Jay C. Upchurch
1/13/2011, 11:50 AM
Woody Huddleston, who played football at OU in the 1930s, passed away on Tuesday, Jan. 11, at the age of 98. Below is a feature story Sooner Spectator did on the former Sooner player back 2008.
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Sooner Flashback
Old School Sooner
More than 70 years after leaving Texas to make his mark as a Sooner,
Woody Huddleston is pleased to know he was part of something so special
By Edgar L. Frost
“Norman was just a little town,” mused Woody Huddleston, “and you had to go several miles to get to Moore.”
That was when Huddleston played football for the University of Oklahoma
back in the Thirties. Having just turned 96 on Oct. 10, Huddleston is believed to be the oldest former Sooner gridder, and he has lots of memories of his playing days.
Since graduating from OU with a degree in Petroleum Engineering in 1939,
Huddleston has not returned to Norman very often. But the longtime Florida resident knows all about the Sooners and their players.
Asked if he watches OU games on television, Huddleston responded enthusiastically, “Oh, yow, and if I’m busy, I tape ’em.”
He also maintains his membership in the O Club, now renamed the Varsity “O” Association.
“They’ve had some outstanding players over the years, and it looks like
this (Sam) Bradford is one,” said Huddleston, who obviously keeps up with his alma mater as much as possible.
Huddleston and his wife, Lillian, 87, live in John Knox Village, a lifetime
care retirement center in Pompano Beach. Lillian is in rehab after suffering a stroke, and Woody has some problems with his back and uses a walker, but retains a zest for life and speaks warmly of his days as a Sooner.
He met his bride of 62 years in Washington, D. C., while he was engaged in
naval ordnance research there during World War II. Another of his wartime duties involved submarine patrols on a converted merchant ship. Once Huddleston was out of the Navy, the couple of was married.
Woodrow Huddleston was born Oct. 10, 1912, in Ada, Okla., and named in
honor of Woodrow Wilson, who was elected President that same year.
“But everyone calls me ‘Woody,’” he noted.
Huddleston graduated in 1931 from Ada’s Horace Mann High School. Later,
through a twist of fate, the youngster from Oklahoma began his college career not at OU, but at the University of Texas, where he played freshman football in the fall of 1934.
The family had moved to Gladewater, Texas, in search of a more beneficial
climate for his father, who had tuberculosis and eventually died of the disease when he was 40.
Huddleston’s older brother Bill and a friend arranged for Woody to enroll at Texas. But after a semester, the young player told the Texas staff he couldn’t afford to stay unless he had a job. Texas didn’t have anything to offer him, so
Huddleston left and enrolled at OU, where one of his duties was cutting out
stories for Harold Keith, OU’s well-known sports Information director at the time.
When Huddleston arrived in Norman for the 1935 spring semester, the
football team was transitioning from Lewie Hardage to Biff Jones as head coach. Bennie Owen retired as director of athletics that spring and Memorial Stadium was not year a decade old.
Hardage was fired after winning only 11 games from 1932 through 1934 and
was replaced as coach at OU by Jones, who had been successful at Army and LSU. Huddleston went through spring practice, then played varsity ball in 1935 and 1936 for Jones, and in ’37 for Tom Stidham, who took over as head coach when Jones departed.
“I wanted to play baseball too, but between football and engineering, I
didn’t have time for much else,” said Huddleston, who went out for a couple of practices with Jap Haskell’s baseball squad, but had to give it up to concentrate on football and school work.
During the summers, his time was occupied as part of a survey crew out of
Oklahoma City and work with the Pure Oil Company in Seminole.
Huddleston played halfback or wingback for the Sooners at a time when the
team used the single and double wing offensive schemes. Players went both ways, and Huddleston ran, passed, punted, and sometimes kicked extra points.
When opponents had the ball, he was a defensive back and returned punts.
Seasons consisted of nine games. Ties were common in that low-scoring era, and Oklahoma’s record during the three seasons Huddleston lettered was 14-8-5.
“The rules have changed a lot,” said Huddleston. “You could only enter the
game one time each half, and to throw a pass you had to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage.”
In general, defense ruled and there was much more punting than in today’s
wide-open game.
Huddleston had a number of outstanding teammates, including Jack Baer, Bob Seymour, Al and Gene Corrotto, Frank “Pop” Ivy, Roland “Waddy” Young, Pete Smith, and Gilford “Cactus Face” Duggan. Smith, Young, Duggan, and Ivy all eventually earned All-America honors.
In 1937, Huddleston’s senior year, the Sooners compiled a 5-2-2 record,
giving up only 39 points in nine games. They won their last four contests, shutting out their opponent in three of the four games.
A young fellow named Walter Cronkite, later of CBS television fame, was the
team’s play-by-play radio announcer.
In games against Tulsa and Texas that season, Huddleston scored OU’s only
touchdowns. The Sooners lost to Tulsa, 19-7, and tied Texas, 7-7. When interviewed, Huddleston quickly recalled the OU-Texas score, but it wasn’t his touchdown that he talked about. It was a pass interference call that went
against him.
“I was called for pass interference,” he recalled, “and some lawyer really
objected and wrote to the paper after the game, and they ran a picture of the play.”
It’s been 71 years, and Huddleston still doesn’t think he was guilty of
interference. The call stood, though, and led to the Texas score, which allowed the Longhorns to tie the game.
But it was not Huddleston’s fault that Texas managed a tie. The Sooners didn’t think the interference call was justified, and Huddleston had an outstanding game.
“I think I was credited with a little over a hundred yards rushing,” he
said, and the Sooners would not have scored without him. The OU scoring drive, in the second period, began on the Texas 41, and one key play was a 28-yard dash by Huddleston to the UT 7. With a couple of penalties thrown in, it took the Sooners eight plays to score after reaching that point.
Finally, on third down with the ball about a foot shy of the goal,
Seymour fumbled, but Huddleston saved the day by recovering the ball and
getting it to the 3. Then, on fourth down, with a final lunge, he crossed the goal and put OU ahead. The point-after kick by Raphael Boudreau made it 7-0.
Huddleston had a busy afternoon running, passing, punting, returning punts
— and getting flagged for that mystery interference call. Once, in the third quarter, Huddleston punted out of bounds on the Texas one.
There were also lighter moments in his career.
Huddleston recalled playing at Nebraska in cold, wet conditions — and
catching his own pass for a 10-yard gain.
Was it actually 10 yards?
“Well, maybe if you count the five yards I was behind the line of
scrimmage,” he analyzed jokingly.
What happened was he retreated to throw, and when the wet ball slipped out
of his grip, it went straight up, so Huddleston alertly grabbed it and ran, making something out of the play. The incident was recounted in a book called Kick-Off!, in a chapter titled “Slick Tricks with a Football.”
The book gave Huddleston credit for a 10-yard gain.
With his playing days behind him, Huddleston finished his degree at OU and
took a job in 1939 as a junior petroleum engineer for Carter Oil (owned by Exxon) in Venezuela.
That where he stayed until 1943 when he volunteered to serve in the Navy during World War II. When he was discharged three years later, he and Lillian returned to live in Venezuela. They were living abroad when their two children were born, but Lillian returned to the U. S. to have the babies.
After 13 years in Venezuela, the Huddlestons spent short stints in Tulsa,
England and Spain. They also spent a year in Houston before Huddleston retired in 1967 at age 54.
That’s when the couple moved to Florida.
The Huddleston’s son, Tom, lives in Fort Pierce, Florida. Their daughter,
Charlotte, died of leukemia while she was a student at Vanderbilt. The family has established the Charlotte Ann Huddleston Scholarship fund at OU, through the OU Foundation. It is administered out of the College of
Engineering.
While his heart has never strayed to far from Oklahoma and the Sooners,
Huddleston did not return to Norman for almost 40 years after retiring to Florida. But that changed in 1995 when he was invited back, along with thousands of former players, as part of the 100-year celebration of Sooner football.
Huddleston still has plenty of family living in various parts of Oklahoma,
including his hometown of Ada. When he returned for a second time in 2006, his niece in Oklahoma City drove his family around Norman and the OU campus.
“I was lost,” Huddleston said, still marveling at the construction and new
structures that have replaced the wide-open campus he knew all those years ago.
One spot, he admitted, brought memories flooding back — the Switzer Center. It was a Saturday, so Huddleston couldn’t get inside, but he particularly enjoyed the plaques lining a path in front of the facility’s entrance. Those plaques featured in the Anderson All-American Plaza list every All-American and letter winner in all sports at OU, from 1895 to the present.
It was there Huddleston found much that was familiar.
“It was pretty emotional seeing so many names of old friends and teammates
that brought back lots of great memories,” he said.
Those names conjured up faces, stories and a wonderful chapter of his life
that unfolded almost 75 years ago. As he read the lists of players, the search eventually revealed his own name.
“Having your name listed along-side all of the people who have been part of
that great tradition and history is pretty special,” added Huddleston. “It reminded me that my time at OU was wonderful. I remember it all with great fondness.”
------
Sooner Flashback
Old School Sooner
More than 70 years after leaving Texas to make his mark as a Sooner,
Woody Huddleston is pleased to know he was part of something so special
By Edgar L. Frost
“Norman was just a little town,” mused Woody Huddleston, “and you had to go several miles to get to Moore.”
That was when Huddleston played football for the University of Oklahoma
back in the Thirties. Having just turned 96 on Oct. 10, Huddleston is believed to be the oldest former Sooner gridder, and he has lots of memories of his playing days.
Since graduating from OU with a degree in Petroleum Engineering in 1939,
Huddleston has not returned to Norman very often. But the longtime Florida resident knows all about the Sooners and their players.
Asked if he watches OU games on television, Huddleston responded enthusiastically, “Oh, yow, and if I’m busy, I tape ’em.”
He also maintains his membership in the O Club, now renamed the Varsity “O” Association.
“They’ve had some outstanding players over the years, and it looks like
this (Sam) Bradford is one,” said Huddleston, who obviously keeps up with his alma mater as much as possible.
Huddleston and his wife, Lillian, 87, live in John Knox Village, a lifetime
care retirement center in Pompano Beach. Lillian is in rehab after suffering a stroke, and Woody has some problems with his back and uses a walker, but retains a zest for life and speaks warmly of his days as a Sooner.
He met his bride of 62 years in Washington, D. C., while he was engaged in
naval ordnance research there during World War II. Another of his wartime duties involved submarine patrols on a converted merchant ship. Once Huddleston was out of the Navy, the couple of was married.
Woodrow Huddleston was born Oct. 10, 1912, in Ada, Okla., and named in
honor of Woodrow Wilson, who was elected President that same year.
“But everyone calls me ‘Woody,’” he noted.
Huddleston graduated in 1931 from Ada’s Horace Mann High School. Later,
through a twist of fate, the youngster from Oklahoma began his college career not at OU, but at the University of Texas, where he played freshman football in the fall of 1934.
The family had moved to Gladewater, Texas, in search of a more beneficial
climate for his father, who had tuberculosis and eventually died of the disease when he was 40.
Huddleston’s older brother Bill and a friend arranged for Woody to enroll at Texas. But after a semester, the young player told the Texas staff he couldn’t afford to stay unless he had a job. Texas didn’t have anything to offer him, so
Huddleston left and enrolled at OU, where one of his duties was cutting out
stories for Harold Keith, OU’s well-known sports Information director at the time.
When Huddleston arrived in Norman for the 1935 spring semester, the
football team was transitioning from Lewie Hardage to Biff Jones as head coach. Bennie Owen retired as director of athletics that spring and Memorial Stadium was not year a decade old.
Hardage was fired after winning only 11 games from 1932 through 1934 and
was replaced as coach at OU by Jones, who had been successful at Army and LSU. Huddleston went through spring practice, then played varsity ball in 1935 and 1936 for Jones, and in ’37 for Tom Stidham, who took over as head coach when Jones departed.
“I wanted to play baseball too, but between football and engineering, I
didn’t have time for much else,” said Huddleston, who went out for a couple of practices with Jap Haskell’s baseball squad, but had to give it up to concentrate on football and school work.
During the summers, his time was occupied as part of a survey crew out of
Oklahoma City and work with the Pure Oil Company in Seminole.
Huddleston played halfback or wingback for the Sooners at a time when the
team used the single and double wing offensive schemes. Players went both ways, and Huddleston ran, passed, punted, and sometimes kicked extra points.
When opponents had the ball, he was a defensive back and returned punts.
Seasons consisted of nine games. Ties were common in that low-scoring era, and Oklahoma’s record during the three seasons Huddleston lettered was 14-8-5.
“The rules have changed a lot,” said Huddleston. “You could only enter the
game one time each half, and to throw a pass you had to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage.”
In general, defense ruled and there was much more punting than in today’s
wide-open game.
Huddleston had a number of outstanding teammates, including Jack Baer, Bob Seymour, Al and Gene Corrotto, Frank “Pop” Ivy, Roland “Waddy” Young, Pete Smith, and Gilford “Cactus Face” Duggan. Smith, Young, Duggan, and Ivy all eventually earned All-America honors.
In 1937, Huddleston’s senior year, the Sooners compiled a 5-2-2 record,
giving up only 39 points in nine games. They won their last four contests, shutting out their opponent in three of the four games.
A young fellow named Walter Cronkite, later of CBS television fame, was the
team’s play-by-play radio announcer.
In games against Tulsa and Texas that season, Huddleston scored OU’s only
touchdowns. The Sooners lost to Tulsa, 19-7, and tied Texas, 7-7. When interviewed, Huddleston quickly recalled the OU-Texas score, but it wasn’t his touchdown that he talked about. It was a pass interference call that went
against him.
“I was called for pass interference,” he recalled, “and some lawyer really
objected and wrote to the paper after the game, and they ran a picture of the play.”
It’s been 71 years, and Huddleston still doesn’t think he was guilty of
interference. The call stood, though, and led to the Texas score, which allowed the Longhorns to tie the game.
But it was not Huddleston’s fault that Texas managed a tie. The Sooners didn’t think the interference call was justified, and Huddleston had an outstanding game.
“I think I was credited with a little over a hundred yards rushing,” he
said, and the Sooners would not have scored without him. The OU scoring drive, in the second period, began on the Texas 41, and one key play was a 28-yard dash by Huddleston to the UT 7. With a couple of penalties thrown in, it took the Sooners eight plays to score after reaching that point.
Finally, on third down with the ball about a foot shy of the goal,
Seymour fumbled, but Huddleston saved the day by recovering the ball and
getting it to the 3. Then, on fourth down, with a final lunge, he crossed the goal and put OU ahead. The point-after kick by Raphael Boudreau made it 7-0.
Huddleston had a busy afternoon running, passing, punting, returning punts
— and getting flagged for that mystery interference call. Once, in the third quarter, Huddleston punted out of bounds on the Texas one.
There were also lighter moments in his career.
Huddleston recalled playing at Nebraska in cold, wet conditions — and
catching his own pass for a 10-yard gain.
Was it actually 10 yards?
“Well, maybe if you count the five yards I was behind the line of
scrimmage,” he analyzed jokingly.
What happened was he retreated to throw, and when the wet ball slipped out
of his grip, it went straight up, so Huddleston alertly grabbed it and ran, making something out of the play. The incident was recounted in a book called Kick-Off!, in a chapter titled “Slick Tricks with a Football.”
The book gave Huddleston credit for a 10-yard gain.
With his playing days behind him, Huddleston finished his degree at OU and
took a job in 1939 as a junior petroleum engineer for Carter Oil (owned by Exxon) in Venezuela.
That where he stayed until 1943 when he volunteered to serve in the Navy during World War II. When he was discharged three years later, he and Lillian returned to live in Venezuela. They were living abroad when their two children were born, but Lillian returned to the U. S. to have the babies.
After 13 years in Venezuela, the Huddlestons spent short stints in Tulsa,
England and Spain. They also spent a year in Houston before Huddleston retired in 1967 at age 54.
That’s when the couple moved to Florida.
The Huddleston’s son, Tom, lives in Fort Pierce, Florida. Their daughter,
Charlotte, died of leukemia while she was a student at Vanderbilt. The family has established the Charlotte Ann Huddleston Scholarship fund at OU, through the OU Foundation. It is administered out of the College of
Engineering.
While his heart has never strayed to far from Oklahoma and the Sooners,
Huddleston did not return to Norman for almost 40 years after retiring to Florida. But that changed in 1995 when he was invited back, along with thousands of former players, as part of the 100-year celebration of Sooner football.
Huddleston still has plenty of family living in various parts of Oklahoma,
including his hometown of Ada. When he returned for a second time in 2006, his niece in Oklahoma City drove his family around Norman and the OU campus.
“I was lost,” Huddleston said, still marveling at the construction and new
structures that have replaced the wide-open campus he knew all those years ago.
One spot, he admitted, brought memories flooding back — the Switzer Center. It was a Saturday, so Huddleston couldn’t get inside, but he particularly enjoyed the plaques lining a path in front of the facility’s entrance. Those plaques featured in the Anderson All-American Plaza list every All-American and letter winner in all sports at OU, from 1895 to the present.
It was there Huddleston found much that was familiar.
“It was pretty emotional seeing so many names of old friends and teammates
that brought back lots of great memories,” he said.
Those names conjured up faces, stories and a wonderful chapter of his life
that unfolded almost 75 years ago. As he read the lists of players, the search eventually revealed his own name.
“Having your name listed along-side all of the people who have been part of
that great tradition and history is pretty special,” added Huddleston. “It reminded me that my time at OU was wonderful. I remember it all with great fondness.”