Texas Archives - Tom Shanahan Report

Story of how Duffy steered Jimmy Raye to Fred Akers and eventually NFL career as coach and mentor

Post author:Tom Shanahan
Post published:December 8, 2020
Post category:College Sports Football Uncategorized
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Story is reposted from Sept. 25, 2014. By TOM SHANAHAN Some of the highest praise in the coaching profession for Jimmy Raye is offered by former Texas coach Fred Akers, an unlikely source considering their backgrounds. They grew up on opposite sides of segregation as athletes and later as young coaches, but their paths did cross in 1976. Akers was Wyoming's head coach and Raye served in an offensive coordinator role. The 1976 Cowboys shared the Western Athletic…

Daugherty and Willie Ray Smith Sr. courted Jerry LeVias to board Underground Railroad

Post author:Tom Shanahan
Post published:May 12, 2020
Post category:College Sports Football Uncategorized
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By TOM SHANAHAN Jerry LeVias is on the phone, a stationary moment unlike his 1960s trailblazing college football career. In those days, the Southwest Conference’s first Black scholarship football player left segregated Beaumont, Tex., a refinery town near Houston, for Southern Methodist University in Dallas. It was a time and place resistant to integration that kept him on the move outrunning racism. SMU students ostracized him, fans on the road taunted him with a noose (Texas) and black…

Longhorns royalty turned to an uncommon Texas man

Post author:Tom Shanahan
Post published:March 30, 2020
Post category:College Sports Football Uncategorized
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PHOTO: College Football Hall of Fame coach Darrell Royal turned to Willie Ray Smith Sr. when he realized it was time to integrate his football program. By TOM SHANAHAN Darrell Royal, as his surname suggests, coached Texas football dripping with royalty. The College Football Hall of Famer reigned 20 years, winning unbeaten national championships in 1963 and 1969 and posting six double-digit victory seasons. Willie Ray Smith, an uncommon coach with a common surname, toiled at three underfunded…