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Texas A&M
Battalion Sports
Tuesday, October 11,1983/The Battalion/Page 9
Making a name
Freshman TB Keith Woodside trying to become ‘somebody’
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staff photo by Dean Saito
Aggie tailback Keith Woodside, a freshman
from Vidalia, La., is looking to make a
name for himself. Woodside rushed seven
times for 78 yards against UH Saturday.
John P. Lopez
Battalion Staff
Late in the fourth quarter of
Texas A&M’s 30-7 win over
Houston Saturday, No. 32 for
the Aggies trotted onto Kyle
Field — nobody stood and
cheered as the smallish fresh
man entered the huddle.
A few seconds later, the run
ning back toot the ball from
quarterback Kevin Murray and
swept right. Then, like a blur, he
darted back to the left and was
off on a 61 -yard jaunt to the goal
line. Cougar safety Greg Purcell
pushed the back out-of-bounds
at the Houston 1-yard line, but
the mark had already been
made.
The Aggie crowd stood and
cheered.
And two plays later after the
back put an equally sly move on
the Cougar defense to score a
touchdown, the crowd cheered
again. And cheered, and
cheered, and cheered.
You see, it’s been a long time
— two years to be exact — since
an Aggie running back has
broken for a run of more than
50 yards. And the crowd wanted
to know exactly who this runner
was with the quick feet and an
assortment of moves.
Meet Keith Woodside.
And watch him closely, if you
can, because many Texas A&M
football observers feel that
Woodside might become the
best Aggie runner since Curtis-
Dickey.
But why hasn’t there been
more media hype and hoopla
about Woodside if he’s so good?
Read on. Woodside has an in
teresting story to tell.
Diler head coach Biles
1
resigns; owner surprised
| United Press International
■ HOUSTON — Ed Biles,
gaying he had tired of being a
he Councilfel unchin S ba g’” resi S ned Mon -
, , Ilavascoach of the Htiuston Oil-
'u' e ji rs ~ a team that was good
e C k nlC i nou 8i b t0 ma k e the playoffs
omc boo |” lree years ago, but which has
PS f ° r t 10 low lost 13 games in a row.
.ile in theareiB no successor was
>ei of anim immediately named, a member
e endangering oilers’ staff was expected
Jotakeover the team for the re-
ikesmen SJ1 Bainder of the season,
n the ainvajiB yhe Oilers’ 13th consecutive
anus MissifBjj game s unc [ a y in the Astro-
[hcult foi f 1 'dome — a 26-14 setback against
i ithoutthe .' .[) enver Houston’s last win came
Valentine p,|j n Sept. 19, 1982.
ractican'M Bii es himself made the
the missionIfonouneemgjjt a t his regular
crews ConitiBonday news conference. In a
id- . ..Rim voice he caught his listen-
, N.M, officii"!]■$ SO m e what off guard by
ing to sue * haying:
[lights are caT] hayg resigned as coach of the
IHouston Oilers.”
r the Presena |"]’ve been a punching bag,” he
fexas Frontifl said. “i’ ve been the eye of the
Paso attornf 1 hurricane for 2'A years, the cen-
i says the Inter of all controversy. I felt like
Air Force "wRe had enough. You get to the
x)k cheap.' loint where you just say, ‘who
re propose^ needs it.’”
area is not 5
anse of vasif
'est Texas is 1
vorite of hi®
of the destf
His current players said
almost uniformly that Biles did
the best he could with the Oilers.
His former quarterback said,
meanwhile, that part of the
problem was that Biles was not a
well-liked person.
“It wasn’t that he was tough,”
said Archie Manning, who was
traded along with tight end
Dave Casper to Minnesota ear
lier this season. “It’s just that no
body liked him.”
“I’d gone to five straight Pro
Bowls until Eddie Biles took
over. Then he benched me,”
said Casper. “He alienated some
of the key ballplayers, traded
some away and then the whole
team lost confidence.”
He said he did not recom
mend anyone as his replace
ment, but hoped offensive coor
dinator Kay Dalton and defen
sive coordinator Chuck Studley
would be considered.
Biles, 52, was elevated from
defensive coordinator to head
coach after owner K.S. “Bud”
Adams fired popular O.A.
“Bum” Phillips following the
1980 season. Phillips had led the
Oilers to the AFC championship
game in 1978 and 1979 and
Houston made the playoffs
again in 1980 only to lose in the
wild card game to the Oakland
Raiders.
Biles’ record was 7-9 in 1981,
1-8 in 1982 and 0-6 so far in
1983.
“In my own mind, I really
haven’t felt like I failed,” Biles
said. “I felt like I ran out of time.
There’s enough fault with what
has happened to this team to
pass around to a lot of people.
I’m just one of them.”
STER
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‘I got a lot of crank phone calls. They (people
in Louisiana) kept telling me they didn’t want
me around and they gave me a hard time.
They said to pack my bags and go to Texas.
There was a lot of pressure.’— Keith Wood-
side on the reaction to his decision to attend
A&M
When Woodside was
finishing his football career at
Vidalia, La., high school last
year, there weren’t hundreds of
college recruiters hounding
him.
In fact, since Vidalia is a small
town only a rock’s throw away
from the Mississippi River, just a
few recruiters knew about
Woodside’s athletic ability.
But what ability Woodside did
have.
“Tremendous,” Dalton Fairc-
loth, Woodside’s high school
coach, said of the speedy
runner.
And apparently, at least one
college alumnus from a south
ern school thought Woodside’s
abilities were too good to pass
up. So the alumnus took matters
into his own hands.
“I had to pass up a lot to come
to A&M,” Woodside said re
cently.
Like what?
“I was offered $25,000 to go
to another school,” he said.
Woodside didn’t say who
made the offer, but said he
didn’t like the idea of someone
else trying to make a career deci
sion for him.
“They started playing close
attention to me and doing
things,” Woodside said of the
alums, “and what it really winds
down to is that they wanted to
make a decision for me.
“And I didn’t want that. They
would always go to my house
and talk to my grandmother.
And I told her, ‘They can come
and talk to you, but I’m going to
make my own decision.’”
But, Woodside said, the
offers kept coming.
“It was a lot to pass up,” he
said. “But the way I look at it, if I
become successful, I can get any
amount of money I want.
“They were dealing in a lot of
money. They offered me
$25,000 cash, an automobile,
clothes and boots.”
The enormous offers might
sound far-fetched considering
Woodside is a virtual unknown,
but his statistics show exactly
how good he was in high school.
They might even lead one to be
lieve that the 6-0, 190-pounder
won’t be a no-name for long
even though he has seen only
limited action this year because
of an ankle sprain.
Woodside’s abilities surfaced
when he was in eighth grade,
Faircloth said, when he scored
22 touchdowns in nine games
and raised a few eyebrows
around Vidalia.
As a junior in high school,
Woodside gained over 1,400
yards and started to hear from
people — like the mayor of
Vidalia — about, “how I should
go to LSU because it’s in my
home state.”
But the big-spending alumni
of other schools didn’t enter the
picture until after Woodside’s
phenomenal senior year when
he gained more than 2,000
yards in 10 games and didn’t
even play in nine quarters.
“A lot of people are going to
find out how good he is down
there (SWC),” Faircloth said.
“He’s so smooth and so fast. No
body can stop him consistently.
He had 300 yards at halftime in
two games for us last year.”
Obviously, one alumnus knew
how good Woodside was in high
school and wanted to pay the
tailback to attend a particular
university.
But Woodside said that,
although the money was temp
ting, accepting it was against his
better judgment.
“I just didn’t need it,” Wood-
side said. “And I’m glad I didn’t
take it.”
So Woodside said he started
to look elsewhere for a school to
attend — a perfect opportunity
for Texas A&M’s Jackie Sherrill
to step in.
“Natchez, Miss, is just across
the river from Vidalia and that’s
where Hugh Green is from,”
Woodside said. “And since
coach Sherrill knew Hugh from
Pittsburgh, he asked him if there
were any players down here that
were any good.
“Hugh gave him my name
and the next thing I know, coach
(Greg) Davis called me and
A&M started recruiting me.”
Woodside said that making
the decision to attend Texas
A&M was easy once he met Sher
rill.
“Tony Dorsett is my idol,” he
said. “And ever since Dorsett
was at Pitt, I wanted to play
under coach Sherrill. He’s the
main reason I’m here.
“He was very honest with me
from the very beginning. And
somehow, coach Sherrill caught
on to the offers and the first
thing he did was ask me if I could
be bought. He told me to never
sell myself and I’ll always re
member that because it made
me think about what was going
on.
“Coach Sherrill is a good
man. If it wasn’t for him, I
wouldn’t have come here.”
But even after Woodside
signed a letter of intent to attend
Texas A&M, his troubles we
ren’t over.
“I got a lot of crank phone
calls,” Woodside said. “They
kept telling me they didn’t want
me around and they gave me a
hard time. They said to pack my
bags and go to Texas. There was
a lot of pressure.”
But things are looking better
these days for the fleet-footed
runner. And that suits Aggie
partisans and Woodside just
fine, because if Woodside con
tinues to perform like he did
against Houston, he won’t be a
no-name for long. And earning
money will be the last of his wor
ries.
Just ask the source, he’ll tell it
like it is.
“All I have to say is that Dal
ton Hilliard (LSU star) was a no
name,” Woodside said. “I’m
hoping to surprise a lot of peo
ple this year.”
OUR THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING
MERCHANTS FOR CONTRIBUTING
GIFTS TO THE 1983
AGGIE ALL-NITER
V. .X.
-O/
KENE’S CUSTOM JEWELRY
fllPost Oak Village
ZALES JEWELRY COMPANY
Post Oak Mall
CHAMPS SPORTING GOODS
Post Oak Mall
SCHULMAN 6 THERTRES
2000 E. 29th, Manor East Mall
TRI-STATE SPORTING GOODS
Townshire Shopping Center
STADIUM RESTAURANT
Post Oak Mall
SHOE DESIGNS
Post Oak Mall
BENNIGAN’S
Culpepper Plaza
BODY DYNAMICS
Post Oak Village
SWENSON’S
Culpeppe Plaza
CARBOE’S RESTAURANT
TOWNSHIRE PLAZA
WEINERS
Culpepper Plaza
INITIALLY YOURS
Post Oak Mall
THAT PLACE II
Culpepper Plaza
TAMU ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT
Texas A&M University
MOVIES TO GO
Manor East Mall
ALBERT’S HAIR DESIGN
Woodstone Center
MUSICIANS WORLD
907D Harvey Road
A-1 LOCK & CYCLE
3800 E. 29th
WYATTS SPORTING GOODS
Culpepper Plaza
SAMSON’S BOOKERY
Culpepper Plaza
HAMBUGERS BY GOURMENT
Woodstone Center
HOW ABOUT SOME YOGURT
Woodstone Center
THE UNICORN & WHICH WITCH
Woodstone Center
KAMELCORN STORE
Manor East Mall
MILADY
Manor East Mall
ANIMAL WORLD
Culpepper Plaza
PAT MAGEE’S
Post Oak Mall
DESMONDS
Post Oak Mall
THE CORN POPPER
Culpepper Plaza