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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1966)
ION s Jryant On A&M mith ? on (Continued from Page 8) il Crane he was the best of- sive center I ever had. He lyed every minute of every ie and as a senior made All- erence unanimously, remember, we took those 27 le boys to Athens to play irgia the third game that Old Lloyd wasn’t much for snapbacks, so we had our jnager suited up to center the |1 for fourth-down punts. Har- Mehre and Ed Danforth of the anta papers didn’t believe at they saw. “You mean this all the players you got?” I d, “No, these are the ones that it to play.” And damned if y didn’t beat Georgia 6-0, the y game we won all year. Veil, you say, what kind of ching is that when you lose ut 100 boys and keep only 27 ? lave to believe I wouldn’t lose t many today, because I’m not driver I was and I probably i’t demand as much, but let me you that was the beginning a change in attitude at A&M. was never easy, though. The ss was on me from the start, I some of the stuff that came of Fort Worth and other es was really rough. The ng I resented most, though, s that every time something ne up, usually at recruiting ie or before a big game, a ru- r would start about us going probation or, after we were probation, about staying re. Anything to foul us up. HAD A MAD on for the er coaches in the conference :ause they were out to get me. thought there was a lot of jocritical stuff going on. I de up my mind early I was ng to beat them or kill myself ing. I hated all of them. They ed to get me thrown out of the iference, and I felt that they re making a whipping boy out me. Looking back and know- ; how much we shook that con- ence up—it took a lot to swal- r the idea of k>sing to A&M— have to admit I’d probably ve done the same thing in dr position. I know now we should have en put on probation. I know, o,I was not just trying to jus- |y it in my mind when I said it if we were paying players, ji other schools were doing it ice as bad, which some were, not going to go soft on that it. I’m not sure how many our boys got something. I iss about four or five did. I In’t know what they got, and didn’t want to know, but they t something because they had ler offers and I told my alum- to meet the competition. Well, ib Manning and Tom Sestak, 0 is still playing in the pros, ed affidavits that they got to sign and $50 a month 'er tuition. Coaches from Bay- and Texas helped them file. 1 HAVE NEVER thought you mid have a bunch of hired foot- 11 players. Maybe you can ive two or three or four get- g something extra. I’ve had lem, but you can usually tell ie of them a block away, the ay he goes about things, the way he puts out. If an alumnus working such-and-such a place finds he’s losing a boy he might give him something, but he’ll usually tell you, too, because he wants you to know what he thinks he’s doing for you. It’s mighty hard to turn something down if you’ve never had any thing, I can understand that, and it’s hard for the parents, too. At A&M I don’t know whether we’d have won or not without paying players, but I’ll say this, most of the kids didn’t play like they got something. After we got put on probation I told our people—our alumni, everybody—if there was any doubt in my mind about a boy getting something, we weren’t going to play him. I’ll never for get a boy we signed right after that. There was a question in my mind about him, because my wife got close to the family and the mother confided in her what an other school had offered. I called the alumnus in that area and told him, “Don’t lie to me, don’t put me on the spot. If that boy’s getting something I want to know it.” He swore he wasn’t. Well, the day I left A&M he was riding me out to the airport. He said, “Bear, remember the time you questioned me about that boy, and I told you I didn’t give him anything?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Well, I told you a damned lie.” Anyway, we were at Houston in May of 1955 for the league meeting when the affidavits came to my desk. Jim Owens, who coaches Washington now, was with me, and the night be fore the story broke we had our meeting of athletic directors. I wanted to talk about this thing, but all those guys wanted to do was play cards. Howard Grubbs of the SWC, who’s a good fellow and does a good job but then was just on the wrong side, said, “We can’t discuss any business here tonight.” I said, “Well, I want to,” and he said, “We can’t, pe riod. SO WE PLAYED cards all night long—D. X. Bible, Matty Bell, Dutch Meyer, Jess Neely and John Barnhill. George Sauer played awhile, but he was scared the Baptists would catch him and he quit. At 8 a.m. we broke up, and John Barnhill of Arkansas and I went down to breakfast to have some cereal. Barney leaned over and said, “Bear, they got you. They’re going to cut your guts out. Now you know what’s been going on for years, but they got you now and they’re going to stick it to you and you just gotta face it.” So I went up to my room with Owens, and it was already on the radio and TV and everything: A&M is going on a two-year pro bation for recruiting violations. The league had already had its meeting and decided it, and the athletic directors knew it even before we sat down to play cards. Our athletic committee man hadn’t told me, he’d just gone on home. Well, Jim drove, and I cried all the way back to A&M. At 6 o’clock I had to make a speech, and I got up and said something about when the going is tough the tough get going, and I was tough and a going son of a gun, and I started crying again, and the Aggies went wild. WE NEVER GOT to the Cot ton Bowl during my four years at A&M because of that proba tion thing, but we went unde feated and won the conference championship in 1956 and we beat Texas for the first time at Memorial Stadium in Austin. And I tell you, there were a lot of wonderful people who stuck with us all the way, people they call “Aggie Exes.” Mr. Zachry and Herman Keep let me use their private planes, and Mr. Heep cut me in on an oil deal that I’ll be getting checks from for years to come — not very much money but a thoughtful gesture. I still have investments with Johnny Mitchell, who was a great help to our program. The fact is, I never made the money people thought I did in Texas. I lost on the two apartment houses I built, and I made some poor investments. After we won the championship they wanted to give me a bonus. I said, no, just buy my house, which they did for about a $10,000 profit, which let me pay long-term, capital- gains tax. Another thing, too, they put in my contract that I would get a percentage of the gate for our 1957 home games. I don’t think any coach ever got that kind of deal before or since. W. T. (Doc) Doherty (a for mer A&M Board member) was probably more upset than any body when I left. He was a fine man and was probably most re sponsible for my being there. He had me on his company payroll, and we were really close. When I told him I was leaving he couldn’t understand it. “What do you want? What do you want?” I said it wasn’t the money. I heard he got real bitter after that and made statements that the way I left was absurd, that I didn’t treat them right. I wrote him a letter thanking him for all he had done and trying to ex plain how I felt, but I never re ceived an answer. WELL, THE TRUTH was I didn’t want to go back to Ala bama, never intended to. I could have gone back two or three times, and I refused. But they kept reminding me what Ala bama had done for me, and how I was the only one who could bring Alabama football back to where it once was, which wasn’t true, but it sure got to me. Ev ery day I was getting a sackful of letters, hundreds of them from grade-school kids telling me they’d want to play for me if I came back. Well, heck, I just couldn’t refuse. The worst thing, though, was going in there and telling my boys at A&M. I hadn’t had to do that at Kentucky, because they were away on vacation. I went in there with those Aggies and I tried to talk. I got to crying, and it got to be like a Holy Rol ler meeting, everybody crying, old John Crow and everybody. But I’ll never forget that look on Mary Harmon’s face when we drove down University Avenue into Tuscaloosa. S h e was in hog’s heaven. I wished then I’d gone back years before. University Cleaners (Next door to Holick’s) 112 N. Main St. Phone 846-6615 North Gate Dry Cleaning Laundry Insignia Alterations Ernest Sebesta ; 39 A Small Note to Transfer Students: In the midst of the rush of welcoming new freshmen and returning students, we want to take time to welcome you to Aggieland. We hope you will enjoy con tinuing your education at A&M. If at any time we at Loupot’s Trading Post can assist you in any way with information or advice to help you get along at A&M, please call on us. LOUPOTS TRADING POST North Gate College Station J. E. Loupot >32 Approved Textbooks — Supplies — Instruments— Clothing — Shoes — Tux Rentals Complete Line of Veterinary: Books, Instruments, Clothing THE BATTALION Thursday, September 15, 1966 College Station, Texas Page 9 READ BATTALION CLASSIFIEDS ¥ FREE ¥ (With This Coupon) (Good Only Sept. 15, 16, 17, 18) WELCOME ! ! ! 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