In 1969, La. Tech 77, Lamar 40 was "astronomical"

        (Wrote this for the Louisiana Tech sports information department as part of a series commemorating 50 years of football at Joe Aillet Stadium).
---
     The lead of the game story -- 49 years ago -- said it was an “astronomical” score: Louisiana Tech 77, Lamar 40.

    Even today, in this era of wide-open spread sets, no-huddle, fast-paced offensive football, it is unmatched in Louisiana Tech University history.

    The night game of Nov. 15, 1969, remains the highest-scoring game ever at Joe Aillet Stadium (then, in its second season, called the new Tech Stadium). It was the seventh game played there; there have been 220 others.

    (The only challengers were 107-point games: Tech 76, Rice 31, in 2014; Tech 55, Western Kentucky 52, in 2016.)

    “I vaguely remember it,” said Mickey Slaughter, Tech’s offensive backfield coach that night and now 77, residing in Ruston. “They couldn’t stop us; we couldn’t stop them.”

Terry Bradshaw, La. Tech's superstar QB in 1968-69, 
set all sorts of passing records, but he could run, too. 

    It was a crazy enough game that Tech QB Terry Bradshaw’s touchdown pass total was tripled by the opposing quarterback. Bradshaw had two TD passes; Lamar’s Tommy Tomlin had six.

    Slaughter, who called Tech’s plays for the dozen years of the head coach Maxie Lambright era, recalled that “Bradshaw had a big night.” And of course he did -- 17-of-33 passing for 317 yards. Plus, he was Tech’s leading rusher -- eight carries for 57 yards.

    Tomlin’s passing totals: 22-of-46, 308 yards, TD passes of 4, 11, 39, 9, 14 and 53.

    Two Tech players from Texas recall it as a memorable game.

    Senior wide receiver-kick returner Robbie Albright -- fastest Bulldog on the ‘69 team -- had some unique remembrances.

    “Coach Lambright decided since we were playing a Texas team (the only one on Tech’s schedule that year], that the game captains should be from Texas,” said Albright, who was from Tyler and had come to Tech as a junior-college transfer in 1968 as an immediate long-ball threat in the Bradshaw-led offensive onslaught of that season. “So Larry Wright (defensive end) and I were the designated Texas seniors and game captains.”

    “[It] was obviously a scorefest,” he said, looking back, and he started it (“opened the floodgates,” as he put it) -- with a (then-Tech record) 88-yard punt return for the first of the game’s 17 touchdowns.

    Albright has a special memory -- and souvenir -- from the game. (See the last paragraph of this story.)

    “That was a great game,” said Mark Graham, a junior defensive back in the first of his two all-Gulf States Conference seasons. And it was, he noted, “a grudge game for me.

    “Lamar was in my backyard in high school,” he explained. Port-Neches [Graham’s school] is 13 miles from Beaumont [Lamar’s location] and “they did not offer me a scholarship. I had some high school buddies playing for the Cardinals.”

---    

    It is not only the highest-scoring game at the stadium, it is the highest scoring game -- two teams -- in Tech football history. It was four more points than any single NFL game ever (113, Washington Redskins 72, New York Giants 41, Nov. 27, 1966) and, although Tech and Lamar were not “major” college teams in 1969, their score exceeded any of the 661 games listed as “major” scores that season.

    (A Tech team did score 100 points one day in 1922 against something called Clark Memorial College, and 89 the same year against what would become Southern Arkansas University.)

---

    Considering the final score, Tech’s 542 yards total offense (to Lamar’s 493) and the winning margin, two remarkable facts: (1) Tech’s offense did not score in the first quarter; (2) Lamar actually had a 13-7 lead that almost lasted into the second quarter.

    After Albright’s punt return TD, the Cardinals scored the next two touchdowns and had a chance for more. With 18 seconds remaining in the first quarter, David Brookings -- from Shreveport Byrd High -- intercepted a pass and returned it 18 yards for the tying score. The PAT kick made it 14-13 … and Tech never trailed again.

    The Bulldogs poured on four touchdowns in the second quarter -- it was 42-21 at halftime, and four more in the last quarter, and -- somehow -- only one in the third.

    It was a big game, points-wise, for Tech senior fullback Buster Herren (from Shreveport) -- a school-record four touchdowns, and he also became the school’s career scoring leader.

    But it wasn’t like he dominated; his three TD runs totaled five yards (1, 2 and 2), his rushing totals were 15 carries, 53 yards. He caught a swing pass from Bradshaw and went 19 yards for his other score. [The scoring summary in The Shreveport Times the next morning did not list that play.]

    The other Bradshaw TD pass that night was no surprise (and really the only Tech offensive score of much distance) -- a 38-yard connection with his favorite Woodlawn High-Tech target of six seasons, Tommy Spinks.  

    And Spinks -- also no surprise -- was the Tech’s top receiver, with five catches totaling 180 yards.  

    Lamar’s Pat Gibbs caught one more pass (six) than Spinks, for much less yardage (106), but for three touchdowns.

    The other Tech touchdowns: another punt return (59 yards by fullback-tight end John Adams, from Jennings); a 3-yard run by fullback Mike Lord (Winnsboro); a 1-yard sneak by Bradshaw; and a late 5-yard run by backup QB Ken Lantrip (Lake Charles).

    “We gained a substantial lead going into halftime, but the Cardinals kept coming … and scoring,” Albright recalled. And he and a teammate remember that Coach Lambright -- despite the big victory -- was not happy with a leaky defense.

    “Although we maintained a three-touchdown lead,” Albright said, “Lambright would get upset every time they scored, and put the first team [offense] back in. I had never seen him so upset over such a convincing win.”

    Senior defensive tackle Johnny Richard, from Church Point and an all-conference player that season, remember that “the first-team defense did not play much in the fourth quarter.

    “We knew [the Tech coaches] were trying to get the returning players some experience,” added Richard, who is still working in the onshore/offshore well control industry in Houston, “but the first-team players were trying to completely shut down their offense. The second team couldn’t hold them and let them score.”

    Graham said it was a tough defensive assignment that day, and not even an unusual Tech plan helped.

    “Lamar had a prolific passing attack,” Graham said. “To counter that, we went to a spy coverage, the only time in my 41 games [at Tech] that the secondary used it. I was assigned their No. 1 target, man on man; the other guys were in zone coverage. Their attack was three- and five-step dropback and throw to a spot. They had a design that we had never seen in those days.

    “They had a good night passing, but I broke up several of their attempts, and intercepted one.”

    That was not unusual. Two weeks earlier, in Tech’s devastating, last-second loss at home (and homecoming) to Southern Mississippi 24-23 -- the only loss of an 8-1 regular season -- Graham had broken the school record with his 12th career pass interception.

    Another unusual aspect of the game was the placekickers. Jorgen Gertz, an import from Denmark that season, went 11-for-11; he was  Tech’s first soccer-style kicker. Ronnie Baird of Lamar kicked only two PATs … barefooted.

---          

    During the game, Bradshaw became the first Louisiana college quarterback to surpass 6,000 yards total offense in a career.

And yet his per-game output in 1969 was some 60 yards per game fewer than in 1968, the season he blossomed into a college superstar and Tech’s program recovered from three subpar seasons to a 9-2 bowl-game winner.

    Slaughter was not immediately aware of his head coach’s displeasure. “I didn’t know about the defense,” he said. “I was in the press box and had my hands full trying to get our offense to score points.”

    Thinking back on the game, the old QB/play-caller coach reflected, “I thought to myself -- a quarterback [he came close to recalling the Lamar star’s name] throws for six touchdowns and his team loses by 37 points. That’s pretty tough.”

    It was Thomas Aswell, the Ruston News Bureau writer covering the game for The Shreveport Times, who used the “astronomical” adjective and wrote “both teams scored at will in the game defense forgot.”

    Robbie Albright, though, did not forget -- he has a visible memento.

    “I got the game ball,” said that night’s co-captain, “and had the team autograph it. I still have it. Terry, of course, signed it big and bold, right on the front! We see it, Terry, we see it.”

     Albright is still laughing about it. It is an astronomical memory.

What's in a nickname: Tech's Blond Bomber

     So, in case you were wondering 50 years later about the best of Terry Bradshaw's nicknames ...
     My old buddy, O.K. "Buddy" Davis, was wondering Saturday when he sent this text: "Can u give me background on when you, Paul Manasseh came up with the Blond Bomber nickname?
     "Can't recall my input, either," he added.
     So because it was yesterday -- well, 1968, actually -- this required a little research. Hello, microfilm on newspapers.com.
     It is not exactly what we have thought for decades.
     We always have given the credit to Paul Manasseh, the veteran sports publicist from Shreveport who that fall was the sports information director at Louisiana Tech University. 
     He had one student assistant (me, a senior at Tech) and one regular office visitor who helped us in SID work, Ruston Daily Leader sports editor Buddy Davis, a recent Tech graduate.

In 1967 and 1968, Terry Bradshaw still
had hair on top of his head, and it was
very blond ... so "The Blond Bomber."

     Bradshaw, everyone at Tech knew, was a huge talent, but going into that season had never started a college game. He did not have a nickname, as we remember it.  
      But soon his talent blossomed, and he was on his way to being the best quarter back in college football -- at any level (Tech was an NCAA Division II team, but Terry could have played for any "major"). Proof: In January 1970, he was the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. You likely know the rest.
     Oh, the nickname ...
     Manasseh -- wise media person, personable, guiding force for many budding sportswriters/broadcasters as, after nine months at Tech, he moved on to 14 years as SID at LSU -- loved Bradshaw's talent (heck, all of us at Tech did). Began writing and talking about it soon after he took the Tech job in July.
     Shortly into the season -- which began with Bradshaw, in his first start, starring in a victory against a "major," Mississippi State (albeit a weak one -- 0-8-2 -- that year), Manasseh tagged Terry with two nicknames: (1) "The Rifleman" and (2) "The Blond Bomber."
     Those references were made in releases sent out from the Tech SID office.
     For years -- and I noted this in an April 14, 2012, blog piece on Bradshaw -- Manasseh, Buddy and I have received credit for those nicknames. Thanks, but it ain't exactly so.
     Because Buddy and I have kidded each other for more than 50 years, I replied to his text Saturday by saying, "Think Manasseh came up with it and you took the credit." 
     Buddy's comeback: "We all did (football emoji) (smiley face)."
---
     Now the real kicker: Don't believe Manasseh was the originator, either. He adopted it, and adapted it.
     It was not original. Actually, it was a takeoff on "The Brown Bomber," longtime heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis in the 1940s.
      Looked this up: "Blond Bomber" was used -- several times -- by pro wrestlers, and by a body builder (Dave Draper) earlier in the 1960s, and there was a 1954 TV show, Adventures of the Falcon, with an episode titled "The Blond Bomber."
     And reading about a book a couple of years ago about Texas' football legends, we noted that Bobby Layne -- the 1940s University of Texas and then 1950s Detroit Lions' great quarterback -- was nicknamed, yes, "The Blond Bomber."
     In Louisiana, though, the first blond bomber reference -- note, it was lower case -- we could find in 1968 for Bradshaw was by sports editor/columnist Bill Carter of the Alexandria Town Talk in a Sept. 27 story (the week after the Mississippi State game). He had not used it in a column effusively touting Bradshaw's promise eight days earlier.
     So here is what I think happened (feel free to correct us, if you have a better version):
     Manasseh was very good friends with Carter, and saw his blond bomber reference in the Alexandria paper. Paul picked up on it for Tech releases, and changed it a bit: He upper-cased it.  
     Ah, from then on, Tech's Blond Bomber. It caught on.
     Buddy loved it, I loved it, and we began using it ... a lot ... for years and years.
     So did all the Louisiana sportswriters; it become commonplace. For instance, we found references in columns in the next month by The Shreveport Times' Larry Powell, Jim McLain and Bill McIntyre.
     McLain, in fact, doubled up, starting his post Tech-Northwestern State column -- the one after the Bradshaw-to-Ken Liberto, 82-yard winning TD pass with 13 seconds remaining -- by calling Terry "The Rifleman" and later "The Blond Bomber."
     (McLain, too, first used "The White Knight" nickname for Joe Ferguson -- like Bradshaw a star QB at Woodlawn High -- in 1967 because great offensive-line protection allowed Ferguson's white jersey, when his team wore white, to remain spotless through games.)
     "The Rifleman" nickname was a natural because of the very popular 1960s television series.Terry had the "rifle" right arm and he much resembled Chuck Connors, the 6-foot-6 baseball major leaguer-turned-actor who starred as Lucas McCain, with his ever-present, often-used rifle.
     "Blond Bomber," too, was a natural. Terry then still had hair growing on top of his head -- first a crewcut, then a little longer and combed over -- and that hair was more white than blond. Plus, he could throw long passes on target -- bombs -- as well as anyone we've seen.
     (By the way, we have seen it written often as Blonde Bomber. No, not for Terry. We are not grammar experts, but our understanding is that blond is masculine and blonde is feminine. So there.)
     In time, Bradshaw would become the Pittsburgh Steelers' "Blond Bomber." But I don't remember hearing him ever talk about nicknames. 
     To him, that was never as important as winning football games -- and he was very good at that, and nearly as good as he has been in his show business/football analyst career. 
     Outspoken, yes. Crazy, goofy, funny ... certainly. He has played those roles well. Also, a helluva lot smarter than we all realized. 
     Criticize him if you want, but that doesn't play well with me. He has represented Shreveport-Bossier and Louisiana Tech well through the years.
     Does not matter who gets credit for the nickname. It worked, and it remains a cherished part of a football legend. We were there for its genesis.
      Terry Bradshaw, The Blond Bomber. (How many times have we written that?)   
   

           
         

         

Tech's second bowl game: a long day in Baton Rouge

          (This was written for the Louisiana Tech sports information department as part of its bowl package)
---
      To start, two significant factors about Louisiana Tech's second football bowl game: (1) It was Terry Bradshaw's final college game; (2) he was sacked 12 times for 143 yards.

      That should tell you something about how the game went. It was a long Saturday afternoon for the 1969 Tech Bulldogs.

     Oh, there were similarities with Tech's first bowl game, played 364 days earlier:

      -- It was still called the Grantland Rice Bowl, although the site had changed ... from Murfreesboro, Tenn., to Baton Rouge, La.

      -- It again was the NCAA College Division Mideast Regional game (no playoffs beyond that, though).

      -- It was another powerful Tech team (8-1 regular-season record, with an excruciating one-point loss), even better than the year before (8-2, with a six-game winning streak).

      -- And Bradshaw was still the Tech quarterback, the star attraction.

      He was the College Division All-America QB (an honor announced the previous week), and considered by many the best at his position in the country, regardless of classification. And that included the NFL talent scouts who saw him as a potential high first-round draft pick.   

      The most notable similarity: The final result was a 20-point margin. But this time Tech -- a 33-13 winner against the University of Akron on Dec. 14, 1968 -- was a 34-14 loser.

      Because, in a significant difference, this opponent -- East Tennessee State -- obviously was much stronger, an unbeaten, once-tied team that had won the Ohio Valley Conference championship. 

      Didn't matter that the "experts" -- primarily the Dunkel Power Index -- had Tech as a 14-point favorite coming in. ETSU had won games by 2, 4, 6 and 2 points; Tech had only one narrow escape (a 1-point victory). Results against two common opponents made Tech appear as the much stronger team.

      Prediction fiction.

      No, ETSU had a heralded, ball-hawking defense which had held seven opponents to no more than seven points. (More on that unit in a moment.)

      Turned out it had no fear of a Tech team that had averaged 35.2 points a game -- a school record that stood for 29 years -- and was boosted by one 77-point game. ETSU's speed and aggressiveness proved too much for the Bulldogs, and even Bradshaw.

      From almost start (Bradshaw was sacked for a 19-yard loss on his first play) to finish (Terry sacked on his final three  plays, for 9, 14 and 14 yards), not much went right for Tech.

      Maybe Bradshaw had tougher days in a 14-year NFL career and was treated more roughly -- such as 1976 when Cleveland defensive end Joe "Turkey" Jones slammed him on his head and neck, causing a concussion and sidelining him for a few weeks. He was sacked 307 times in the pros, but likely never more in one game than this one.

      Still, despite all the harassment and some mistakes, he stood in and showed his talent, completing 20 of 39 passes for 299 yards and the Bulldogs' only two TDs, and -- briefly in the third quarter -- leading a Tech comeback and hopes for a victory.

      Bill McIntyre, The Shreveport Times sports editor/lead columnist, reflected Terry's status in his postgame column.
      The second paragraph read: "You get a Terry Bradshaw every three or four decades, maybe. You don't get one very often. A Y.A. Tittle comes wheeling through Louisiana football in the '40s and you get a Terry Bradshaw in the late '60s. Probably a Joe Ferguson in the early '70s, but you don't get one very often."

      He went on to write about Bradshaw's travails that afternoon, including an injured leg near the end of the game.
      And, in his game story, McIntyre turned to a cliche'-filled paragraph to describe the scene: "Bradshaw, the finest passer ever produced in Louisiana, was the boy caught on the burning deck as the Pirates climbed aboard. He was the kid with his finger in the dike and the water swirling around his shoulders."

      Actually, ETSU was the Buccaneers; its defensive players -- the "Hardrock Club" -- were rewarded for good deeds with skull and crossbones decals (the pirate theme) on their helmets. In this game, they could have used an extra supply.

      (Both teams' helmets also included a "100" logo, emblematic that season of college football's 100th anniversary.)

---

      Not only was it Bradshaw's finale, but so, too, for his fellow seniors who had helped resurrect Tech's program in the 1968 season after a couple of down years.

      The group included split end Tommy Spinks (Bradshaw's teammate and close friend since junior high in Shreveport), tight end Larry Brewer, offensive tackle Butch Williams and defensive tackle Johnny Richard -- all all-conference selections -- plus others such as fullback Buster Herren, center John Harper (a team tri-captain with Bradshaw and Spinks), speedy wide receiver Robbie Albright, safety Ricky Taylor, running back  Dwain Istre and punter Butch Troegel.

      But there were rumors ...

      In the game's aftermath, and maybe beforehand, word was that Tech's players -- after a long, hard season -- voted to refuse the bowl bid. Head coach Maxie Lambright, his program fully functional in his third season at Tech, wasn't having that. 

      Another factor: the site of the game. Baton Rouge perhaps wasn't the players' idea of an ideal bowl trip.

      For its first five years, the Grantland Rice Bowl had been played in Murfreesboro, hometown of America's most famous sportswriter. The bowl was named for him. 

      But as Tech's team and fans well knew, the weather in Murfreesboro the day of the game in 1968 had been brutal (snow flurries and a wind that brought the chill to near 0 degrees) and the attendance at Middle Tennessee State University's old stadium had been estimated at 600.

      So when Baton Rouge and its downtown Lions Club bid for the game, the NCAA was happy to move it. (Why it remained the Grantland Rice Bowl at the new site is hard to explain, but it remained that way through 1977 and two more host cities -- Fargo, N.D., and Anniston, Ala.) 

      Now the site was Memorial Stadium, Baton Rouge's best high school stadium, a no-frills facility just off downtown in the long shadow of the majestic Louisiana State Capitol building. It seated 22,000 -- and this game, on a beautiful mid-50 degrees afternoon for football, drew 16,101 paid spectators.

      But that stadium ...

      "Some of the players, and even some of the coaches, were not enthused about a bowl game in Baton Rouge," remembered Tech offensive backfield coach Mickey Slaughter, Bradshaw's coaching mentor in 1967-69. "We knew what Memorial Stadium was like, and playing there didn't seem the preferable place to end a very good season."

      And, as Slaughter recalled, "They had had a circus there the week or two before that game, and the smell was still just awful."

      About a circus and the smell, that was a fit for Tech football that day.

---

      It was 13-0 at halftime. A zero for a Tech team that had scored no fewer than 23 points in any game.

      The Bulldogs never caught up, although they closed to 13-7 and later 20-14. At the end of the third quarter, they were on the ETSU 34 with a chance to take the lead.

      Typical of the day: On the first play of the fourth quarter, Bradshaw was blitzed and tackled for an 18-yard loss. Tech ended up punting, and then its defense sank.

      The omen, though, came on Tech's first offensive play and series.

      ETSU defensive end Ron Mendheim (No. 89) introduced himself right away, closing on Bradshaw as he dropped back to pass and then retreated on his scramble ... and Mendheim chased him down from behind. So second-and-29, and it got worse.

      Terry completed two passes in a row to Istre, for 13 yards (nullified by a motion penalty) and then a 35-yard gain (brought back by a clipping penalty). On Tech's fifth play, Mendheim was back, blindsiding Bradshaw and causing him to fumble. ETSU recovered at Tech's 17, and soon scored.

      By halftime, Mendheim had five sacks, and Bradshaw had avoided another sack (and a 24-yard loss) with a desperate throw. Intercepted.

      Another pass, deflected, was picked off, too. So was a third one.

      But, considering ETSU's 34 interceptions in the regular season, it fit a pattern. The Bucs' defense was known as "Bennett's Bandits" in honor of secondary coach Buddy Bennett.

      "We made that guy famous nationally," Slaughter recently recalled, laughing. "Well, if not nationally, maybe just in the deep South."

      Indeed. The next year Bennett was the secondary coach for the Tennessee Vols and first-year head coach Bill Battle. An unheralded secondary improved rapidly, intercepted 36 passes (eight against Alabama) -- the "Bennett's Bandits" nickname had moved to Knoxville -- and then four more in a 34-13 Sugar Bowl victory against Air Force, capping an 11-1 season. And the following season, 1971, Bennett became defensive coordinator for Frank Broyles at Arkansas.

     More early offensive misery for Tech: After the Bulldogs recovered an ETSU fumble on a punt at the 30, Herren caught a flare pass from Bradshaw, but fumbled the ball away at the ETSU 10. (Buster later did go in for Tech's first TD on an 8-yard pass.)

      Meanwhile, ETSU broke two significant offensive plays -- a 37-yard halfback option pass that completely fooled Tech's defense for the game's second TD, and just after the Bulldogs' first score, a 61-yard run (longest in NCAA College Division bowl history then) by Jerry Daughtry to the Tech 1. 

      "When No. 44 (Daughtry) broke loose on that simple little dive play," Bradshaw said after the game, "and ran all the way to the 1-yard line, that mentally broke us."

      Except it didn't; Terry misfired on that recall. Because he rallied Tech again for its second score on a 19-yard pass to old buddy Spinks late in the third quarter. 

      Tech's top receivers -- who had totaled 94 catches for 1,854 yards in the regular season (Spinks 46 for 995, Brewer 30 for 357, and Albright 18 for 502) -- had decent days vs. ETSU: Brewer five catches for 111 yards, Spinks five for 76, and Albright four for 72. Didn't matter.

      The last quarter was all ETSU, drives of 88 and 44 yards, capped with touchdown passes by Larry Grantham for 33 and 18 yards. Ballgame.

      Proof that Tech made a lot of little plays: It led in first downs, 17-15. But the Bucs' total-yardage edge was big (419-256) and their 245 rushing yards was 14 short of the then-NCAA College Division bowl record.

     Tech assistant coach Pat Collins, then the linebackers coach and later the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame/national championship head coach at Northeast Louisiana, summed up the game in his usual direct, salty manner:

      "They just flat beat the hell out of us," he told an Alexandria Town Talk reporter covering the game. Slaughter, standing nearby, nodded in agreement.  

      Lambright was more low-key, as was his media manner.

      "East Tennessee State was the best team out there today," he said. "They are a fine, fine team. ... I didn't think anybody could get to Terry as many times as they did." 

      He specified ETSU's third-down success as a key. "They made their big plays, and we didn't," he said. "It was as simple as that."

      That, and a dozen sacks, three interceptions and two lost fumbles, and a leaky defense.

---

    Bradshaw afterward was disheveled, battered and bruised -- red welts were evident -- as he shed his grass-stained white jersey in the quiet Tech dressing room. He appeared to have been on the losing end of a fight.

     Moments after speaking with general manager Don Klosterman of the Houston Oilers, he faced the surrounding media.

      "Most of the time they blitzed on second down," he said of the ETSU defense. "I thought I had picked up a key, but the way they were jumping around, it was hard to tell what they were going to do."

      Then he reflected on the past four years.

      "I've had a great career at Tech," he said. "I just hate to lose the last game. I hate to lose any game."

      But the game proved -- if there was doubt -- that Terry could take a beating and keep playing, and Klosterman voiced what NFL teams were thinking.

      "We want him," he said. "We think he is one of the greatest pro prospects to ever come along. We just hope we get a chance to draft him." 

      Picking 14th, they had no chance. A little more than six weeks later, after Bradshaw had played in a couple of all-star games (one with Spinks and Brewer as teammates), the Pittsburgh Steelers made him the No. 1 overall pick. 

      Terry would go through two difficult losing seasons in the NFL, but by his third year the Steelers were in the playoffs and soon winning four Super Bowls in six seasons, and he was on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

      Louisiana Tech football would sink badly in 1970, then hit its greatest era -- 44-4, three national championships -- from 1971 to '74. (That included a 12-0 record in 1972 and another Grantland Rice Bowl at, yes, Memorial Stadium in Baton Rouge, and a 35-0 victory against Tennessee Tech. That one didn't smell.)

      For East Tennessee State, it never before or since had a season like 1969 -- its only season without a loss. Under respected coach John Robert Bell, the Bucs were very good again the next year (7-1-2), but winless in 1971. After that, only once in 35 seasons did they win more than seven games, and interest in the program waned so badly that the university dropped football after the 2003 season. 

      After 11 dormant years, ETSU fielded a team again in 2015; its head coach until Dec. 8 this year was Carl Torbush, a Louisiana Tech assistant in the early 1980s, then head coach for one year (1987).

      But on one December 1969 afternoon in Baton Rouge, ETSU had its finest football hours. And Louisiana Tech -- in Terry Bradshaw's last stand -- had a game to forget. If only we could. 

---

      Note: From 1965 to spring 1969, I was student assistant in Louisiana Tech's sports information office. The fall of 1969 was my first fulltime football season at The Shreveport Times.

      Photos copied from Alexandria Daily Town Talk, Dec. 14, 1969.

The mythical athletic world of Phil Robertson

       When it comes to his athletic career, reality star Phil Robertson -- the famed "Duck Commander" -- is not very real.
       But he and his family are real good at spreading myths. Such as (1) he was All-State in football, baseball and track; (2) he was a major-college recruit; and (3) he had NFL potential as a quarterback.
       The first part: no, no, no.
       Major prospect: doubtful.
       The NFL? Oh, please. No way.
       Quickly: I pay very little attention to anything ol' Phil or his relatives have to say.   
       He is as far-right conservative as one can get, and I don't travel in that direction. His brand of religion isn't mine; his social and political views ... not interested. 
       The TV shows, videos and books about him and his Duck Dynasty family ... no thanks.
       But I checked for one aspect: athletics. That's because I was around for Phil's time at North Caddo High -- 30 miles north of Shreveport -- and Louisiana Tech University. 
       We saw Phil from the opposing side in high school; we compiled the game and season stats in football as student assistant in sports information for most of the three seasons he played at Tech.
       But what I've seen and heard from Phil & Sons is about as far from true as the length of Terry Bradshaw's longest pass (that might've carried 80-85 yards) or his national-record javelin throw in high school (244 feet, 11 inches).
      I wrote about Phil and Terry 4 1/2 years ago, so I will try not to repeat much of that. 
     So why write this piece now? It is admittedly a nitpicking, innocuous exercise ... except it is like finding a resume' that is greatly exaggerated. 
      It irks me to read and hear what I know is not so.
      Phil's athletics bio and story-telling are -- I saw this term in a book I am reading -- "stretchers."  
      I wrote some of this two years ago, but held off because I could not verify what I recalled. Now having checked microfilm of the 1960s Shreveport Times, I can tell you this:
     Myth No. 1: Phil Robertson not only was not All-State in football, he wasn't 1-AA all-district. He was honorable mention.
     (Fred Haynes of Minden was all-district, having led his team to an undefeated state championship. Then he was a starter at LSU).
     Phil might have pitched for North Caddo -- as his sons will tell you -- and he did make all-district in '64 ... as an outfielder. But the special baseball players in Class AA in our area, the All-State guys -- five of them -- were at Jesuit (state champs) and Ruston (two, one a future major leaguer).
     He did throw the javelin, and he did make it to the state meet. But he was second in the district meet two years in a row (a Minden athlete beat him both years), third in the '64  regional, fourth in the state meet ... and not All-State. He was not Terry Bradshaw in the javelin, not close.
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     Myth No. 2: A Sports Illustrated "Campus Union" story dated March 22, 2012, says: "... Robertson said he fielded offers to join the football programs at LSU, Ole Miss, Baylor and Rice."
     Can't disprove it, but it is highly doubtful. He wasn't that good as a high school QB, and I suspect Louisiana Tech was his best offer.
      I can tell you that we had five talented QBs in the 1960s at our school that Phil could envy: three signed major-college scholarships (LSU and Arkansas); the other two signed with Tech. Three were drafted by pro football teams.
      One started ahead of Phil at Tech; the other backed up Phil, but went on and won four Super Bowls.  
      Phil ducked his football career.
      A lot of us sensed, early in 1968, that when Bradshaw's potential blossomed -- it soon did -- he would replace Phil as Tech's starting QB. My opinion: Phil sensed that, too. Losing was not fun, and he loved duck hunting.
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     Myth No. 3: A tryout with the Redskins.

     It is so ludicrous, it is laughable. It is a joke. Nothing about it adds up. It is Phil at his BS-ing best.
     He talks about this on a Sports Spectrum TV segment posted (March 25, 2013) on YouTube.
      A transcript (found through a Google search) of the video follows:
      So Robertson left football and, the following season, he hunted ducks while completing his degree.  

      A year or so later, though, a former Louisiana Tech teammate, running back Bob Brunet, was with the Redskins and thought Robertson could still make the team. Brunet told Robertson to come up and he would likely be the backup and earn about $60,000.

      “At the time, $60,000 didn’t seem like a whole lot even in the ’60s,” says Phil, who worked as a teacher for a few years after earning his degree from Louisiana Tech and then earned his master’s degree in education, with a concentration in English. 

       “I said, ‘I don’t know about that. I would miss duck season, you know? I’d have to be up there in some northern city.’ I said, ‘Brunet, you think I’d stay?’ He said, ‘I doubt it. You’d probably leave with the ducks, Robertson.’ I said, ‘Probably so.’”

      “That’s when (future Hall of Fame coach Vince) Lombardi went to Washington for a few years right before he quit coaching. …What (Brunet) said was, ‘We got this hot dog, Robertson, but you can beat him out easy.’ I said, ‘Who’s the hot dog?’ He said, ‘You’re not going to beat out (future Hall of Famer Sonny) Jurgenson. You’re not going to beat him out, but this hot dog, his backup, no problem.’ I said, ‘Who is he?’ He said, ‘Joe Theismann.’"

     Phil paused, smiled, then chuckled, recalling the conversation and how good Theismann became—a Super Bowl XVII champion, NFL MVP, and a two-time All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection.

     “(Brunet) said, ‘No problem, we’ve got him, hands down.’

     ‘I may do it,’” Phil recalls says. “But I didn’t do it. I stayed with the ducks. But looking back on it, who knows if I’d gone up there, you know, I might not have ever run up on Jesus at 28.”

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       Now, the truth, the facts:

       -- Lombardi coached one season (1969) in Washington. Brunet never played a regular-season game with Lombardi as coach. In fact, he quit the team.

       Robert was the best back (when not hurt) we had at Tech in my time there (1965-68 seasons), a two-time all-conference player. The Redskins drafted him, and as a rookie in 1968, he had the second-most carries on the team. The coach that season was Otto Graham.

       After Lombardi came in -- having sat out one season following his Green Bay retirement -- Brunet did not take to his fierce coaching style.
       (The Great Coach was the opposite of the dignified soft-spoken legendary Tech coach Joe Aillet, and the head coach in Robert's senior season, Maxie Lambright, was a quiet man, too, more intense than Aillet but nothing like Vince.)
       So Brunet left and sat out the 1969 season, the time of Phil's story. 

       Robert did return to the Redskins in the spring of 1970, with Lombardi still there. But in June, Lombardi's fast-spreading cancer was found, and he never returned to coaching. He died before the season kicked off. 

       So Bill Austin was Brunet's head coach in '70, and George Allen came in '71 (and Brunet was a standout special-teams player for him into the 1977 season).           

       -- Jurgensen did not start much in 1971 through 1973. He was injured a lot and then the backup to Billy Kilmer (including a hapless Super Bowl against the "perfect" Miami Dolphins, 1972 season).

       -- Jurgensen and Theismann were on the same Redskins team only in 1974. The "hot dog" -- after three years in Canadian football -- barely played that year. Kilmer started 10 games (and got hurt); Jurgensen started four (and a playoff game). 

         By then, Phil had been out of football seven years. 

         And if I have the timing correctly, Phil's downward spiral hit in the early 1970s, and he soon was drinking and rowdy and split from his family for a time -- not exactly headed for the NFL. Then he found religion.

         Don't remember religion being a factor for Phil at Tech. His religion was hunting and fishing. In fact, Bradshaw had more of a religious leaning (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) then than Phil. 

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          So maybe Phil and Brunet had a conversation about him playing for the Redskins. But, good gosh, what Phil tells makes no sense.

         He's told it so often, though -- and written it -- and his sons talk about him being All-State and "turning down a chance to play professional football," and they all believe it now ... and want the world to believe it.
         Our lack of success in 1966 and 1967 wasn't all Phil's doing; the teams weren't sound. But the QBs were not difference makers.

         As a passer, Phil did have a quick release -- Bradshaw has mentioned that often in interviews -- and he had a decent arm. But not a great arm, like Terry. 

         Pro potential? Hardly. Alan, Jase and Willie -- the sons -- can twist it the way they want and repeat the un-truth.

         NFL teams were not going to be interested in a guy who quit before his senior season -- "to chase the ducks, not the bucks" as he likes to say -- and who in two years as a starter threw 32 interceptions (nine TD passes) and led his teams to three wins (Bradshaw, as a freshman sub, was the star of the only 1966 victory).
         It was nice of Tech to invite Phil back for a September 2013 game, reunited with Terry, and to honor him. But it was for his notoriety (and ducks success), not for his football past.
        Give Phil and the Robertsons credit for inventiveness, ingenuity, creativity, self-promotion ... and a duck dynasty.

        They have millions of reasons -- and dollars -- to be happy, happy, happy. And I'm happy to provide the truth on Phil as an athlete.

        He is out "in the woods" on so much (that's the name of his new show on CRTV, a subscription-only channel. No subscription here, thank you).

         The promotion, which I am not looking for but which is popping up regularly on my computer, says, " ... just truth, from Phil's mouth to your screen."
         Phil's truth, not ours. If he tells you he was All-State in three sports or an NFL quarterback prospect, don't believe him.
         God-appointed messenger? You decide.

         Reminds me of a friend who used to joke, "Any man who says he runs his household will lie about a lot of other things, too."
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     http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/06/phil-and-terry-and-4-16.html
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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBQJycl1_gQ