I Dream of Jerry

According to Carl Jung, “the general function of dreams is to try to re-establish our psychological equilibrium by means of dream material which, in a subtle way, reconstitutes the total equilibrium of our entire psyche.” Yeah, maybe. I have had so many weird, senseless dreams that I am skeptical of claims made by people who, like Jung, are smarter than me. I would like to relate what my fevered brain came up with last night/this morning.

The subject was Jerry LeVias, among the finest football players in SMU history. A chapter is dedicated to him in my book, Breaking the Ice/Racial Integration of Southwest Conference Football (McFarland, 1987). His seasons in red and blue were 1965 through 1968, keeping in mind that he was a freshman in ’65. Home field for the Mustangs during LeVias’ days was Cotton Bowl Stadium, but they have not played a game there since November 13, 1999—a 58-16 defeat of Cal State-Northridge. With a lovely on-campus facility named after some rich guy (I have advocated and still do that the honor should have gone to LeVias), SMU’s Cotton Bowl days are way in the past.

There are 43 portals through which fans enter and exit the stadium. My goofy dream focused on those portals. In each of them an expanded photo of LeVias working his pigskin magic was placed upon something like an artist’s easel. Although I remember no specifics, they ought to have shown the following moments:

• After signing with SMU, LeVias was part of the Big 33 game in which recently graduated Texas high school all-stars took on their counterparts from Pennsylvania. He scored 17 of his (winning) team’s 26 points and gained lots of admirers.

• In a game against the Arkansas freshmen at Texarkana, he caught a pass for the winning touchdown and did so despite three broken ribs.

• The 1966 season opener was a 26-7 defeat of Illinois in which LeVias caught two touchdown passes from Mac White.

• Against Navy the next week (a 21-3 victory), he had two dazzling punt returns. Two games into his college career, LeVias was already being compared to SMU’s 1948 Heisman Trophy winner, Doak Walker.

• In a 35-23 loss to Purdue, he caught an 8-yard touchdown pass from Mike Livingston and gained 28 yards on a reverse.

• Trailing Rice 24-13 in the fourth quarter, he faked an end-around and threw a left-handed 47-yard touchdown pass to Larry Jernigan. And with nine seconds left, he went up high for a short TD pass from White. The Ponies had won it.

• He caught a 5-yard scoring pass from White in a 24-7 defeat of Texas Tech in Lubbock.

• Against the football team representing the school at which I would matriculate five years later, the University of Texas, he caught a touchdown pass from Livingston and beat the Longhorns, 13-12. The UT guys did just what the Tech and Rice guys did—directed verbal abuse at the Mustangs’ star and strove to cause him a little more pain than a White opponent would have received. This state of affairs would improve just marginally as his college career went on.

• The game against Texas A&M was tied in the fourth quarter when LeVias caught a Steve O’Neal punt and employed a series of graceful moves and his 9.6 speed to score an 83-yard touchdown. As Walter Robertson of the Dallas Morning News wrote, “LeVias entered grandly, with all the stage presence you’ll see on Broadway before a big audience, just as he’s done all season long for the rallying Mustangs.”

• He had a 100-yard kickoff return against Baylor and then in the fourth quarter took a pass from Livingston and zig-zagged 32 yards past numerous BU defenders down to the 15-yard where Dennis Partee came on and kicked a game-winning field goal.

• Death threats before the TCU game did not deter him. LeVias caught a 68-yard scoring strike from White as the Mustangs won their first conference championship in 18 years.

• The Cotton Bowl Classic was a 24-9 loss to Georgia in which LeVias caught just three passes for 62 yards and failed to score. But UGA coach Vince Dooley was still impressed: “LeVias jumps like a kangaroo and runs like a jackrabbit.” The SEC visitors—who played hard but fair with LeVias—had to know that integration was coming to their league too.

• The 1967 season opener in College Station was nationally televised, so people in other regions got to see Jerry the Jet do his thing. The Aggies, who had gone up by three in the last minute, were foolish to kick straight to LeVias. He took it to the 48-yard line, went out of bounds and was knocked rudely against a concrete abutment. No penalty, as was so often the case; Southwest Conference referees were not inclined to protect the SMU star. Although woozy, LeVias insisted on going back into the game. Second-team QB Ines Perez connected with him for a 29-yard pass and then an all-but-impossible alley-oop in the left corner of the end zone. Ponies, 20-17.

• They lost to Texas Tech and Texas, but LeVias caught 10 passes in each game and TD’s of 28, 55 and 5 yards.

• In another loss—this time 35-17 to Arkansas—LeVias caught nine passes and had a long kickoff return. Hogs coach Frank Broyles, who had done everything in his power to discourage a black walk-on named Darrell Brown a year earlier, found it in his heart to flatter LeVias, calling him “one of the greatest players in America.”

• Hayden Fry’s team broke a seven-game losing streak with a 16-10 defeat of Baylor. In the second quarter, LeVias got the ball on a reverse and lobbed an incompletion toward teammate Mike Richardson. But as he did so, BU linebacker David Anderson threw a vicious forearm at his face, breaking the zygomatic arch over his right eye and causing profuse nasal bleeding. He stayed in the game and caught five more passes. After one of those, nearly the entire Bears defense knocked him out of bounds and over the telephone bench, resulting in a dislocated finger. Again, no flag was thrown. “I just wonder why there weren’t more calls,” he said in one of our interviews. “But I never did complain. I’d like to think the officials were there to judge competitively.”

• It was the first time Auburn—deep in the heart of Dixie—had hosted a team with black players, and by 1968, SMU had LeVias, Rufus Cormier and Walter Haynes. Despite being 12-point underdogs, the Mustangs won by a 37-28 score; LeVias caught a 38-yard TD strike from Chuck Hixson.

• They lost 35-14 the next Saturday against an Ohio State team destined to win the 1968 national title. Hixson and LeVias connected no fewer than 15 times. Jack Tatum, the Buckeyes’ fierce safety, scared the living daylights out of some receivers, but not LeVias.

• He had nine catches and TD’s of 65, 32 and 24 yards in a home defeat of North Carolina State.

• The game against TCU was one to remember, and not just because of the nine passes he caught. With the scored tied at 14 midway through the fourth quarter, a Horned Frogs linebacker knocked him to the ground, spat at him and uttered a racial epithet. LeVias, fed up with such treatment, took himself out of the game. He flung his helmet to the ground and sat on the bench, crying and miserable, so Fry turned the game over to his assistants and went to console him. TCU was about to punt when LeVias grabbed his helmet and told Fry he was going to run it back for a touchdown. And so he did—89 yards to win the game.

• He caught nine passes for 126 yards in a 39-28 defeat of Texas Tech.

• The Mustangs beat A&M 36-23 with Richardson rushing for four scores and 244 yards. Why do I mention that? Because Richardson—all-SWC running back though he was—benefitted from the Aggies loading up defensively on LeVias. Still, he had five receptions.

• LeVias caught six passes from Hixson and scored twice in a 33-17 home defeat of Baylor; Fry called a timeout late in the game so the crowd—only 22,000 people were on hand—could give him a standing O.

• His college finale was the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl against heavily favored Oklahoma. It was an offensive extravaganza for both teams with 45 first downs and 823 total yards. The Mustangs won, 28-27, in a game that came down to the final play—an OU field goal that went wide. LeVias, despite his customary double- and triple-teaming, had eight receptions and one touchdown.

He went on to a respectable six-year career with the Houston Oilers and San Diego Chargers. That was followed by work in the corporate world and as an independent businessman. LeVias had been a rarity—a consensus all-American in 1968 but also an academic all-American. Had the decision makers at SMU been wise, they would have brought LeVias back to the Hilltop as soon as his playing days were over. A job like what Prentice Gautt had at Oklahoma would have been ideal for him, the football program and the school.

Retired and living with his wife Janice in Houston, LeVias is in good health (body and mind) for a man who took so many hits in high school, college and the pros. He turns 80 on September 5.

Levi as a sophomore…

LeVias as a senior–against Baylor, I think…

A happy LeVias coming off the field…