1969: The Season - Longhorn Network documentary

it's definitely a lifetime ago and i think throughout those 50 years there's not a week that goes by that i'm not reminded of that season it's something that lives with you for the rest of your life we probably weren't the best players in the league or best players in the country but we believed that we were we were over achievers to me we're typical texans gritty tough hard working we overcame a lot of obstacles you couldn't have picked a better football team in the world than ours they never said no they never allow themselves to be beaten and because there's many times that teams give up and you wouldn't have that from our team to be a champion you are now looked at in a different perspective you represent the university of texas you represent what we've accomplished and it can do a lot for you as an individual which you did it gave me a life [Music] in the early 60s texas emerged as one of the dominant programs in college football from 1961 through 1964 the longhorns finished in the top five every season and won their first national championship in 1963. after unprecedented success in the early part of the decade the longhorn struggle from 1965 through 1967 the worst three-year stretch of daryl royal's texas career they went through three straight years where they had four losses in those days that could get you fired my dad wasn't just daryl's defensive coordinator he was his best friend all of those years and after the 67th season was over my mother told me it looked like your dad's gonna have to find another job that's how hot it was they thought they were gonna get fired the doubters were really coming forth and coach royal was being criticized 67 season i'll never forget uh we're coming after practice and there was a blocking dummy hanging from an arch in the stadium and had coach royal written on it so going into 68 there was a lot of pressure of we've got to fix things he changed his staff and emory bellar had come in and emery was the offensive backfield coach bellard thought running a veer would be a good thing so emery took out his yellow pad and he had his pipe and he sequestered himself while the other coaches that summer were out playing golf he was in his office doodling with that yellow pad i walked into his office one day and i said so who's going to start at wingback will it be ted coy or will it be steve wooster emily said what if we play both of them so he took out his yellow pad and he drew a circle up here and a circle right up here and he put a circle there and then a circle down here he said wooster gilbert and coy he said what does that look like i said it looks like a y and he said i think it'll work that was the beginning of the wishbone my only question was could we read the defensive tackle we'd hit the fullback inside the defensive tackle and you had to read him on the handoff if he tackles the fullback when you put the ball in his stomach i said emery can we teach them to read the defensive tackle he said dad blame right we can oh this good chicken i'm glad you like it [Music] you know either [Music] i have an idea we had the personnel that that offense was fitted for he always said that he had three running backs that he needed to have on the field at one time so he had to come up with a way for all three of them to be there he was gifted with the guy that everyone then thought was going to be the greatest player in texas history steve wooster came from blue city he was an all-american high school player was a rough tough burly fullback who could run with great speed and power everything was predicated by the fullback the quarterback would start to play but his first lead was the fullback so he was the linchpin steve booster is one of the best football players i've ever played with i never saw him take a slow step whether we were ahead by 30 to nothing but the game was close he'd come at you as a matter of fact we had a drill where steve would kick out on the defensive end on a play and we would run that drill in practice he'd come out and hit me and more often than not we just went head to head like like a couple rams and as a matter of fact i've got a couple of broken helmets in my garage right now from those collisions steve brought a load when he came he was a hell of an incentive to get out of the way steve hit you in the back it hurt a stalemate wasn't fun so you wanted to go ahead and move because he was coming it clicked i mean we had so much talent in that backfield it was scary i mean everybody was somebody and i don't mean that lightly if you watch those films and and you see how they when the ball snapped the arc they take the fakes they do it's it's almost like a ballet it's unbelievable [Music] with wooster chris gilbert and ted coy tapped for the three running back positions there was only one position in the backfield left to film quarterback however unseating the incumbent starter bill bradley seemed unlikely nicknamed super bill he was the guy that everybody could count on to be able to do anything with a football he could kick with both feet throw with both hands he was a god in football even on the diving board he could probably be an olympic diver and he was the man bill bradley was one of the best athletes i have ever seen in my life he just struggled with the option the question became could bill bradley who was the greatest player in texas high school history at that point as a quarterback could he take over the duties of the wishbone and make it work and they had two backups a guy named eddie phillips who was a larger runner and then the other one was a guy who was one of nine quarterbacks that they recruited named james street [Music] hailing from longview texas james street was undersized and not highly recruited out of high school he started 1968 far down the depth chart first time i ever heard about the wishbone was when talking to coach bard and he set both bill bradley myself down and after the first time i heard about it i talked to bradley who at that time was a starting quarterback and i said bill i think that the coaches are trying to get rid of us he said what do you mean i said well think about it bill we're going to run an option to the right and we're not going to block the defensive tackle or the defensive end they're going to kill us it fit my style of play i was quick and i could throw off of it coach royal was great in building an offense or building a defense that complimented his players and next time i just i just run i just run it away from it [Music] you read the end man you read the end man this is what he's saying about uh this is a basic formation that this guy is cheated up for our our 52 bootlegs and he's backing in we've got a player man out in texas james street was the most competitive player that i ever saw he had a passion for winning he was just cool he exemplified the word cool we all in those years kind of short haircuts he had kind of the elvish presley type haircut in fact picked up the name slick early on he would break out come his hair back like that do that stuff right here it's like having elvis presley as your quarterback he got to be good pals with elvis elvis would call him up in his dorm room james met him on several occasions elvis was fascinated with college football and i remember james saying after one of the times he met backstage with elvis james said he was wanting to talk to elvis about his music and his songs and elvis was wanting to talk to james about the football so he said they were kind of both kind of talking on top of each other wanting to know about the other person coach royal had that term it james had it that's all you could say there were better quarterbacks than james james didn't play in the nfl he wasn't the best passer around he probably wasn't the fastest but he had it he was a winner and under street they won after starting the 1968 season with the tie in a loss slick took over as the starting quarterback in the third game the longhorns would go on to win the next nine games ending this season with a 36-13 victory over 8th ranked tennessee in the cotton bowl under the guidance of street texas racked up 331 rushing yards a game in 1968. the wishbone was clicking we felt like that they could announce the play over the pa system we didn't care we were going to be able to run it anyway it was an ungodly offense i mean nobody had anything like it and nobody knew how to defense it it was captivating it dominated nobody could stop it they just killed everybody that they played at the end of 68 texas was as good as any team in the country and everybody knew it nobody could stop the wishbone one year after coach royal was on the hot seat texas entered the 1969 season ranked number four in the nation behind penn state arkansas and ohio state the expectations were very high for 1969 we weren't really in control of our own destiny at that point ohio state was the top team that won the national championship the year before and they had everybody back we would like to be the best team in this nation there's been talk about ours being the best team of the century and i'm not gonna hold our kids back we thought we're playing for second place anyway but we still wanted to win every game and win the conference championship and go to the cotton bowl that's all we can do we just figured that they gave it to them because they had more northern sports writers and then they did in the south [Music] we didn't think it was the case so we just thought we'd go prove it [Music] coming up on 1969 they came out on the first play and lined up in the wishbone they think they're gonna beat us running the wishbone it's hard to imagine today how big of an event it was not only for ourselves and our coaches in our university but for our fans we weren't going to let people down i think that's part of why that game was just magical that's one of those moments that we're destined to win this thing we didn't make up the plaque in advance it doesn't say what team and i'm taking it back to washington put in texas [Applause] [Music] to live up to their lofty preseason ranking the longhorns needed the wishbone to work and for the wishbone to work the offensive line needed to be in sync fortunately texas had two all-americans leading the way and bob mckay and bobby wunge bobby once the person is one of the sweetest guys you'd ever want to meet but when he stepped on that football field it was just a personality change it'd be jacqueline hyde when he was on the football field he was a whirling dervish and he would never even think that he played football he'd just talk to him you would think that you know maybe he was a poet or something it would be illegal to have 21 22 players like bobby wants on the field at the same time the ncaa would come up with a rule that's an honor it makes me feel respected i tried to mow people over i never played chicken i'd go right at them and i'd look them right in the eye once in the longhorns offense steamrolled to the first three games of the season outscoring their opponents 122-24 with the wish going in full swing they prepared to face their first ranked opponent of the year the number eight oklahoma sooners oklahoma was not going to roll over and play dead because we've got a new offense the ou game of course is always circled on our schedule it's kind of like if there's going to be a fly in the ointment this could be it it's oklahoma there's not another mindset if you walk down that tunnel and walk out there on that field and you're not fired up you better go find you something else to do cause you're gonna get your ass kicked we are proud to be on hand for the annual battle between the football teams of the universities of texas and oklahoma here in the cotton bowl 72 000 plus watching as children there he goes all alone three minutes 39 seconds remaining in the first quarter oklahoma league seven and i think they have them all and owens gets his eighth touchdown of the year and it's 13 to nothing underdog oklahoma one of three games when we were we went behind significantly and everybody just kept plugging away i mean we didn't hang our heads or anything gets some cash blocking out they're all alone touchdowns fire texas has moved from its own 42 in four plays touchdown first and goal texas now trying to cap an 80-yard drive [Applause] touchdown well we have a tie ball game [Applause] that's a momentum game a team that's down doesn't mean they're out the team that's up doesn't mean they're going to stay up so we we had the confidence we just knew the game wasn't over and we still had a chance and so we just kind of kept working second goal worcester getting in for the td bringing the longhorns ahead 26 to 17. what a rivalry there it is a 27-17 victory for the favored longhorns of the university of texas texas continued to ravage defenses for the next four games its smallest margin of victory over that span was 31 points against smu texas rushed for 611 yards a school record that still stands but the longhorns couldn't climb to the number one ranking not while reigning champion ohio state was still undefeated honestly we think that we can win it all i would say that there have been times we probably had the conversation wish we could play ohio state wish we could play ohio state undefeated and ranked second in the nation texas headed into its bye week with only one game before the showdown with arkansas the longhorns needed help to overtake the buckeyes in the rankings nobody thought they could be beaten michigan had just hired a new young coach named beau shenbecker and nobody gave them any chance at all of beating ohio state it appeared that they were destined to go back to back the michigan stadium in ann arbor michigan where the wolverines meet the nation's number one college football team the buckeyes of ohio state university in the battle that will decide the big ten championship third and goal to go on the one honest touchdown for ohio state ohio state was so heavily favored over michigan it wasn't even worth watching back in those days there was no community television or anything but some guys had a little portable unit with the rabbit ears and everything so there were several rooms that had a little tv and we were watching of course somersaults in the end zone it's a touchdown for michigan and the wolverines take the lead in motion is dowdy yep the ball is forehead and he's in the end zone for a touchdown isajowski back yes for the sidelines fumbles the ball is picked up by michigan and there it is what has to be the upset of the century i still remember driving down cameron road where i grew up and hearing that michigan would be ohio state i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe it it was one of the best days of my life people just went completely bananas i mean people down on the drag they were i mean it was unreal when it was over it was it was battling in the dorm that we had a chance now for everything to pay off all of a sudden now you wake up monday morning and you're number one that's what you dream of you're number one i remember walking across campus and thinking this is pretty neat because the university of texas is the number one team this team has put this university number one in the nation it's funny i always felt like we were number one so it didn't change i just felt like we were the best team in college football that year the longhorn's first opponent as the top team in the nation was rival texas a m i saw too many times that supposedly the best team was being pushed around so we drive into college station and i'm one of the captains and i'm worried i'm absolutely worried and so we were at the part of pregame warm-ups where we were had come together for teamwork and i'll never forget this the a m band marches into the stadium and they strike up the aggie war hymn and there was an electric look in all of our players eyes i knew at that point this is our game the first play of the game amy m's got the football and when they're coming out of the huddle it looks strange and then it is like a puzzle all of a sudden before they even got to the line of scrimmage i knew what they were doing because i'd seen it so many times they came out on the first play and lined up in the wishbone they think they're gonna beat us running the wishbone and it was it was pathetic they didn't have a chance tom campbell intercepts rocky south's pass and takes it back to the aggie four yard line took us out in the second quarter we had scored the first six times we had the ball and weren't happy about having to come out coach said that the second team led her before the first team that year you had to play so many quarters and they were playing more quarters than we were we have talked about that game and with total confidence we could have put over 100 points on the board no question asked merkelson makes the score 33-nothing as ted coy wipes out the last aggie planet i scored them all in touchdown my career on the pass from cotton spire of all people that was the day i got engaged that night was after the game at the fountain down duty that i proposed to my sunderland so it was a great day for me with the victory against the aggies texas remained undefeated on the season as celebrations ensued for the football team the 40 acres austin and the nation as a whole were in a state of unrest over u.s involvement in the vietnam war [Music] the country i say was in turmoil but it was mainly the younger generation it was new to us because the kids my age in college we'd never been through a war when you walked across campus you couldn't help there'd be picketing everywhere if you're sitting there watching tv and there's a 20 30 black bags laid out in a row and you got weapons with their bayonets stuck in the ground and the headgear sitting on top of him and there's a transport plane in the background back there walking out with a wooden casket placing the body by again to his wooden cap how would you feel they're showing death on tv they're showing you the number of kills [Music] these things were all emotional and it changed the nation it changed the way you felt [Music] why were we doing this why were so many men dying you always fear of death i'm a young man i want to raise a family i want to live life but then again you are called to serve a country and if you got to serve your country you serve your country on december 1st four days after the texas a m game players gathered around tvs to watch as a selective service draft lottery decided the fate of young men across the nation if you were lucky you might have a very high number and you likely wouldn't get called if you had a low number you might be called soon if you were in school and a student and you were in good graces in your school you wouldn't be called but those who were seniors knew that their future may be determined by what happened with the draft september 14th [Music] september 14 0 0 1. to tell you the truth that scared me i didn't want to go to vietnam and fight over there [Music] you draw a little ball out there like bingo b1 [Music] and then if that group was needed they'd say we'll take all the lottery from this number to that number right here y'all come in and take you physical and then you became the next one's out mike and i had a fairly low number meaning you know we would get drafted my number was very low i think i had a nine or a ten i was you know i was definitely going to be drafted when that was over it's the only lottery i've ever won in my life december 27th december 27th is 0 7 8. house number 78 yeah uh i had everybody's sitting around watching and you're rooting for the worst number in the world and you'll get picked it's not that i gave it a whole lot of thought at the time but it's really mainly afterwards when i knew that some of my friends had been drafted [Music] because not many people were volunteering not like after pearl harbor when i heard that kids came down out of stands to join it was a difficult time and uh you know i i i just uh it's hard to talk about because you know everybody's lost my age has lost friends over there there were people getting killed and uh that's a tough deal to deal with especially with bobby and his brother bobby mitchell's brother had been killed in vietnam earlier that year when the draft lottery of 1969 came about we were in the dorm room watching the tv and um of course it was very traumatic for me having lost a brother was a helicopter pilot and was killed in action when i found out i walked out on campus and by myself and of course was crying and upset and i i um i don't i don't know i think after that freddy found me and he was my roommate and we said some prayers and and that that made me feel a little bit better freddie steinmark became mitchell's family while he was at ut the two came to austin together from wheat ridge colorado and if it weren't for mitchell's desire to play college football somewhere warm steinmark would never have stepped foot on the 40 acres i went to my coach and said you know i really love the university of texas but i haven't heard anything from them and he said well they don't recruit out of state i said well can we just give it a go and he said okay well i know somehow he was a friend of a friend of coach campbell's who was our defensive coach at texas he said well all right i'll send i'll send the game films down there so they they watched the game films and they said okay bob we're definitely interested in you we want we want you to come down and visit and coach coats who was our high school coach said well by the way they saw the game film they saw i saw freddy on there and coach coach told him they said well you know he's one of our best players also but he's only five 960 pounds and you know he hadn't gotten any other offers and he said well we don't care bring him down anyway i remember showing him around and in those days you showed the recruit around and then on the designated time you took him by to talk to coach royal so i was waiting outside coach royal's office and so when freddie came out you know how how'd it go and freddie says great and i said oh well that's good he says yeah he said coach royal never mentioned my size he says he's the only coach that didn't mention my size he just said i'd have a chance to play and that's when i realized here's a little here's a quite frankly a little kid that has an enormous spirit and confidence that he can do the job so that's when i realized he's a little bit different the size didn't prohibit him from doing anything he needed to do and tackling people or making blocks or carrying football on return he was just a great contributor to the team and to arm around what he really meant to the three defensive backs to at least me and danny he was our leader and he was just so confident i knew if i made a mistake freddie was going to cover for me if i let someone get behind me somehow or other freddie was going to be there to make up for my mistake freddie meant a lot because he had first of all overcome a lot of obstacles a lot of people told him he couldn't play division one college football because he was too small he didn't believe it he was an incredible player and one of the reasons we were the team that we were steinmark and the longhorns were preparing for one of the biggest games in college football history a match-up with number two arkansas that would decide the 1969 national champion i think that game took on a special meaning for a lot of people it was the only game being played that day and our country i think needed something okay you know they needed something and football was an american pastime and our country really needed something like that so i think that is why that game took on a life of its own coming up on 1969 you couldn't set up a ball game to be better than this i mean if you're writing the script for it i'd never been to fayetteville that's what coaches kept telling us that fayetteville's unlike anywhere else you've ever been my dad said playing in arkansas it was like parachuting into russia we were told to keep our helmets on at all times and you know and it's kind of like what they're going to throw whiskey on you and it's still in the bottle so you know okay good good idea keep your helmet on all the media thought that texas was just going to crush arkansas and it didn't happen that way i said coach are you sure that's a play you want to run he said hell yeah i'm sure we all went what he said we're going to throw the freaking ball you got to be kidding me he'd already thrown it i thought it's way over my head i'll never catch it you go from one of the highest times in your life all of a sudden here's one of your teammates that's fighting for his life the game of the century was not only a showdown between the top two teams in the nation but one between fierce conference rivals combined texas and arkansas won all but two southwest conference championships in the 1960s frank royals at arkansas and daryl royal in texas basically dominated the real beauty of the texas arkansas football series was that daryl and frank were best friends they and their wives went on vacations together they played each other so they they weren't going to talk about football they loved to play golf together they were best friends he thinks i'm better and i think he's better so that makes it a heck of a match it's hard to imagine today how big of an event it was because bino cook at abc it had the foresight to move that game and daryl and frank agreed to do it they had set up a showcase that was unlike any other there was no playoff there was no bcs so when that ball game was dropped into the mix out of the clear blue skies suddenly they had a national championship game it was validated because the president of the united states shows up with a plaque to present to the winner of that game and he says i'm proclaiming the national championship which really didn't sit well with the folks in pennsylvania as anyone who's ever sipped a glass of beer in the corner pub can tell you the quickest way to pick an argument is to pick the nation's number one college football team well the white house has jumped squarely into this annual unresolvable dispute tomorrow the president plans to present a plaque to the winner of the texas arkansas game designating that team as the nation's number one not so say penn state fans it seemed easy he could come to the texas arkansas game he could present a plaque to the winner of that game except there's penn state hanging out over here and joe fraterno and his crowd they think they ought to be in that mix so they're wondering why nixon is there giving the plaque to either arkansas or texas penn state also undefeated had already accepted a bid to play in the orange bowl earlier in the season by choosing the orange bowl before ohio state lost penn state passed up the chance to play either texas or arkansas in the cotton bowl setting up the game of the century which would determine the national champion you couldn't set up a ball game to be better than this i mean if you're writing the script for it the media attention to that game was incredible you had all the sports writers from all the major papers you had the new york times the chicago tribune all of those people had writers who would come to austin we were getting into something very very big if we as 18 19 20 21 year old kids would have understood the magnitude of that game we'd have probably been injured by the thoughts of how big that was and then you had the general support and you know that can be summarized by the pep rally before the game was attended by something like 35 40 000 people you look over there and the entire side of the stadium is full you're going my god they were wired and inspired it was unbelievable i mean it really got us moving it just showed us that we had so many people behind us and it just made us more determined that not only for ourselves and our coaches and our university but for our fans we weren't going to let people down build is the game of the decade arkansas against texas it's doubtful any previous football game attracted so much undivided attention since it was the only game played december 6 1969 the site razorback stadium in fayetteville i'd never been to fayetteville that's what coaches kept telling us that fayetteville's unlike anywhere else you've ever been you felt like he was going from civilization to another world and it was another world my dad said playing in arkansas is like parachuting into russia it was a pretty hectic week for fayetteville arkansas you could tell something big was going on it started out when we got off the airplane we had flown into rogers out some distance away from fayetteville we thought it would be safer well somehow somebody found us and spread the word [Music] they came down out of the hills some of them was like they'd never seen palette before their goal was to try to keep us up all night they were calling our rooms and trying to keep us from going to sleep at night making noise outside they didn't like us so they did cheers outside practically all night long we couldn't sleep real well which we didn't then when we were on the bus when we went through fayetteville it wasn't just a little shoe polish on the windows i mean it was red spray paint on the sides of buildings sidewalks everywhere everywhere we went all the businesses were closed down all of them had anti-longhorn signs on them i remember going by a drive-in it had a big sign they had little barricades it said closed gone to texas funeral and i thought that's not just a little clever sign that's the intensity of the environment we are in that this is big this is big we're told to keep our helmets on at all times and you know it's kind of like what they're going to throw whiskey on you and it's still in the bottle so you know okay good idea keep your helmet on [Laughter] as a crowd gathered around the stadium another contingent formed at fort smith to greet president nixon all that i know is that we're going to see today the in this 100th anniversary of football one of the great football games of all time [Music] college football celebrates its centennial year good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the game of the year this is the home of the razorbacks in the heartland of america the foothills of the ozark mountains a standing room only crowd 44 000 are here as the nation's number one team the longhorns from university of texas are ready to defend their lofty ranking against the number two team in the nation the razorbacks of arkansas we're awaiting the arrival of a very arden football fan here in arkansas our commander in chief president nixon as the game began all the media thought that texas was just going to crush arkansas and it didn't happen that way fumbles fumbles fumbles we just couldn't hold onto the football here's the first texas pass not inspired and arkansas intercepts a fumble recovery and now on interception on the very first longhorn pass we've never had turnovers like this it gives the momentum to them to their crowd and as close as they were to you they let you know about it everything was going wrong we were confused i was confused because it changed the defensive the university of arkansas was the number one defense in the country especially at the rush well we had studied all week before the big shootout exactly what they were doing but what the problem was they were lining up slightly different than they'd ever done before so we really didn't know who to block half the time so we were so frustrated they had come up with a defense that we couldn't beat we threw the football we didn't throw the football we didn't do that we never played in a game where a team forced us to throw the ball and not run our wish boat our defense probably played a big role there by creating some turnovers early in the game that that created some momentum for us the score is underdog arkansas seven texas nothing we scored first time we had the ball and the second time down the field we scored again back live texas the biggest play of the game was really this getting this overturned he's actually in the end zone celebrating i'm looking down there and i see a referee looking back at me looking right at me and we've been told don't ever say anything to the referee it's almost like he's asking if i'm gonna come say something and so i literally pointed to reece and i said ref he's blocking on me when the ball is in the air and that's a penalty and the ref says you're right and takes reaches around takes the flag out of his pocket and throws it on the ground and they call the whole thing back taking seven points off the board is critical despite three first half turnovers the longhorns were only down seven to nothing entering halftime we were down but we were still confident we knew that the next play was potentially the one we needed we were behind and we knew it but the game still had time on the clock this game is not done yet the score here at razorback stadium in fayetteville arkansas the razorbacks seven the longhorns nothing looking at this game it is for the ranking of number one and sadly i say it is for that having in mind the fact that penn state's been giving me a lot of flack this week for coming down here maybe we ought to have a super college bowl after this but but whatever the case might be looking at these two teams today uh either one is going to be number one by the vote of the riders what is more important is the tremendous spirit that they've generated it's good for people to be for somebody to be for a team and you can learn a lot from losing as well as winning i've had a little experience in that you've watched football for years could you uh just predict maybe what might uh transpire in the second half as i look at this game in the first half i think that texas has enormous power that is really not unleashed yet and that in the second half they are likely to be much better offensively however they're not going to run over arkansas they can't do it by just going that three yards and a cloud of dust the old woody hayes formula not the woody hayes formula this year i think they're gonna have to throw more they have an excellent passer they're gonna have to throw to open up the arkansas defense i think under those circumstances they're likely to score once or twice i expect both teams to score in the second half the question is whether texas's superior manpower and i mean probably a stronger bench may win in the last quarter that's the way i see it trailing by just seven texas continued to struggle finding a rhythm on offense in the second half 25 30 coming outside gets away again and there is a loose ball arkansas has come up with it he's going deep it's floating out there and another error by the longhorn we were starting to feel like golly you know are we going to be able to pull this out or not [Music] montgomery [Music] [Applause] thankless touchdown end of the third quarter here at razorback stadium in fayetteville arkansas the score the razorbacks 14. as the third quarter ended i remember thinking we're down by 14 points we better score fast this is the first time going into the fourth quarter that we're down it's kind of slipping away from you you're running out of time to win the ball game on the first play of the fourth quarter texas got a spark we had called uh just a little crossing pattern to randy petrol crossing across the middle and and bob mckay being an all-american tackle missed his block start of the fourth quarter jimmy street in trouble oh hell i missed a block on my defensive end i told everybody i missed it on purpose because i couldn't let street throw another interception [Music] [Applause] gets away there he goes and then came the pivotal decision of the whole ball game and probably of daryl royal's career so on the bus on the way to the game daryl called james street up to the front of the bus and he said james if we run a uh if we run a two-point play this is the play we're going to run i said oh heck coach we're not going to need a two-point play daryl made the commitment that if we were down by two touchdowns that we would go for the two-point conversion first when we decided we were going for two i said we're not here to tie this game and now they are going for two [Applause] [Music] [Applause] play by jimmy street he has just made eight points for the nation's number one team [Music] 14 minutes 47 seconds remaining with the longhorns now within striking distance of arkansas they needed a stop on defense to get the ball back [Applause] we couldn't let arkansas score any more points [Applause] [Music] and here's that third down pass down the middle and it was complete to dice wafting one to thank us and a marker is down in the secondary [Music] in the ensuing drive freddie steinmark who was texas safety had reached out on the play and basically tackled chuck dykas who was arkansas's lead receiver if he catches that pass and goes in the end zone it's a touchdown game's over it's just an unbelievably brilliant move it should have just been an easy touchdown the game's over now it's the penalty we're from walking back we get in the defensive huddle i was thinking they're going to try to kick a field goal to kind of ice it the most important player the most important decision we had driven the ball all the way back down the field and got into the texas six where a field goal would have made the score 17-8 we opted for a very safe sprint out pass which didn't turn out to be so safe [Music] what an interception danny lester number 23 [Music] the interception clearly in the fourth quarter was the biggest disappointment that was the play that really made it come home that we're gonna win when that happened everybody on the sideline knew that no matter what if it was fourth and 15 we're gonna go for it and we're gonna make it we didn't feel like anything was gonna stop us texas had a chance and they got out to the 43 43-yard line and then it was fourth and three with a fourth down coming up in this southwest conference battle 447 to go arkansas leading 14-8 her face certainly reflecting the team she's rooting for texas we call timeout james goes to the sideline all three of us are on the phone coach royal myself and emory blard and we're all talking to each other and coach blard and myself wanted to run a counter option back in the short side of the field out of nowhere and i don't know where he got it and i don't even know where he thought of the play coach royal says right 53 veer pass [Music] i remember talking to our tight end randy pechel at halftime and he said the halfback was paying no attention to him when he would release and go downfield so we thought we had a chance to slip that receiver in behind their defensive half back every time we run the beer their half back that i was supposed to block he would commit so fast to the run that i had a hard time walking and i knew or felt i could get behind him coach campbell's standing there and the first thing coach campbell does is he jumps up and hollers defense get ready defense get ready i know i think he's seen me pass i said coach are you sure that's a play you want to run he said hell yeah i'm sure and so i go back into the field and the first thing i did when i got in the huddle is i told the guys the truth i said you're not going to believe this play we all went what he said we're going to throw the freaking ball you're going to be kidding me [Music] trust me we were surprised it wasn't exactly our go-to play i don't know we'd ever run it before i don't know that they'd ever been caught almost crucial fourth down play again for the longhorns [Applause] everybody says when an accident is happening it happens to you in slow motion that's kind of the way that pass was it just seemed slow motion i dropped back to throw the ball pistols looks like he's open i throw the ball [Music] i turned around and looked he'd already thrown it i thought it's way over my head i'm never catching and going to vote for randy special and whistle catches the ball what across [Applause] 43 and a half to the arkansas 13 first down i remember hands coming up some block it and they were like this and the mall went over and cleared them about six inches that's all came right into my hand perfect pass i remember seeing a cheerleader of ours doing cartwheels on the field and i thought hey we got a first hand man it's like opening a box of cracker jacks you have no idea what you're gonna find inside sometimes that was a perfect throw and a great catch and it took exactly that there were six hands up in there only two of them belonged to texas four of them belonged to arkansas remarkable doesn't even begin to describe it i call it an intervention by the creator i think it's god said we want texas to win this football game i think that's part of why that game was just magical that's one of those moments that we're destined to win this thing first [Music] this is a big one it's up four texas for the first time with three minutes and 58 seconds left to the game they have the lead by one arkansas is plenty of time with the type of offense that they have i looked at it and saw there was four minutes to go in the game and i thought a holy cow i mean that's an eternity from the 30 bill burnett second to nine [Applause] and burnett catches his second pass of the afternoon and the razorbacks are in texas territory with a first down at the texas 46 a minute 51 to go all of a sudden now they're looking at a pass that if it is caught actually puts bill mclard that great field goal kicker in range now with a second and three a minute 22 to go here is bill montgomery [Applause] trying to get rhys texas has come up with a big play and very fitting tom campbell when reece put his left foot down and made that cut to the outside my left foot hit the ground at the exact same time his did and that's why i had leverage on the football all four hands were on it but i had a stronger position and yanked it right out of his hands jubilant longhorns from austin texas and the eyes of texas will undoubtedly be heard very very soon on the far side of the field with a song written in 1903 by john langston player let's listen hey we go into the locker room and i think it was gradually wearing onto each of us as individuals that we are now the national champions as [Applause] even coach wall which i've never seen him so animated in my life that he was hugging players [Applause] he gives him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek i never thought power happened when you get to the dressing room no one can come in the dressing room except for the team the players and the entourage with the president because president nixon is coming to give the plaque to the winners how do you feel all right i'm i've got to be the happiest guy in america tonight presenting this plaque i want to say first that the the ap and the upi will name texas number one as we know uh after this game and uh this is a great honor in the 100th year of football i also want to say that having seen this game what convinced me that texas deserves that is the fact that you want a tough one for a team to be behind fourteen to nothing and then not to lose at school and go on to win that proves you deserve to be number one and that's what you are i want all of you to know that we didn't make up the plaque in advance it doesn't say what team and i'm taking it back to washington put in texas the plaque that nixon presented to texas no one has seen that plaque in a long time the nixon black is a mystery to my knowledge we don't know where it is it's probably in the watergate tapes or something probably a disgruntled penn state plant it's at the bottom of a lake erie or somewhere like that i haven't it's back here street took it with me i don't know that's first i'd ever heard of that there's no telling but i'd blame it on james we leave the stadium go out to the airport get on the airplane and people are going crazy on the airplane still we we're i'm talking on the loud speaker and we're i mean everybody's having fun and and then we fly into austin and as we fly into austin i they let me sit up in the cockpit of the plane and watch us come in and land but what was amazing is the number of people that were at the airport in those days you didn't have the security at the airport like you have today and when we got back home there were 10 000 people on the runway they had gotten through the airport and they just come out to meet the team it was i guess like a rock concert or something that you'd see later on you know with the beatles or somebody these these people just broke through these barriers and we're watching them and the pilots are afraid because they're running just storming toward us the fans are trying to come up inside the plane the next thing we know they've almost torn it off austin came out to to meet us that day that was fantastic people are going crap i mean down on the drag you couldn't drive but people swinging from the lights over to guadalupe they said immediately after the game the the the drag filled up with people including policemen and they said the policemen were drinking beer with with everybody else but everybody was just partying it was it was celebration time [Music] following the national championship the public could not get enough of the longhorn players and coaches they were stars with some of the team even flying out to new york city for media appearances steve and i went to new york now we're on the bob hope special bobcat university of texas there you have him folks six foot six and 250 pounds thank you mother he's the kind of a player who even makes the timeouts dangerous he once swallowed the water boy and now the shifty cats the guys with more moves than a belly dancer with the hives the running backs steve wooster university of texas i mean being backstage i'm just going wow i'm from bridge city you know here i am in new york and i'm backstage with five hope out there you know and he's performing it was amazing it's just that surreal feeling of being on top of the mountain you go from one of the highest times in your life to all of a sudden here's one of your teammates that's fighting for his life the celebration would come to a sudden halt only days after the national championship win three days after the victory over arkansas dale royal and his three captains were in new york to receive the macarthur bowl trophy we're national champions the three captains went up and we were at a reception and coach royal called the three captains together in a little side room and that's when he told us coach he was very business-like he didn't use a whole lot of words it's really simple i'm depending on you to represent our school and at the same time guys this is a crucial situation or i wouldn't be leaving you to go down there but i think i need to be by freddy hours earlier back in austin junior safety freddie steinmark learned he had a tumor on his left thigh bone there we were in the midst of being applauded as members of the national championship team to being told that a part of your national championship team has cancer so in the course of a couple of days you go from an indescribable high to indescribable low i was talking on the phone to dr joe renault who was our team doctor and i could tell he was down and he said freddie has bone cancer and i didn't know whether you mean fred acres the assistant coach or steinmark i couldn't imagine ms worked this is a vivacious young kid who's got his entire life in front of him and i said my god can you save him and joe said i don't think so it was just so startling so shocking i'd never even heard of cancer and to hear coach royal say freddie's in the fight for his life there's no way to prepare yourself for something like that it was like is this for real or is this a dream or you know it it was it was just so shocking and we were totally unprepared for it all of a sudden here's one of your teammates that's fighting for his life and one of the nicest kids you'd ever ever want to know he was absolutely a prince among princes it was just a disaster i mean it was just we we couldn't figure it out and uh i can remember us two or three of us gathering in my room and just talking and not being you know just not understanding and i said you know i believe in god but i just don't understand what god's doing why would he do this to him very few people even knew how much pain he was really in i did because i saw him rubbing and aching and rubbing it at night and that's when it bothered him the most they took him to houston to md anderson which was the best cancer hospital in the world at that time and they told freddie when he went into the surgery said if it is malignant they're going to amputate his leg it was really a tough tough thing going in to see freddie because he he was a tough little guy and he was sitting with his legs crossed up in the bed in the pajamas and just he and i were in the room and he said coach he's looking right at me just i mean hard looking at me he said they they don't tell me much he said i know they've told you and i know you won't lie to me i said what is it i said well freddie it's uh we've been in some tough spots together and and i refuse to to have the final answer our final opinion that the doctors do too until we get the biopsy so i figured if the doctors didn't tell him that i shouldn't when the surgery was over we heard his mother scream you know uh out loud and obviously it was bad news that they had in fact amputated his leg scott henderson and i went to go visit uh freddie at the hospital after the after he had his leg amputated and i have a picture of him with the four of us and freddie has got the biggest smile out of the four of us that's the kind of spirit that kid had it made us more committed to winning one for freddie we were doing it for freddie it was freddie's game it really takes your mind off of the preparation that's really needed to face a first class team like notre dame the ninth ranked fighting irish had accepted a bid to play texas in the cotton bowl it was notre dame's first post-season appearance since the 1925 rose bowl the cotton boat were able to work with the notre dame administration and for the first time since the days of the four horsemen notre dame came to a bowl game that was big news that was a big deal all of my football life up to that point notre dame notre dame notre dame you know they were famous they had giants on their team i thought we had big guys when they were 250. my god those were the little guys in notre dame's team they were bigger than we were at every position including quarterback joe feisman was a lot bigger than james street notre dame had a defensive tackle by name mike mccoy an all-american at that time i think mike was like a 300 pound player which was unusual back then i mean most the tackles were 220 225 or smaller the first time we ever saw the notre dame players they were having a cotton bowl luncheon we were already seated and the notre dame team walked in they were all in unified they all had identical blazers and they were sharp and they were big and they walked it they look like the green bay packers and i start looking at our team with new eyes and all i just see is a bunch of little skinny guys we're all mismatched clothes notre dame motivated us more than they helped themselves and they were talkers and they bragged we got the implication they were blessing us to come down and allow us to be exposed to them they were going to enlighten us that we were now the number one team in the nation that they got the opportunity to be beaten by the true number one team in the nation and so that was infuriating to a bunch of texas kids that were good to stand on their own two feet we wanted to whip their ass bad they just didn't think it was possible a little ricky d texas team could beat him they didn't put us on their level with the cotton bowl scheduled to kick off january 1st preparations and game plans were set one thing that was unclear though was that freddie steinmark would make it to the game he only had three weeks from the surgery until the game he wanted to be there on that sideline that day and the doctors told him that he couldn't do it he wouldn't be able to do it but they didn't know freddie steinmark freddie comes into the locker room and we all see him and you couldn't help but knowing freddy and knowing what he has had to go through to get himself here to this game it's hard to figure how you can get 75 000 people to be quiet [Music] and cry [Music] but somehow when freddie steinmark [Music] came on his crutches down the ramp the cotton bowl it was a scene like nothing else was there suddenly there is this lone figure on his crutches with his pant leg tucked up and his long coat on coming down the ramp how in the hell could he do that i mean it just astounded me and the pain i don't care how strong he was or how anything else there's pain involved in that a bunch and he stood the whole game with freddy watching from the sideline texas and notre dame kicked off the cotton bolt the fighting irish scored first taking an early 10 to nothing lead they were not the cleanest football team i've ever played against my brother mike is over there near the notre dame bench the next thing mike realizes is he hears a bunch of yelling from the notre dame sideline hey number 86 you you blankety blank ain't number 86 you're a blankly blank mike's turns around so what is this about and he looks over there and it's a one of the assistant coaches and a catholic priest are over there yelling at mike calling him all these names and then he looks over there now parsigan is doing it they're head coach so mike hides himself from the referees and shoots him a finger and when that happened all three of them came running out on the field oh man even the catholic priests came running out on the field it was a tough game they were very physical they executed well we had our hands full texas began the fourth quarter trailing 10-7 with 1005 left to play ted coy's 3-yard touchdown run gave the longhorns the first lead of the game 14-10 on the next drive joe theismann hit jim yoder on a 24-yard touchdown pass to retake the lead with 6 52 remaining james street and the offense took over just one of those things it came down to a pass again here we go again texas had to convert a crucial fourth down to keep the drive moving and just like against arkansas it worked this time it was a pass to cut inspire that kept the chains moving the ball was a little bit underthrown and i came back and the ball was barely off the ground billy dale punched it in from a yard out to give the longhorns a 21-17 lead with 108 left to play joe theismann needed to drive 78 yards for a touchdown to win the game for the fighting irish and for the second game in a row a tom campbell interception would seal it for texas the longhorns won 21-17 capping off an undefeated season i intercepted this man's pass at the end of the game and i kept the football i go up in the locker room and i'm sitting in the in front of my locker on this bench and and i've got that ball that i intercepted and i'm looking at it and i'm thinking about what am i going to do with this i'm going to put it in a box or something and then i realize there's a pair of coaches shoes standing in front of me i mean i look up and it's coach roll and i said coach roll's going to say something complimentary to me and he pointed to the football and said is that ball for freddy if i thought for just a moment and i handed yes sir and there it went [Music] tell you how proud i am of you it'd be kind of you know an understatement i'm afraid if i talk too damn long i'm going to choke up but we've got a guy that we love a lot ready here it is for you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] they wouldn't drive that room [Music] that meant won a national championship i can't think of anything else we could do for freddie that would say more about how much we loved him freddie i think to all of us who knew him meant courage to know the likelihood of your fate and still be strong enough and brave enough to walk toward it not run away from it i think that's what he meant to us he was bigger than anyone because he was a little guy whose heart never gave out the strongest muscle in the human body is the heart and it is the last thing that it ever gives out and it will keep beating as long as it possibly can and we all knew from what we had seen from freddie that the last moment in freddy's life would be that final heartbeat and that one heartbeat capsulized everything that i think freddie stood for despite penn state's opposition texas finished the season the consensus number one team in the country according to all major polls it was the second national championship in school history [Music] to say your national champion there's no feeling like it it's you know something you'll take to the gray with you it defines a lot of what i am today to deal with the vicitudes of life the ups and downs the things that we all have to experience unfortunately it's something that lives with you for the rest of your life it's amazing how unity and winning build each other you win because you're unified and as you win you become one unit you have to win by being a team and a team only and it was we won the national championship as a team a team [Music] top to bottom i love them i love them the way that god teaches to love his fellow man and i feel like i'm a part of it to have that kind of success is just so rare other than your wedding day and having children there's nothing really that can compare with that to be able to get through all that to have that experience in your life is just very unique and it's something that you just can't take away from forever [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 78min 3sec (4683 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021