the Packers were winning the first two Super Bowls and squeaking by the Cowboys in the famous "Ice Bowl" in Green Bay. Bart Starr, who scored the winning touchdown on a quarterback sneak in that '66 NFL championship game played "on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field " and was the MVP of that historical first Super Bowl, could hand the ball off to super star running backs Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor and throw passes to Boyd Dowler and Carroll Dale and tight end Marv Fleming. But I really don't remember much about that game at all, just being there. I wouldn't attend another pro football game until I was middle-aged and got to see Peyton Manning attempt to break Dan Marino's single season touchdown passes record at Reliant Stadium against the Houston Texans. Peyton, the son of the man (Archie Manning) whose poster as the New Orleans Saints quarterback adorned my bedroom wall when I was a teenager, needed four or five TD passes that Sunday to break Marino's record. I went to that game with my brother Cody, and Peyton threw a touchdown pass while Cody and I were walking into the stadium. As we were finding our seats (in the nosebleed section in the highest part of Reliant Stadium) another Colts' receiver caught a touchdown pass from the four-time NFL most valuable player. Cody and I thought we were going to be present to witness NFL history being made. But Peyton failed to throw another touchdown pass that day, David Carr rallied the Texans to a second half resurgence, before the Colts pulled out a nailbiter and won. The following weekend erasers were applied to the record books as Peyton Manning passed Dan Marino for the most touchdown passes thrown in a single season. "Missed it by that much!" as Maxwell Smart used to say.
But I was there to see the great linebacker Jerry Tubbs play one game in his final season with the Dallas Cowboys. This Saturday Jerry will be celebrating his 75th birthday. Only recently, though, did I find out that Tubbs, who coached for the Cowboys for more than 20 years when his playing days ended, had never lost a game in high school or college back in the 1950s. Amazing! This may not be that unusual; perhaps someone out there reading this blog will inform me of others who have done the same thing. But it came to my attention when I was watching Alabama whip the Florida Gators on television in the SEC championship game that Alabama's quarterback had not lost a game in high school or college as a starting quarterback. Wondering to myself if this was something that very rarely happened, I stumbled upon Jerry Tubbs' remarkable story of success in his pre-NFL football career. And my home state of Texas figures prominently in both of these men's stories.
Jerry Tubbs played center and linebacker on back-to-back state championship teams for Breckenridge High School in 1951 and 1952. He played in three high school All-Star games and was a unanimous Texas All-State selection in 1952. In 1971 Tubbs was inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame and, since 2008, the Breckenridge Buckaroos open their football season playing the annual Jerry Tubbs Kick Off Classic. Cooper Robbins coached Breckenridge to a state championship in 1951, then moved on to the college coaching ranks. In his senior season, Tubbs played under new head coach Joe Kerbel who would also move on to coach in college several years after the Buckaroos won their second consecutive state title.
Breckenridge's winning tradition in football reached back to the oil boom era in the late 1920s. P.E. Shotwell, who coached the Buckaroos from 1927-34, guided Breckenridge High School to the state finals in 1929, where they tied Port Arthur Jefferson in a scoreless battle in the snow in Waco. Despite Breckenridge's declining population as the oil boom faded, the Buckaroos still played some of the largest schools in West Central Texas. With an enrollment of less than 400 students during the 1950s, the Buckaroos usually fielded teams comprised of about 30 players. Yet, during the fifties Breckenridge formed a true dynasty under head coaches Cooper Robbins (1945-51), Joe Kerbel (1952-54) and Emory Bellard (1955-59), who would go on to serve a memorable tenure as Texas A&M's head coach. Breckenridge appeared in five Class 3A state championship games in the fifties, winning four times in 1951, 1952, 1954 and 1958, and tying Cleburne for the state title in 1959.
Like the Crimson Tide's current quarterback, Jerry Tubbs never lost a varsity football game in high school. He went on to play three years at the University of Oklahoma and the Sooners won all 31 games Tubbs played in. He was a fullback in 1954 and averaged six yards a carry. Oklahoma's legendary head coach Bud Wilkinson moved Tubbs to center in 1955, and this became his signature position in college. He also played linebacker and in a victory over Texas in 1955 he intercepted three passes. In 1956 Tubbs was a unanimous All-American choice as a center and was named "Lineman of the Year." The former Breckenridge High School standout finished fourth in the 1956 Heisman Trophy voting, behind his second place Oklahoma teammate Tommy McDonald and the winner, Paul Hornung of Notre Dame. It is very rare for an offensive lineman to rank as high in the Heisman voting as Tubbs did in 1956.
During his three years of college football, Tubbs' Oklahoma Sooners' teams finished 10-0 in 1954, 11-0 in 1955, and 10-0 in 1956. The 31 victories the Sooners chalked up with Jerry Tubbs on their roster were part of that legendary 47-game winning streak and two national titles from 1954-56. The 1954 Oklahoma team was ranked third nationally in the Associated Press and United Press polls. The 1955 and 1956 Sooners teams were back-to-back national champions.
Jerry Tubbs, who was the tenth player taken in the first round of the 1957 NFL draft, played for the Chicago Cardinals his first two seasons as a pro. He was a member of the San Francisco 49ers in 1958 and 1959 before returning to his native Texas as one of the first players taken by the new Dallas Cowboys in the 1960 expansion draft. Tubbs played in his only Pro Bowl in 1962 when he was a linebacker for the Cowboys. As all good things must eventually come to an end, Jerry's long string of consecutive victories in high school and college did not carry over to his professional career. As the first round draft choice of the Chicago Cardinals--the NFL franchise that now plays in Arizona and called St. Louis home prior to the move to Phoenix--Tubbs found himself on a perennial loser. He was traded to San Francisco by the Cardinals near the end of his second season and was moved back to middle linebacker (the position he played in college) by the 49ers in 1959 after playing out of his preferred position at outside linebacker his first two seasons in the NFL.
Jerry became one of the premier middle linebackers in the NFL after joining the Cowboys and enjoyed a successful tenure in that role in Dallas until Alabama product Lee Roy Jordan was drafted by Tom Landry in the mid-1960s, and Tubbs was relegated to a reserve role for a couple seasons before retiring. In 1966 Tubbs was working for the Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Association when Coach Landry lured him back for one more season as insurance in the event Jordan should be injured. He played just the first three games of the '66 season until a back injury closed the books on Jerry Tubbs' pro football career.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.
McElroy did not get the opportunity to shine under the Friday night lights at Southlake Carroll High School in Texas until his senior year. The quarterback who started ahead of him his sophomore and junior seasons was none other than Chase Daniel, the 2004 National High School Player of the Year who went on to star in college football at Missouri. But McElroy, whose exploits on the gridiron his senior year at Southlake Carroll will not be forgotten any time soon, earned Offensive Player of the Year honors in Texas. He set a new Texas high school record for touchdown passes in a single season when he threw 56 in 2005.
Greg racked up 4,687 aerial yards with his record 56 touchdowns and only 9 interceptions in his one year as Carroll's starting signal caller. He proved lethal running with the pigskin as well in '05, gaining 700 yards and scoring 12 touchdowns on the ground while completing 321 of 450 passes while leading his high school to its third state title in four years.
McElroy, who completed only six of 11 passes for 58 yards and no touchdowns in Alabama's January 7th national championship victory over the Longhorns, was much more active in the passing game for Southlake Carroll in winning the Class 5A state championship by defeating Katy High School in 2005. Greg completed an amazing 21 of 31 pass attempts for a whopping 328 yards and four touchdowns through the air against the Katy Tigers, earning him the MVP trophy in the 2005 state championship game.
Jerry Tubbs, who was born January 23, 1935, in Throckmorton, Texas, is pictured below at left in a 1967 photo with Dallas Cowboys' defensive linemen George Andrie (66) and Bob Lilly. Tubbs became an assistant coach under Tom Landry with the Cowboys in 1967 after ending his 10-year NFL career as a linebacker at the conclusion of the previous season. Tubbs was the linebackers coach for the Cowboys for 21 years. He coached in five Super Bowls with Dallas, winning two.
The overwhelming success experienced by Southlake Carroll in recent years and Breckenridge High School in the 1950s creates dreams of envy for Texas high school football fans like yours truly, who has been a diehard Columbia Roughnecks backer since the 1960s. I was in attendance when the Roughnecks lost to Brownwood in the 1969 Class 3A state championship game. In fact, as a 12-year-old seventh grader that magnificent football season when my hometown team came oh so very close to winning a state championship, I attended every playoff game the Roughnecks participated in that season with my parents and siblings. I've also backed the other great teams of my alma mater's past that advanced several rounds deep in the postseason but, with each of those playoff runs, Columbia always seemed to go head-to-head with an opponent that was just a little bit better than us. The Jerry Tubbs and Greg McElroys of the world are so few and so very far between that such extremely lucky athletes are truly in an elite group that can boast for the rest of their lives that they never lost a game in high school or college football. McElroy has another year of eligibility as Alabama's starting quarterback, so the probability of the former Southlake Carroll standout matching Tubbs' remarkable feat throughout his college career is not very likely. But stranger things have happened and the Crimson Tide has as good a chance as any college football program to go undefeated in 2010. With an offensive attack led by a Heisman trophy winning running back (Mark Ingram) and a quarterback who has never lost in high school or college, I'd say that's a very good start.
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