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Jerry LeVias made history at SMU with help from Hayden Fry,

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Jerry LeVias made history at SMU with help from Hayden Fry,

Postby AfricanMustang » Thu Dec 19, 2019 12:51 pm

Jerry LeVias can’t tell you why he left Beaumont for SMU and made history. He could have gone pretty much anywhere. Dozens of offers. Leagues where he wouldn’t have worn a bullseye. Places where life wasn’t “a living hell,” as he once put it. A half century later, it still makes him wonder.

But if he doesn’t exactly know why he chose SMU, he can tell you why he stayed:
His word and Hayden Fry.

Fry, who died Tuesday at 90, will be remembered for many accomplishments over a long and distinguished career. Turned around programs at SMU, North Texas and Iowa. An offensive genius. Created a veritable cradle of coaches in Iowa City, the likes of which included Bill Snyder, Barry Alvarez, Kirk Ferentz and Bob Stoops, to name only a few. Born in East Texas and raised in Odessa before graduating from Baylor, he was larger-than-life. Part Old Testament prophet, part Barnum & Bailey. Famously painted the visitors’ locker room at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium pink, and not because he was out of beige.

Fry may not have been the best coach to come out of Texas, but he’s close to the winningest. He might have been the most important. Even after more than 50 years, that hasn’t changed.

Neither has the relationship that earned him the distinction.

“He and I had a great bond,” LeVias said. “No one ever understood it.”

They didn’t just shake things up when LeVias became the first African-American on a football scholarship in the Southwest Conference. They’d done the unpardonable. Violated the league’s so-called “gentlemen’s agreement,” the quaint euphemism for an unofficial policy keeping SWC rosters lily-white.

What the fraternity didn’t count on was that Fry was no gentleman, certainly not by the standards of 1965 or the good ol’ boys in the SWC.

He’d told SMU’s president, Willis Tate, that he wouldn’t take the job in 1962 if he couldn’t recruit black athletes. To say he was taking a risk is putting it mildly. It wasn’t as if he had any leverage. Only 32, with just three years of experience as head coach at Odessa High and three as an assistant at Baylor and Arkansas, he could have played it safe. Everyone else did. When Gene Stallings went to Texas A&M’s president in 1965 about a big black kid from Temple, he was told it wasn’t “the right time.” Football in College Station went on as usual. Mean Joe Greene went to North Texas instead.

The “right time” is when you have the guts to make it happen. Others in Texas did it before Fry. Besides Greene, Odus Mitchell signed Abner Haynes, among others. Warren McVea was a star at Houston under Bill Yeoman. But Mitchell and Yeoman didn’t risk what Fry did. SMU and the SWC were the establishment. Like integrating a country club. Baylor’s John Bridgers braved the same with John Westbrook, the first black football player in an SWC game, beating LeVias to the punch by a week. Injuries ruined Westbrook’s dream. At 5-9, LeVias was a three-time consensus All-SWC choice and All-American his senior year. Also an academic All-American, graduating in three-and-a-half years with a degree in marketing.

But it was anything but easy.

“There were times I wanted to quit,” LeVias said. “My dad told me I gave Coach my word.”

Over late-night telephone conversations, so as not to give the impression he was coddling his best player, Fry counseled LeVias. First, though, they had to get over the language barrier.

“I had to learn West Texas,” LeVias said. “He’d tell me, ‘You gotta keep your dauber up.’ I didn’t know what in the world he was talking about. What’s a dauber? I’m looking to see if my pants are zipped up.”

Fry on letting racists get to LeVias: “If you don’t want ’em to get your goat, don’t let ’em know where it’s hid.”

Fry on the grudging acceptance LeVias earned: “The more touchdowns you score, the whiter you get.”

Fry made the loneliness of SMU, where LeVias never had a roommate, somehow bearable. Fry didn’t sign him and use him up. He had his back.

LeVias was sitting outside Fry’s office one day when he heard an SMU booster give the Mustangs’ coach an ultimatum: Either pull that so-and-so or expect no further donations.

“Coach told him to kiss him where the sun don’t shine,” LeVias said.

Of course, it came with a price. Fry always insisted SMU fired him over lingering resentments. Even believed it was the reason he couldn’t get a bowl at North Texas despite winning seasons. A legend at Iowa, he felt exiled from his beloved Texas.

Over the decades since, though, his relationship with LeVias never wavered. They talked a couple times a month. Never missed each other’s birthday. Even went into the College Football Hall of Fame together.

LeVias talked to his old coach the final time just last week. They laughed about the SMU days, which doesn’t seem so funny. They made history together. LeVias clings to that as well as the effect Fry had on his life.

One last story: LeVias’ grandmother told the young coach if her grandson went to SMU, Fry had to promise he would call home before every game and let her say a prayer over him on the phone. Every game, Fry made sure of it, right up to a Saturday in Austin.

Fry: “Talk to your grandmother?”

LeVias: “Line was busy.”

Game is about to kick off, but a promise is a promise. Fry begs a quarter off a member of the SMU band for a long-distance call to Beaumont.

“They were kicking off,” LeVias said, “and Coach and I were under the stands on a payphone.

“He didn’t break his word.”

Not then or in 1962 or 1965. Not ever. Talk about a legacy.

https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/smu-m ... ever-easy/
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― C.G. Jung
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Re: Jerry LeVias made history at SMU with help from Hayden F

Postby SMU_Alum11 » Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:00 pm

Great article and great coach. He will be missed. RIP Coach Fry.
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Re: Jerry LeVias made history at SMU with help from Hayden F

Postby Arkpony » Thu Dec 19, 2019 9:01 pm

Wonderful coach and man.
Long live Inez Perez!
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