HarrisTubbsFan
8/24/2006, 01:53 PM
Good read (http://www.observer-online.com/articles/2006/08/23/sports/sports2.txt)
Hornets claim state's lone Hall of Famer
BY GARY HERRON/OBSERVER SPORTS EDITOR
With so many former Albuquerque residents now calling Rio Rancho their home, certainly there are some who follow high school football.
If so, recalling some former Highland High School standouts like Martinez Williams, Jarrod Baxter, Bobby Newcombe, and even some from the recent past, Rambo Fiaseau, Mike Mohoric and Ian Clark, will bring back memories of gridiron greatness.
Heck, who can forget the sensational Bobby Newcombe, also a standout cager in the winter and blur-like sprinter in the spring, who went on to play football at the University of Nebraska?
First-year Highland coach Gary Sanchez, who may wish he had some players like that on this year's roster after his team meets the Rams Friday evening, told The Observer he doesn't have anyone in his stable this season.
There was another three-sport standout roaming the halls of Highland a little more than a half-century ago, a guy whose family moved to the Duke City in the early 1950s.
True football fans, especially those who weaned themselves on the game in the 1960s. should have no trouble recalling the name Tommy McDonald.
McDonald, a member of the HHS Class of 1953, was in town last weekend for a class reunion, only a few miles from Milne Stadium, where he once had dazzled fans, sports writer and Hornets opponents "back in the day."
Fifty years ago, McDonald - the pride of Roy - was playing halfback at Oklahoma University, which entered the 1956 season on a 30-game winning streak.
McDonald scored touchdowns in all 11 of the Sooners' games in 1955, including the game-winner in the Orange Bowl. After his senior season he was second in the nation in scoring with 18 TDs, named an All-American, won the Maxwell Award as college football's Player of the Year, and finished third in the Heisman balloting that year. Notre Dame's Paul Hornung was the Heisman Trophy winner, even though OU had whipped the Irish 40-0 in South Bend, and McDonald had thrown a TD pass. Tennessee's Johnny Majors was second; McDonald's OU teammate, center/linebacker Jerry Tubbs, was fourth.
As of July's induction of former Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman and another handful of greats into Canton's hallowed halls, there remains but one from New Mexico. (The baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, also has but one played born in the state: Ralph Kiner, who was born in Santa Rita.)
At Highland, McDonald never had the opportunity to play in a high school championship game. The unofficial champ was determined by sports writers. And he never played in a college championship game, either, as his days in Norman came long before the BCS originated.
Recruited by Oklahoma University head coach Bud Wilkinson, McDonald played from 1954-56 with the Sooners - the NCAA prohibited freshmen from playing - and was never on the losing end of a game, as the Sooners extended their winning streak, begun in 1953, to what became 47 before a 7-0 loss to Notre Dame in 1957. In 1955 and again in '56, the Sooners were declared national champs.
That streak, still the longest in the Division 1 record book, easily eclipsed an early winning streak of 31 amassed by the Sooners only a few seasons earlier. In the 31 games the Sooners played in McDonald's three seasons, they never lost and shut out their opponents 15 times. McDonald also played in the defensive backfield.
He wasn't the most popular Sooner, merely the fastest. In Jim Dent's marvelous book, "The Undefeated," about OU's winning streak, McDonald was described (on page 86) as "a loud, little prankster" whose "arrogance grew as he got more playing time." The guy who wore No. 25 for OU's "legs and mouth ran about the same speed." Later in the book, McDonald is referred to as "Elvis in cleats."
McDonald's mouth still hasn't slowed; he's a delight to talk with, his memory still as keen as it was the day he began an impressive two-year stretch at HHS, lettering in three sports.
"My knees are great, my ankles are great," he said, although a separated shoulder still bothers him, but not enough to stay off the racquetball court.
McDonald repeats the word "blessed" during an interview with VSM shortly after he returned to his home in Prince of Prussia, Pa., after his visit to Canton for this year's induction ceremonies.
He was asked what prompted the family's move from Roy to Albuquerque.
"Luckily, I was blessed by the good Lord. Roy is sort of my starting point, like out of the blocks in track. Up until my sophomore year, they really whetted my appetite for football," he said. "I really owe everything to Roy, New Mexico, for getting me started. I just love that little town.
"My dad started to work at Sandia Base; he actually moved over there in the summer of '52," McDonald recalled. "What was really God's blessing was I picked Highland High School because that's where I was living, anyway; I could have picked Albuquerque High. I ran into Hugh Hackett, he had that single-wing offense -- you're back there as a tailback, you have no quarterback. They hike the ball and you take off running."
And run he did, playing at Milne Stadium in the days before artificial turf and mouth guards.
"(Hackett) even told me, 'I knew after your junior year I had an All-American in my hands.' He never said that to me (then)," McDonald said. "He also got me on the track team, because he coached track also ... I walked away with five gold medals (at the state track meet in 1953): the 100, 220, 180-low hurdles, 880-yard dash and 440-yard dash, thanks to Hugh Hackett."
J.D. Kailer, the sports editor back then at the Albuquerque Journal, had no trouble recalling McDonald, still a favorite.
"The first thing he did was establish the fact he was a three-sport letterman - no ands, ifs or butts," Kailer said. "He wore No. 17; he was the left halfback. He turned the Highland football program around. Albuquerque High had dominated; there were just three high schools (AHS, HHS and St. Mary's) back then.
"Hugh Hackett said you're awfully light but we'll try you," Kailer continued. "After football, Mickey Miller had his basketball practice and, bam, there he goes again. In track, he'd do everything but bring in the (hurdles)."
"When Bud Wilkinson found out I won the track meet he was interested in me - the Split-T was meant for me, too," McDonald recalled. "That's the option play where the quarterback keeps it or pitches it.
"I could have gone to SMU, TCU, Colorado, New Mexico, New Mexico State," McDonald said. OU was the number-one choice, he said, "because of what Bud Wilkinson said when I was meeting him," McDonald said. "(Wilkinson said) 'I don't want you to come here just for football, I want you to come here for an education - it's going to last you for the rest of your life. Football's only going to last you four years.'
Although there were some shady dealings at OU, which you can read about in Dent's book, McDonald wasn't on anyone's payroll. "Everybody claimed that I got money but I didn't," he said.
The money came later. Philadelphia selected him in the third round of the 1957 draft.
The Eagles didn't mind his slight size (5-7, 172 pounds) and stuck him at running back and defensive back - he'd also excelled in the backfield at OU, still vividly remembering six picks as a senior, including an interception against Notre Dame that he returned for a TD. for Once the Eagles moved him to a receiver position, he soon became one of the league's premier pass-catchers, even earning a Sports Illustrated cover that labeled him as having the "best hands."
In 1960, when the Eagles won the NFL championship, McDonald led the league with 13 TDs, which came on only 39 receptions.
He was with the Eagles from 1957-63, played for the Cowboys in 1964, was with the Rams from 1965-66, then spent his final two seasons with Atlanta (1967) and the Browns (1968). All told, McDonald was a six-time Pro Bowl selection who finished his career with 495 catches, covering 8,410 yards, and finding his way into the end zone 84 times.
He managed to stay healthy, missing only three games through his first 11 seasons. He was a six-time Pro Bowl selection.
His best season was in 1961, when he led the NFL in receiving yards (1,144) and TDs (13).
He was an integral part of the Eagles' 17-13 victory over the Packers, in snowy Green Bay, in the 1960 NFL championship game.
McDonald was dealt to the Cowboys, who ran the ball more than they threw it. Unhappy to merely block downfield, McDonald asked to be traded.
Before he left the Cowboys, he was on a Sports Illustrated cover again. "It was July 27, 1964 - that's the best birthday present I ever had," he said. He made SI again, with a pack of L.A. Rams, on Oct. 8, 1966. "Another big thrill for me," McDonald continued, "Jerry Tubbs and I flew up here to be on the 'Ed Sullivan Show' to accept the trophy as the number-one team in the nation."
McDonald went into the Hall of Fame ("I'm the smallest guy in there," he noted) with Paul Krause, Anthony Munoz, Mike Singletary and Dwight Stephenson. There'd never been as exuberant an acceptance speech as that given by McDonald. Nobody else tossed his Hall of Fame bust into the air, then caught it; what else would you expect from a guy who once had the NFL's best hands?
Of course, McDonald isn't the only Albuquerque-area grad to get all the way to the NFL, just the lone New Mexican to enter Canton.
Others from the Duke City who went on to play in the NFL were Dewey Bohling (Highland), Jim Everett and Vince Warren (Eldorado); Ricky Siglar (Manzano), Carlos Etheredge (Del Norte), Billy Jenkins (Albuquerque), plus the three latest, Richard Angulo (tight end with Minnesota, former Sandia player); 2005 rookie linebacker Nick Speegle (La Cueva); and former Lobos center Ryan Cook, the former Cibola lineman who was taken in the second round by the Vikings in June.
Healthy and happy a half-century after his days with the Sooners ended, McDonald says, "I'm big on God because I think God has gotten me into the right place at the right time. I always wore a cross."
He thinks that's what helped him stay healthy: "I didn't miss any games at college, only three games in professional football. It was all so unbelievable."
The legend began at Milne Stadium, where the Rams start their season Friday evening.
Maybe there's a legend waiting to be born there again.
Hornets claim state's lone Hall of Famer
BY GARY HERRON/OBSERVER SPORTS EDITOR
With so many former Albuquerque residents now calling Rio Rancho their home, certainly there are some who follow high school football.
If so, recalling some former Highland High School standouts like Martinez Williams, Jarrod Baxter, Bobby Newcombe, and even some from the recent past, Rambo Fiaseau, Mike Mohoric and Ian Clark, will bring back memories of gridiron greatness.
Heck, who can forget the sensational Bobby Newcombe, also a standout cager in the winter and blur-like sprinter in the spring, who went on to play football at the University of Nebraska?
First-year Highland coach Gary Sanchez, who may wish he had some players like that on this year's roster after his team meets the Rams Friday evening, told The Observer he doesn't have anyone in his stable this season.
There was another three-sport standout roaming the halls of Highland a little more than a half-century ago, a guy whose family moved to the Duke City in the early 1950s.
True football fans, especially those who weaned themselves on the game in the 1960s. should have no trouble recalling the name Tommy McDonald.
McDonald, a member of the HHS Class of 1953, was in town last weekend for a class reunion, only a few miles from Milne Stadium, where he once had dazzled fans, sports writer and Hornets opponents "back in the day."
Fifty years ago, McDonald - the pride of Roy - was playing halfback at Oklahoma University, which entered the 1956 season on a 30-game winning streak.
McDonald scored touchdowns in all 11 of the Sooners' games in 1955, including the game-winner in the Orange Bowl. After his senior season he was second in the nation in scoring with 18 TDs, named an All-American, won the Maxwell Award as college football's Player of the Year, and finished third in the Heisman balloting that year. Notre Dame's Paul Hornung was the Heisman Trophy winner, even though OU had whipped the Irish 40-0 in South Bend, and McDonald had thrown a TD pass. Tennessee's Johnny Majors was second; McDonald's OU teammate, center/linebacker Jerry Tubbs, was fourth.
As of July's induction of former Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman and another handful of greats into Canton's hallowed halls, there remains but one from New Mexico. (The baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, also has but one played born in the state: Ralph Kiner, who was born in Santa Rita.)
At Highland, McDonald never had the opportunity to play in a high school championship game. The unofficial champ was determined by sports writers. And he never played in a college championship game, either, as his days in Norman came long before the BCS originated.
Recruited by Oklahoma University head coach Bud Wilkinson, McDonald played from 1954-56 with the Sooners - the NCAA prohibited freshmen from playing - and was never on the losing end of a game, as the Sooners extended their winning streak, begun in 1953, to what became 47 before a 7-0 loss to Notre Dame in 1957. In 1955 and again in '56, the Sooners were declared national champs.
That streak, still the longest in the Division 1 record book, easily eclipsed an early winning streak of 31 amassed by the Sooners only a few seasons earlier. In the 31 games the Sooners played in McDonald's three seasons, they never lost and shut out their opponents 15 times. McDonald also played in the defensive backfield.
He wasn't the most popular Sooner, merely the fastest. In Jim Dent's marvelous book, "The Undefeated," about OU's winning streak, McDonald was described (on page 86) as "a loud, little prankster" whose "arrogance grew as he got more playing time." The guy who wore No. 25 for OU's "legs and mouth ran about the same speed." Later in the book, McDonald is referred to as "Elvis in cleats."
McDonald's mouth still hasn't slowed; he's a delight to talk with, his memory still as keen as it was the day he began an impressive two-year stretch at HHS, lettering in three sports.
"My knees are great, my ankles are great," he said, although a separated shoulder still bothers him, but not enough to stay off the racquetball court.
McDonald repeats the word "blessed" during an interview with VSM shortly after he returned to his home in Prince of Prussia, Pa., after his visit to Canton for this year's induction ceremonies.
He was asked what prompted the family's move from Roy to Albuquerque.
"Luckily, I was blessed by the good Lord. Roy is sort of my starting point, like out of the blocks in track. Up until my sophomore year, they really whetted my appetite for football," he said. "I really owe everything to Roy, New Mexico, for getting me started. I just love that little town.
"My dad started to work at Sandia Base; he actually moved over there in the summer of '52," McDonald recalled. "What was really God's blessing was I picked Highland High School because that's where I was living, anyway; I could have picked Albuquerque High. I ran into Hugh Hackett, he had that single-wing offense -- you're back there as a tailback, you have no quarterback. They hike the ball and you take off running."
And run he did, playing at Milne Stadium in the days before artificial turf and mouth guards.
"(Hackett) even told me, 'I knew after your junior year I had an All-American in my hands.' He never said that to me (then)," McDonald said. "He also got me on the track team, because he coached track also ... I walked away with five gold medals (at the state track meet in 1953): the 100, 220, 180-low hurdles, 880-yard dash and 440-yard dash, thanks to Hugh Hackett."
J.D. Kailer, the sports editor back then at the Albuquerque Journal, had no trouble recalling McDonald, still a favorite.
"The first thing he did was establish the fact he was a three-sport letterman - no ands, ifs or butts," Kailer said. "He wore No. 17; he was the left halfback. He turned the Highland football program around. Albuquerque High had dominated; there were just three high schools (AHS, HHS and St. Mary's) back then.
"Hugh Hackett said you're awfully light but we'll try you," Kailer continued. "After football, Mickey Miller had his basketball practice and, bam, there he goes again. In track, he'd do everything but bring in the (hurdles)."
"When Bud Wilkinson found out I won the track meet he was interested in me - the Split-T was meant for me, too," McDonald recalled. "That's the option play where the quarterback keeps it or pitches it.
"I could have gone to SMU, TCU, Colorado, New Mexico, New Mexico State," McDonald said. OU was the number-one choice, he said, "because of what Bud Wilkinson said when I was meeting him," McDonald said. "(Wilkinson said) 'I don't want you to come here just for football, I want you to come here for an education - it's going to last you for the rest of your life. Football's only going to last you four years.'
Although there were some shady dealings at OU, which you can read about in Dent's book, McDonald wasn't on anyone's payroll. "Everybody claimed that I got money but I didn't," he said.
The money came later. Philadelphia selected him in the third round of the 1957 draft.
The Eagles didn't mind his slight size (5-7, 172 pounds) and stuck him at running back and defensive back - he'd also excelled in the backfield at OU, still vividly remembering six picks as a senior, including an interception against Notre Dame that he returned for a TD. for Once the Eagles moved him to a receiver position, he soon became one of the league's premier pass-catchers, even earning a Sports Illustrated cover that labeled him as having the "best hands."
In 1960, when the Eagles won the NFL championship, McDonald led the league with 13 TDs, which came on only 39 receptions.
He was with the Eagles from 1957-63, played for the Cowboys in 1964, was with the Rams from 1965-66, then spent his final two seasons with Atlanta (1967) and the Browns (1968). All told, McDonald was a six-time Pro Bowl selection who finished his career with 495 catches, covering 8,410 yards, and finding his way into the end zone 84 times.
He managed to stay healthy, missing only three games through his first 11 seasons. He was a six-time Pro Bowl selection.
His best season was in 1961, when he led the NFL in receiving yards (1,144) and TDs (13).
He was an integral part of the Eagles' 17-13 victory over the Packers, in snowy Green Bay, in the 1960 NFL championship game.
McDonald was dealt to the Cowboys, who ran the ball more than they threw it. Unhappy to merely block downfield, McDonald asked to be traded.
Before he left the Cowboys, he was on a Sports Illustrated cover again. "It was July 27, 1964 - that's the best birthday present I ever had," he said. He made SI again, with a pack of L.A. Rams, on Oct. 8, 1966. "Another big thrill for me," McDonald continued, "Jerry Tubbs and I flew up here to be on the 'Ed Sullivan Show' to accept the trophy as the number-one team in the nation."
McDonald went into the Hall of Fame ("I'm the smallest guy in there," he noted) with Paul Krause, Anthony Munoz, Mike Singletary and Dwight Stephenson. There'd never been as exuberant an acceptance speech as that given by McDonald. Nobody else tossed his Hall of Fame bust into the air, then caught it; what else would you expect from a guy who once had the NFL's best hands?
Of course, McDonald isn't the only Albuquerque-area grad to get all the way to the NFL, just the lone New Mexican to enter Canton.
Others from the Duke City who went on to play in the NFL were Dewey Bohling (Highland), Jim Everett and Vince Warren (Eldorado); Ricky Siglar (Manzano), Carlos Etheredge (Del Norte), Billy Jenkins (Albuquerque), plus the three latest, Richard Angulo (tight end with Minnesota, former Sandia player); 2005 rookie linebacker Nick Speegle (La Cueva); and former Lobos center Ryan Cook, the former Cibola lineman who was taken in the second round by the Vikings in June.
Healthy and happy a half-century after his days with the Sooners ended, McDonald says, "I'm big on God because I think God has gotten me into the right place at the right time. I always wore a cross."
He thinks that's what helped him stay healthy: "I didn't miss any games at college, only three games in professional football. It was all so unbelievable."
The legend began at Milne Stadium, where the Rams start their season Friday evening.
Maybe there's a legend waiting to be born there again.