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Chapter 1Friday nights were special to small towns in rural Texas as caravans of boosters drove over a hundred miles to support their football heroes. The games were always more important to those positioned in the bleachers than for young men whose next two hours would be defined by a hundred-yard field. For Jack Connors and his teammates, football was their adrenaline release and opportunity to test their throwing skills against assorted defensive alignments and personnel. Sean Rogers sat in his special place next to the player’s bench. His chrome wheelchair glistened under the bright lights and reminded Jack that he was playing not only for himself, but for his best friend who had just as much a right to play alongside him.
Jack and Sean had known each other since kindergarten and had mastered their first three-wheelers and swim lessons together. They were fiercely competitive until that fateful day when Sean took a plunge into a river of unknown depth and broke his cervical vertebrae, leaving him paralyzed at the young age of thirteen from the shoulders down. Jack was devastated after Sean’s accident and became deeply depressed, unable to make life easier for his constant companion. Jack learned one of life’s cruel lessons at too early an age to remain optimistic about life. His high school achievements had been a testament to his best friend, and he dedicated game balls and trophies to Sean, who by this time had a room full of reminders of what life could have been, save for that fateful summer morning in the Colorado river.
As the oldest of four children Jack Connors, was a tough act to follow. His younger siblings were always compared to the scholar-athlete, and they resented the references by teachers who had taught Jack. Steve was the second child in the Connors family and found learning difficult due to his undiagnosed dyslexia. Steve’s skills were more mechanical, spending his time repairing the farm equipment. His teachers had been less kind to the younger brother, having little patience for his daydreaming during class. The two younger sisters, Carrie and Brenda, were too involved with preadolescent activities to notice boys yet. They were too busy helping their mother with household chores.
Armstrong was only forty miles from South Padre Island that was a ritual meeting place each spring for college students. The town boasted a population of just over five thousand with agriculture, cattle, and oil the mainstay of the community. In 1963, oil was king, and the famous King Ranch was within twenty miles of the university Jack would attend in the fall. Like many small towns in Texas, life was simple and predictable. There was school, church, football, and dates at the Dairy Queen. Until Sean’s tragic diving accident, Jack and his buddy would hunt wild boar, geese, ducks, and white-wing dove with their fathers who prided themselves in the artful passage from adolescence to adulthood for their sons. Summers were spent at the Connor’s beach cottage on South Padre. The boys would comb the beaches for fossils and shells, pretending to be explorers on a deserted beach after having been shipwrecked from turbulent winds. Hours passed effortlessly as the two friends cavorted in the surf and sand dunes, looking for relics and treasures. Time was measured by silence interrupted with bouts of laughter.
Jack took most of his chores seriously. He sprayed the grapefruit and orange trees, while his younger brother maintained the farm equipment, and his sisters fed the cows and horses. Farm life was hard work and left Jack’s body unblemished and sinewy without an ounce of fat. His deep, bronze tan was in stark contrast to the white glare burning down on his shirtless body. He was a physical specimen at seventeen and turned the eye of many a young girl in Armstrong.
Jack placed all his possessions in one footlocker in the ’63 Fairlane Ford. The year was 1963 and the university could have been from another planet, as far as he was concerned. Up until now, his life had been a series of Friday night football games, necking with his girlfriend Melanie Vinson, and an occasional beer behind the bleachers with his teammates.
South Texas University (STU) was an imposing setting to a young boy who had graduated first in a class of forty-five seniors. The campus was a strange amalgamation of red brick and white, adobe roofs with a southern architecture that approached the Georgian facades found on the East Coast. Jack was underwhelmed by the almost jail-like setting of his dorm room which was a converted army barracks from the second world war after thousands of GIs returned to school to take advantage of the federal government’s offer to finance their education and eventual return to civilian life.
Jack pulled his locker behind him, dragging his life’s belongings up three flights of stairs to his new home. He entered the room to find two empty beds, so he knew that his roommate had yet to arrive. His thoughts turned to Sean and wished that the two of them had made this one hundred-mile trip together. That had always been the plan. The two were to play football together and open their own business, selling sporting equipment to aspiring, young athletes who dreamed of fame and fortune. Now it was up to Jack to carry on with the dream without his friend who had stayed behind to endure intense physical therapy treatments and cortisone injections for the excruciating pain above the collapsed cervical vertebrae.
The dorm room was simple enough. Two beds, two nightstands, and two desks provided ample space for the next year of study and athletics. The jocks had been assigned to the third floor because the coach thought that running up and down three flights of stairs would test their stamina and resolve. The bathroom was at the end of a dark hallway with poorly illuminated stalls, urinals, and the usual gang shower. A faucet drip was the only sound heard on this Friday afternoon in late August. A radiator under the window was intended to provide heat on cold winter mornings, but Jack doubted that maintenance had been a priority at the university.
Within a few minutes, Jack detected a shuffling gait and laborious breathing two flights down from him.
"Anybody home," the voice below him shouted.
"Just me, Jack Connors. I guess we’re the first to arrive. What’s your room number?"
"Three thirteen."
"I guess that makes us roommates," Jack shouted, as the footsteps below became louder.
"Hi, my name’s Randy Stewart. Glad to meet you. Are you on Coach Johnson’s football team?"
"Yeah. They scouted me for quarterback, but I’ll play anywhere I’m needed. What about you?"
"I was recruited as a wide receiver, but I’m afraid Coach Johnson will be disappointed with my forty time. It’s over six seconds. I lost a little in the off season helping my dad load lumber for his business in Lufkin. What about you? Where do you come from?"
"A little town in South Texas near McAllen, close to the border town of Matamoros. My family owns a citrus farm, and we harvest grapefruit and oranges. By the way, the name’s Jack Connors."
"Pleased to meet you. I guess we’ll be running and studying a lot this year. I wasn’t that good of a student in high school. I think my teachers felt sorry for me and preferred to see me play Friday nights. We won all-district honors, but we lost in the regionals by a lousy touchdown."
Although they grew up in different circumstances—Jack’s family was upper-middle class and owned quite a bit of South Texas dirt, while Randy’s family lived a lower-middle income existence due primarily to the larger companies buying out smaller, family-run logging operations. Profit margins had been lower the past few years, and Randy’s only means to a college education was his football scholarship. Nevertheless, the two shared a love for competition and the excitement of the outdoors. In Texas, as in other states, playing high school football became the great equalizer and brought young men together from different backgrounds.
The dorm began to fill with a cacophony of sounds as past exploits and lies were traded, and the eighteen-year olds vied for bragging rights that would ultimately be tested on the football field. Jack was not one for banter, preferring the solitude of his books and thoughts. He was filled with mixed emotions as one chapter of his life had come to an end and another began.
Coach Rayford Johnson was an imposing man, six feet, ten inches, pushing over two hundred and fifty pounds. His playing days now well behind him, his once trim physique had taken on the look of middle age with gut and love handles included. His coaching style was simple—discipline, hard work, and intimidation. The South Texas Jaguars had won Division IIA honors two years running and his seniors were seasoned professionals, hoping to be the first Jaguar team to win three back to back championships. The practice field was located in a pit surrounded by deadpan dirt and scrub mesquite trees. The ground felt like concrete with smaller cleats required for improved traction. It was not unusual to lose half a dozen players to knee injuries before the season began because of the uncertain slope and texture of the grass.
The first practice was a light workout without pads, but with shorts and helmets. Jack was slated as a third-string quarterback with no chance at a starting position since the number one play caller had won all district honors two years running. Jack, content to wait his turn, knew that hard work won starting positions. One injury in a split second might propel a fledging performer into a starting role, without any time for fanfare or mental preparation. In high school, football was easy, and the accolades poured in from his adoring teachers and students.
Jack had amassed formidable statistics in high school, catching the eye of scouts as early as his sophomore year. A typical game resulted in four touchdown passes and over three hundred yards passing with few interceptions. The t-formation with two deep backs was a popular offense in the early sixties and with two exceptional running backs, the opposing team was always guessing pass or run which resulted in a balanced offense.
During his three high school seasons as starting quarterback, Jack had broken all school records and would have been a top college prospect except for his small size. At five feet, ten inches, major universities were wary of his ability to throw over tall, defensive linemen who might block his view of his passing routes. His only scholarship offer came from South Texas University, because Coach Johnson had grown up in Edinburg, Texas, and was already well acquainted with the caliber of competition where stamina and determination made up for any loss in size. The coach had followed Jack’s career since his sophomore year and called Jack with his first scholarship offer the first day of college signing.
Now ninety miles away from home, Kingsville took on a life previously unknown to the naïve boy with resolute ambition and pride in his community. The two-a-days were grueling workouts under the hot, August sun. The mornings were spent in conditioning and running exercises without contact. Wind sprints were popular to build endurance for the thirty-six young men who were mostly recruited from South Texas high schools. Late afternoons were reserved for pads and scrimmages with light contact only to avoid injury. The afternoon workout was usually over by six, and the dining hall was full of hungry jocks who chowed down on three-thousand calories of protein and carbohydrates daily to restore the weight lost in their strenuous workouts. Miss Simpson was the cook and prepared a variety of meat and potato dishes to satisfy the appetite of any aspiring young athlete. Her specialty was steak and shrimp, and Friday nights were legendary for the consumption of food at Simpson’s dining hall.
As was typical of football programs across Texas, freshmen recruits provided the after-dinner entertainment. At the urging of their upperclassmen, the "fish" were required to perform various skits before the drowned-out laughter of their teammates who found themselves in a similar situation years before. Because Jack was the first freshman recruit, he was singularly humiliated each night as he performed various singing and dancing numbers to tunes he had little knowledge or appreciation. Ribald jokes and humor followed at his expense. Coach Johnson and his staff joined in the playful humor to build character and show support for the players. This ritualistic hazing was familiar to any freshmen football player at any college and university in the country and served as a rite of passage.
Jack took the teasing in stride until the night three weeks into practice when he was asked to mimic a retarded boy with cerebral palsy. A wheelchair was provided for him from the physical therapy department, and he was blindfolded and asked to roll his chair with one arm tied behind his back. What followed was memorable not only for Jack but for his teammates and coaches. Jack refused to play his assigned role of handicapped object of the night and lashed out at his teammates and coaches for their insensitivity and depravity at the expense of those less gifted intellectually and physically. He proceeded to lecture the room about the importance of equality of human spirit and the example they should set for those persons less gifted through no fault of their own. His wheelchair became his podium as he preached to the now sedate group about their God-given talent and their responsibility to use their bodies and minds to bring honor to their Lord and Savior. He then went on to tell them the story of Sean Rogers, who, but for one brief mishap, would be in that same room. The coaches and players sat stunned and from that point on, Jack and his freshmen teammates were never asked to parade after dinner. In fact, 1963 was the last year for hazing football players at South Texas University.
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