Read more about the article Dre’lon Miller’s career spans historic coaches from Willie Ray Smith to Deion Sanders

Dre’lon Miller’s career spans historic coaches from Willie Ray Smith to Deion Sanders

PHOTO: Colorado freshman wide receiver Dre'lon Miller turned in impactful freshman season. By TOM SHANAHAN I watched a Colorado football game when I learned about Dre'lon Miller. HIs play grew in my eyes upon reading the CU website bio of the impactful freshman wide receiver: He won the Willie Ray Smith Award while playing for Silsbee High, a school near Houston. There’s a chapter in my book, “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football…

Continue ReadingDre’lon Miller’s career spans historic coaches from Willie Ray Smith to Deion Sanders
Read more about the article Daugherty and Willie Ray Smith Sr. courted Jerry LeVias to board Underground Railroad

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

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…

Continue ReadingDaugherty and Willie Ray Smith Sr. courted Jerry LeVias to board Underground Railroad
Read more about the article Longhorns royalty turned to an uncommon Texas man

Longhorns royalty turned to an uncommon Texas man

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…

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