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Longhorn Nation

Texas' Greatest Players Talk About Longhorns Football

Triumph Books

The Thirties and Forties

Howard Terry | Lineman/Linebacker | 1935–1937

Looking back, I guess I was lucky. I was born and raised in Cameron, Texas, and I played high school football. I was not all that great a player, but I wanted to go to college. I had been invited by the Rice Institute line coach to come down and work out with the varsity in the spring of 1934.

They had me work out with the varsity, but the only thing I had resembling an offer for a chance to go to school was that if I would go to a junior college for two years, they would take me back at Rice. In hindsight, I can certainly see their thinking. I did have a visit to Texas A&M, but that wasn't productive, either.

Then, in the spring, one of our local teachers took me down to Austin to the C&S Sporting Goods Company. The teacher's friend there called Jack Chevigny. He had been the coach at St. Edward's University, south of the Colorado River in Austin, and he had just gotten the head coaching job at Texas. He came down to C&S Sporting Goods and met me. He must have been pretty desperate for football players, because I was just a 17-year-old kid. At that point, the junior college idea was the only thing I had.

Chevigny said for me to "come on down here, and we'll get you in school. You'll have enough money for a room and two meals a day." That was my offer of a scholarship, and I jumped at it. Anything was something in those days. We were in the middle of the Depression.

When I came down as a freshman in the fall, we had probably 100 kids out there, and the freshmen didn't play on the varsity. But that fall of 1934 was pretty significant. The varsity had a pretty good team. Chevigny had played for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, as had his line coach, Tim Moynihan. They believed in everything Notre Dame had ever done, and Chevigny tried to run his house that way.

It worked for him that first year, and it also helped a lot that he had 20 lettermen returning from the season before. In their second game of the year, the varsity went to South Bend and beat Notre Dame 7–6 in the Irish's season opener. It was the first time they had lost a home opener in school history. It was a big moment on campus. I remember going to Gregory Gym, where everybody was listening to the game. It seems almost like it was a closed-circuit showing, but it was only a radio broadcast in those days. The win gave the campus and the city something to be pumped up about.

The varsity went on to a 7–2–1 season, and they gave Chevigny a raise and a new LaSalle touring car at the team banquet after the season. But that wound up being his high point. My sophomore year, in 1935, I wound up starting in our first game against Texas A&I, which we won handily. But things did not go so well after that. We finished the season with a 4–6 record.

By my junior season, I was starting at guard and linebacker, and playing about 55 minutes per game. We opened with a tie and then a win over Oklahoma, but things fell apart in our game in Austin against Baylor. We had Baylor down 18–0 in the first quarter, and Chevigny took the starters out and told us to go shower. We were in the old dressing room under the west stands of Memorial Stadium, and as I was getting dressed, somebody came running in and said the score was 18–14 in the fourth quarter. I pulled on my pants and ran upstairs to the field just in time to see them win the game 21–18.

That game had more to do with getting him fired than anything else. He thought we had the game won, and he sent all the first team into the shower. We won only one more game that year, beating Texas A&M 7–0, but by then Chevigny had already announced he was not returning. On the part of the players, we probably would have liked to see him have more time, but as far as the public was concerned, there were pretty strong feelings, and there were certainly problems. Several players went to the athletics council meeting and spoke up for Chevigny, but it didn't make any difference. He left coaching completely. He went into the oil business and moved back up north.

Texas surprised a lot of people by hiring Dana X. Bible to replace Chevigny. Mr. Bible had coached at Texas A&M and Nebraska, and they paid him a whole lot of money to come to Texas. A lot of people expected immediate success because he had done that at Nebraska. But I think he failed to consider how valuable the players he had taken with him to Nebraska were. He didn't have that here, and it was a tough start for all of us.

There was one really bright spot my senior year, and that came against Baylor in Waco. We all remembered that they had beaten us the year before, and Baylor was really playing well in 1937. They had won all six of their games, and we had won only one game and tied one. They were hoping to go to the Rose Bowl, and there was even talk about a national championship. The game was even broadcast on national radio by Ted Husing.

But we really played well and surprised them. Hugh Wolfe, who was one of our best players, kicked a field goal in the fourth quarter to break a 6–6 tie, and we won 9–6. We didn't score a point the rest of the season, getting shut out by TCU and Texas A&M, but we did have one memorable moment concerning that Baylor game. When we got back to Austin, the "victory lights" on the Tower were lighted for the first time. The orange and white lights were turned on that day in 1937, and they've signaled a victory on the occasion of every win since. Mr. Bible didn't do as well as he thought he would the first year (we were 2–6–1), and he did worse the second (1– 8–0).

After I finished school, I went to work with Procter & Gamble in Oklahoma. I wasn't close enough to the situation to know all that was going on, but when I could afford it, I became a supporter of the program. In those days, alums could help with recruiting, and I remember helping Mr. Bible get a player named Spec Sanders out of Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma. Mr. Bible was not about to cross that Red River to get a player; he had a policy of not going out of state. He just would not take out-of-state players. That was one of his house rules. So I picked Spec up in Lawton and took him down to Wichita Falls to meet Mr. Bible, and he took him. He turned out to be a first-class running back who went on to play pro ball, and that 1941 team damn near won it all.

After Pearl Harbor, I went into the navy. I later learned that Chevigny got killed at Iwo Jima, and Tim Moynihan also died in the war. I didn't know it at the time, I was too busy trying not to get killed myself.

When the war was over, I made some investments, two or three moves that helped me a lot financially, and I was in a position to give something back to The University. It was a place where I started to grow up and get a good education that has helped me for the rest of my life.

Howard Terry came to Texas in 1934, the same year Jack Chevigny became head coach. He played as a lineman and linebacker on Chevigny's last two teams and the first team of D.X. Bible. He was instrumental in forming the Texas Longhorn Education Foundation, and the Longhorn football locker room bears his name. He was inducted into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 1988.

Noble Doss | Wingback | 1939–1941

It was really a changing time when I came to The University of Texas, and looking back, we didn't have any way of realizing how much everything was going to change for everybody over the next four years.

In 1938 Mr. Bible was in his second year as the Texas coach. It had been a big deal when he was hired because he had been at Texas A&M and Nebraska, and they were paying him a whole lot of money during hard times to coach football at Texas. His first season, they hadn't been very good, but he had such a reputation, and The University was such an important place, that a whole bunch of us committed to come to school. There were 125 of us who were part of that 1938 freshman class. We had all-staters from all over Texas. They didn't have any limits on the number of scholarships, but times were hard, and we all needed money.

A scholarship meant $40 a month, but it was the first year in the new Hill Hall dorm, and the players had to pay the university $30 a month for room and board. The university held out $7.50 a month to pay tuition, leaving us $2.50 a month spending money.

We all thought pretty highly of ourselves, and the varsity that year was struggling. They only won one game. The varsity didn't have very many players, and people began making fun of Mr. Bible's defense, calling it "Ali Bible and his 40 Sieves." The only game they won that year was the last one, against Texas A&M, 7–6.

Everybody kept talking about the freshman class being the future, so we started believing them. After we beat the varsity in a scrimmage that fall, we got together and chose a representative to go talk to Mr. Bible, to tell him we needed more money.

We all waited for his answer and were deflated when we got the report. In his unforgettable booming voice, Mr. Bible (who had a habit of smacking his lips before he spoke) sent back the message: "Tell the boys I will be glad to meet with them, one on one, each individually, at any time."

Not a one of us dared do it.

Mr. Bible was strict — very strict. He didn't allow any funny business, but he was the greatest teacher I ever knew. He taught us so much more than just football, and as we began playing as sophomores in 1939, things began to change for Texas football. Mr. Bible always pointed to our Arkansas game that year as the game that made the biggest difference. It was our fourth game of the season, and we had just lost to Oklahoma 24 — 12. The year before, Arkansas had beaten Texas 42–6.

Jack Crain was a little guy who had a lot of speed. In the Arkansas game in 1939, he returned a quick kick 82 yards to set up a touchdown early in the game. But in the fourth quarter, we were behind 13–7 with just a minute left to play. A lot of folks had left when R.B. Patrick threw a short pass to Jack, and he turned it into a weaving 67-yard touchdown. Then he kicked the extra point with less than 30 seconds left for a 14–13 win. I remember Mr. Bible saying, "That play and that victory changed our outlook — mine, the players', the student body's, and the ex-students. Things had been going pretty badly up until that game. The way was still long, but we had tasted the fruits of victory and we were on our way."

Mr. Bible was a tough coach, and he was a great motivator. Before our Texas A&M game in 1940, he brought out a poem called "It Can Be Done." The Aggies were defending national champions, and they were headed for the Rose Bowl if they won. They were undefeated in 19 games. But we had never lost to them in Memorial Stadium.

I'll never forget that poem: "Somebody said that it couldn't be done, but he with a chuckle replied that 'maybe it couldn't' but he would be one who wouldn't say so till he tried ..."

They had John Kimbrough, who was a great back, but Mr. Bible thought if we could surprise them early, we would have a chance. He had put in a special play for that game, and on the first drive Pete Layden had a throwback pass to Crain that carried us to their 33-yard line. We ran another play that almost worked, but the pass was incomplete. But on that play, I realized I could get behind their halfback, who was big John Kimbrough.

They were playing a 6-2-2-1 defense, and when I went down and cut out, he picked me up. It was a down and out, a play we had run a lot during the year, so it wasn't something new. When I turned downfield, I got a couple of steps on him, but that's all. The pass was perfect. It worked good ... real good. I think my momentum carried me out of bounds at the 1-yard line, and we scored on the next play. We had played just less than one minute and we were ahead 7 — 0. We held that lead the whole game. I was lucky enough to come up with three interceptions, and they never scored.

Our senior year, in 1941, we were really good. Mal Kutner was a great player at end, and we had Crain and Layden and some real good linemen. Things were really rolling. We had a big write-up in Life magazine, were unbeaten through our first six games, and were averaging almost 40 points a game.

I will never forget our Baylor game in Waco because we lost a chance at a national championship when I dropped a pass. We should have beaten them easily, but we had a lot of injuries. We had a 7–0 lead, and I ran a down and out — the same play that had worked against Texas A&M. I was open at the goal line, and the ball just went right through my arms. It would have been a 45-yard scoring pass, and we would have gone ahead 14–0. Instead, Baylor scored in the last seconds to tie the game 7–7. I have thought about that play every day of my life since. It was the national championship, and I dropped it.

When we got back home from Waco, the whole campus was crushed. I think we all started feeling sorry for ourselves and didn't get ready to play the next week. TCU beat us 14–7. It wasn't hard to get up for Texas A&M, though. We hadn't beaten them in Kyle Field, just like they hadn't been able to win in Austin. But everybody pulled together and we won easily, 23–0.

All season long, there had been talk that we would go to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, but the tie and the loss put that in question. Mr. Bible had scheduled a game with the University of Oregon to close the season. While we were still hoping for the Rose Bowl, we turned down an invitation to the Orange Bowl. The Rose Bowl already had Oregon State as its host team, but since they had barely beaten Oregon, I think the people with the Rose Bowl were afraid of waiting for the outcome of our game with Oregon. They didn't want to be embarrassed by taking us if we lost. And so they asked Mr. Bible to cancel the game.

Mr. Bible was a man of great character, and he told them he had never canceled a game with an opponent and didn't feel it would be right to do that. He said he'd guarantee a victory, but he wouldn't cancel the game. So the Rose Bowl invited Duke. We beat Oregon 71–7.

Ironically, nobody got to play in the official Rose Bowl Stadium that year. The day after we played Oregon, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The threat of war on the West Coast caused the game to be moved to Duke, in North Carolina, which had been invited in our place.

Being a Longhorn has been my life. So many of my friends came from those days at Texas, and I have been fortunate to live most of my life in Austin, where The University of Texas has meant everything to me. That's what being a Longhorn means to me.

Mr. Bible was everything I ever wanted in a coach. I can still see him standing in front of a chalk board, pointing with an old pool cue to plays, over and over again. He gave us a foundation in discipline and responsibility. We got a great education and a lifetime of memories.

Noble Doss set the Texas record for interceptions in a career and in a single season in 1941. A halfback and defensive back on the famous D.X. Bible teams of the early 1940s, he was long remembered for his famous "impossible catch" — an over-the-shoulder reception that set up the only touchdown in Texas' 7–0 upset of previously unbeaten Texas A&M in 1940. He is a member of the Longhorn Hall of Honor.

Rooster Andrews | All-American Water Boy | 1941–1946

It is hard for a lot of people to believe, but I was headed for Texas A&M just before school started in 1941. My dad worked for the railroad, and I had my bags packed, ready to get on the train for College Station from Dallas.

Malcolm Kutner and I had become friends, and he had been talking to Mr. Bible about getting me to come to Texas as a football team manager. The night before I was to leave for A&M, Mr. Bible called me and said, "Do you want a National Youth Administration job?" Those were jobs from the WPA during the Depression, and I had to have a job because there was no money for college.

I said, "Yes, sir. I sure do. I want to come to The University of Texas."

I switched my train pass to Austin, and Kutner met me at the station.

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Excerpted from Longhorn Nation by Bill Little, Jenna Hays McEachern. Copyright © 2015 Bill Little and Jenna Hays McEachern. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
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