Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 3, 1994)
s* imsm° Miifiiy i F*r& S ”■ f <u ' ~ 3 T3 <u t- m ^ S S •- a> ^ -2 w tH _S^a3J2P>, jr O <D ^ E3 » <d £*-!•"! r r3 t-! ! CD CC r . . — gOT co '* o ^ cd o) r ,*_, oij ^ o a) E* ’—< bjo ml zt CU ^ C O o ^ ^ ^ o CD cO 5 S-. ^ cd CX'Td m & <L> & CJ S~, sway to Success Photo courtesy of Texas A&M University Archives him the Southwest Conference scoring title. After returning from Junction the Aggies went 1-9 Championship. ool, but was, it was just a field. There were no a primi- sidelines, not really (any) goal lines, ish and guys could run forever.” Guys were also leaving the team for- rhole lot ever as player after player decided the md and heat was too much, and quit, d Gene “I only heard the stories about the guys leav ing in the wake up pretty early in the but some would leave in the after noon after the morn ing prac- t i c e , ” Tate, Bryans mayor and Junction survivor you saw one or two guys over by the water fountain, you jut not knew they were getting ready to go over :ky and to Coach Bryant’s room.” ie thing Brown remembers a bunkmate of his it on our uniforms and orange juice or grape juice vould throw it up in the ' practice." who left during the night. “There was a guy above me from Louisiana who one night kept telling me ‘He’s (Bryant) not going to run me off,’” Brown said. “The next morning we woke up and he had run off.” The players that did not quit had dif ferent reasons for staying until the end. “I always thought about quitting,” Goehring said. “But I figured if they chased off all the good players, I’d have a chance to make it.” On the other hand, Tate said quitting never entered his mind. “It would have been easy to quit,” Tate said. “There was no way that man was running me off. I got a scholarship to Texas A&M to play football and I was go ing to play football.” The defections averaged about six a day, the biggest being second-team All- Southwest Conference center Fred Broussard, considered by many to be the best player on the team. “We were working on defense,” Granberry said. “He (Bryant) moved (Lloyd) Hale to center and he was doing a good job of cutting me and Broussard off from the play. Coach Bryant kept bragging on Hale (and) finally Broussard got so disgusted with his play, he went and sat on the bus. “An assistant coach told him he was making a mistake. A little later, he tried to eat with the rest of us and somebody told him it was reserved for Aggie players." The players that stayed still had to endure the days of 100 degree weather which ended up taking its toll. Offensive end Bill Schroeder almost died when he got dehydrated during practice. “I passed out from heat stroke while we were working on punt defense,” Schroeder said. “Bryant was a stickler for detail, we led the nation that year. We would punt, go cover it, run back down, huddle again and do it again. It was at the end of the morning, and I got dehydrated and passed out from heat stroke. “Back in those days, they didn’t be lieve in water. Fortunately for me, there was a doctor in town who had a clinic who knew how to handle heat stroke. Dr. (J.E.) Weideman tended to me and fed me intravenously.” Weideman worked on Schroeder until he was well enough to go back. “(Trainer) Billy Pickard then put me in a car and took me back to camp,” Schroeder said. “I was in the back seat going from consciousness to unconscious ness. I stayed on a basically liquid diet in the cabins the rest of camp.” After Schroeder’s illness, Bryant de cided to cut the camp short by four days. After less than a week and a half the Aggie football team had dwindled down to 27 players. “It was funny when we got back to campus,” Brown said. “Coach Bryant gathered us in this little room and told us that the media had already given up on us but he hadn’t. “He then told us that one day some of us were going to be All-Americans. That blew my mind because I didn’t think that there was anybody left that could play football.” After returning from Junction, Bryant suffered his only losing season in 36 years of coaching. “After Junction we went 1-9, but when we went down to Athens and beat Geor gia, Bryant went bonkers,” Tate said. “He passed cigars to all the players to show us what it was like when we won with him.” Using Junction as a foundation, the 1955 team went 7-2-1 followed by the 1956 team which captured the Aggies first Southwest Conference title since 1941 with a 9-0-1 record. “Being a part of building a champi onship after being 1-9 in 1954 was spe cial,” fullback Jack Pardee said. “I think that’s what really started the turn around in Aggie football, we’ve never had another year like ‘54.” In 1979, Bryant and the Junction sur vivors got together in Junction for the 25th anniversary of the camp. “We didn’t know it then, but it had an effect on us for the rest of our lives,” Tate said. “At our 25th reunion, I was master of ceremonies and I had all the guys there talk about what they did now. All the guys were real successful and they pointed to Junction. Not quitting there was the basis for their lives.” Early Memorial TDs hard for Aggie offenses By David Winder The Battalion The University of Texas’ Memorial Stadium played host to its first game in 1924. Fourteen years later, Texas A&M scored its first touchdown there. In 1938, Alvin Olbrich recovered a fumble in the end zone in the Aggies’ 7- 6 loss to the Longhorns. Tfexas A&M had been outscored 107-5 in seven games at Memorial Stadium before that date. Barney Welch was the first Aggie ever to carry the ball across the goal line in Memorial Stadium. Welch re turned a punt for a touchdown in the "We were getting our ass beat by Texas, and they (Texas A&M) threw it and I caught it. It meant a lot more over 50 years ago, people forget about it." - Charlie Wright, first A&M player to score from the line of scrimmage at Memorial Stadium Longhorns’ 12-6 win in 1942. “1 was playing safety because we played both ways back then and I re turned a punt,” Welch said. “Tbn guys just missed me, my little granddaugh ter could have done it. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because I didn’t know it had never been done before.” Welch said in those days, Aggie touchdowns were scarce. “It was pretty bad back then,” Welch said. “You know how they kiss when the Aggies score now? Back then, they kissed when we got a first down.” The touchdown is not even Welch’s most memorable playing moment. “I couldn’t throw a pass across the street,” Welch said. “But against SMU, I threw two touchdowns to our halfback Willie Zapalac.” Charlie Wright was the first Texas A&M player to score from the line of scrimmage at Memorial Stadium when the Longhorns beat the Aggies 24-7 in 1946. “We were getting our ass beat by Tfexas, and they (Texas A&M) threw it and I caught it,” Wright said. “It meant a lot more over 50 years ago, people for get about it.” In 1948, Wright scored another touchdown in Memorial Stadium. “We went back and played Texas and tied them (14-14),” Wright said. “We were all down there and they (Texas A&M) just threw the ball up there, and I jumped up and caught it. Even though we finished 0-9-1 it was worth it for that win. “That touchdown made me the all- time leading scorer in A&M history. Then John David Crow came along and broke my four-year record in fifteen minutes.” Crow was also a pioneer in A&M scoring history, as he recorded the first Aggie touchdown ever in the south end of Memorial Stadium.