Aug. 18, 2000

Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.

The letter written in mid-summer by former Baylor football standout Robert (Radar) Holt, who is now an assistant principal at Grand Prairie High School, tells Bruin partisans and INSIDER readers better than I can what this project is all about.

The letter from the Bruins' star wideout (1978-79-80) who went on to play for the Buffalo Bills in the NFL provides some of the specifics with these simple yet arresting words:

"Shortly after the 1999 Baylor football season had ended, I had the pleasure of running into Scott Smith, an ex-Baylor teammate who is now the assistant head football coach at Baylor University," writes Radar. "After a lengthy conversation, he and I agreed that despite the Bears' 1-10 season, they had many things to be thankful for. One in particular was that they had managed to make it through the season without any life-threatening injuries.

"Twenty years ago, Scott and I were part of an elite group of young men who weren't so fortunate. Even though we were far more successful on the football field, winning the Peach Bowl in 1979 and the Southwest Conference championship in 1980, we would forever be haunted by the memory of Kyle Woods, one of our freshman teammates, sustaining a spinal cord injury that would leave him paralyzed for the rest of his life.

"Whether we were prepared or not, that was the year our entire team was forced to become men. The year we came to realize just how fragile life really is. For some of us, Kyle's near-fatal accident has long been forgotten, but for the young man who had aspired to become one of the starting defensive backs in the Baylor secondary, the memory will always be as vivid as the day it occurred.

"Through the years Kyle has come to accept his condition. Not once have I ever heard him complain nor question God as to why such a devastating injury could happen to him. In the spring of 1993 he graduated from the University of Texas-Arlington with a degree in communications. He currently makes a living working as a rehabilitation specialist at Mountainview College in Dallas, but still dreams of some day being given the opportunity to showcase his talent as a sports announcer.

"During our visit, Scott and I agreed that after 20 years of having to travel without the aid of suitable transportation, that providing Kyle Woods with a modified van would be one of our top priorities. Each time Kyle leaves his house to go to work, one of his brothers has to physically lift him out of his wheelchair and into their family car. Once he arrives at work his brother has to lift him out of the car and back into his wheelchair. This process is repeated once again when he is picked up from work, and yet a fourth time once he returns home.

"Our main reason for reaching out to you is simple. Through Kyle's courage and determination to overcome his crippling injury, he not only inspired his teammates to two successful seasons, he inspired thousands of others as well. To show him that he hasn't been forgotten and that his inspiration is still greatly appreciated, I, along with Scott Smith and other members of the 1979 Peach Bowl Team and the 1980 Cotton Bowl Team, would like for you to join us in our effort to raise $30,000 to purchase Kyle a modified van.

"If you find it in your heart to join us in this endeavor, please make your check payable to the 'Kyle Woods Modified Van Fund' and mail it to Ricky Thompson at this address: Ricky Thompson, Executive Vice President, First National Bank of Central Texas, Kyle Woods-Modified Van, P.O. Box 2662, Waco, TX 76702. Ricky was a member (star wide receiver) of Baylor's 1974 Southwest Conference championship team (later played for the Washington Redskins) before becoming a banking executive in Waco."

THAT WAS THE GENESIS of a campaign which actually began last April, Radar Holt and Scott Smith reaching out to their former Baylor teammates and all others who might want to take part in a determined endeavor to show a fantastically plucky but terribly unlucky young ex-Baylor Bear that they still remember him -- and that they care.

Now here is an update on that story:

"Our goal was thirty-thousand dollars," Ricky Thompson told the INSIDER last week. "As of today, we have received right at seventy-five thousand dollars, and money is still coming in. I received a few more checks today. It's incredible.

"When this began, I thought we would get the thirty-thousand. I never dreamed seventy-five thousand."

WHEN THAT UPDATE was passed along to Kyle Woods via a telephone call to him at his home in Dallas, he was startled and overwhelmed.

"It's wonderful. Wonderful," he said. "I think it shows how many wonderful people there are out there. I take it as a tribute from all of them."

In all truth, Kyle, who is now 40 and lives in the South Oak Cliff section of Dallas, was excited and pleased, but also a little embarrassed. He prides himself on his independence. "That's just the way I am," he said. "If I can, I want to do it myself."

He wanted mainly to talk about this latest Baylor football team. "I think they're going to be a lot better," he said. "They had a lot of bad luck last year."

OF COURSE, THERE is bad luck, and then there is bad, bad luck. Kyle Woods was a victim of the latter.

It happened on a sweep play near the end of a scrimmage that was unfolding on Saturday, Sept. 1, 1979. The Bears had made their way through a star-crossed season the year before, finishing only 3-8 after losing their first five games (Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio State, Houston, SMU, in that order) by a total of 21 points. But then they had shocked heavily-favored, once-beaten Texas A&M, 24-6, as rookie Walter Abercrombie became the first Baylor ball carrier ever to rush for more than 200 yards in a single game. Emory Bellard was so surprised, so crestfallen, crushed, whatever, that he resigned as A&M's head coach the following week, right there in mid-season.

The Bears beat TCU in their next game but then lost three in a row before doing what was considered the impossible: in their final game they beat Texas' 27-point favorites, 38-14, while scoring the most points a Baylor team had ever scored against the Longhorns. Perhaps it helped that their coach, Grant Teaff, "swallowed" a worm as the high point of an emotional dressing room speech just before the team went out on the field to take on Longhorns. Texas went into the game hoping to nail down a share of the SWC title and instead got knocked back to a place in the Sun Bowl.

So the Bears finished a dreary season on a high note, and that following Sept. 1 they were getting ready to open the 1979 season the next Saturday against Lamar at Baylor Stadium when a tragedy occurred that none of those who were there will ever forget.

"It was a sweep play," remembers Scott Smith, a strong safety on that 1979 team. Scott actually had played against Kyle in high school. Scott was a quarterback on a Dallas Highland Park team that met Dallas W.T. White in a playoff game. Kyle was a defensive back for W.T. White. Smith was a senior, Woods a junior in that playoff game.

But by 1979 both were defensive backs for Grant Teaff's Bears.

"Kenny Matthews was carrying the ball (on the play when Woods was injured) and I came up to make the tackle," said Smith. "Kyle also came up -- he was on the corner (cornerback) -- and he lowered his head and really hit Kenny hard. It was a hard hit, a loud hit -- and Kyle fell on top of me and everything stopped. I mean, it was like time stopped. There was just this silence. I'll never forget it.

"My recollection is that I stayed completely still because of the way Kyle fell. I remember a student trainer came running, yelling: 'Stay still, stay still.' I know practice ended right there."

Kyle Woods had suffered a broken fifth cervical vertebra which left him paralyzed from the waist down. More than 20 years later he is still paralyzed although thanks to years of diligent rehab he has improved.

CORKY NELSON, BAYLOR'S defensive coordinator during that era and now the defensive coordinator for Pete Fredenburg's Mary Hardin-Baylor team at Belton, told the INSIDER last week that he could never forget Kyle Woods or the incident that left him paralyzed.

"It was a night scrimmage before our first game," Corky said. "We were down near the goal line, and when it happened, boy, you could hear the pop. Kyle just happened to hit him with his head down."

Recalled Radar Holt last week: "I remember the loud sound of the tackle. It was one of the hardest hits I can ever remember. I knew right away something was wrong.

"I've kept in touch with Kyle all these years. You know, he could have been sitting around, feeling sorry for himself. But then I saw how determined he was to pick himself up, get his degree. He's touched everyone who was on that team. It's just been real inspirational, to see how hard he keeps trying.

"This (the fund drive) is something we've been trying to get going as far back as when he decided to go back to school. But without Scott (Smith), we couldn't have gotten the ball rolling. When I told Scott what we had in mind, he didn't even hesitate. He just got started getting it done. We're just looking to everyone who can help, the ones who have wound up in position to do something about it."

Thanks to a lengthy story which appeared in the DALLAS MORNING NEWS and one in the WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD, the campaign which had started slowly in late spring began to pick up momentum when summer arrived, and suddenly Ricky Thompson knew that Holt, Smith and all the others who had been involved had a real success on their hands.

FOR RADAR, for Smith, for Grant Teaff, probably for every Baylor player on those 1979 and '80 teams, two events involving Kyle Woods that occurred months and even a year following his injury can never be forgotten.

The first came on the eve of Baylor's 1979 Peach Bowl game against Clemson in Atlanta, Ga. Although paralyzed, Kyle -- with Teaff's help -- managed to make the trip.

At a chapel service for the Bears at their Atlanta hotel, just before the team left for the stadium, Kyle was given the opportunity to say a few words to the team.

"I remember it vividly," said Scott Smith. "I think that was the first time a lot of us had seen him since his injury. He had been transported to Dallas right after his injury. But as the season went on, coach Teaff told him to get himself well enough to be with us at a bowl game -- and he challenged us to get to a bowl game.

"So there he was at the chapel service in Atlanta, and I remember he told us, 'I may give out, but I won't ever give up.' "

The inspired Bears took it from there. They beat Danny Ford's favored Clemson Tigers, 24-18, and in doing so set the stage for what happened in 1980 when they used that bowl momentum to charge through the campaign without losing a single conference game. They won the league title by a record-tying three full games.

THE ONLY BLOT on their regular season record came on Nov. 1 at Baylor Stadium when San Jose State upset them,30-22. Until that fateful Saturday the Bears had won seven straight games and roared into the nation's Top Ten.

They were undefeated, they had gone to A&M two weeks earlier and walloped the Aggies (46-7), and they had then beaten TCU handily in Fort Worth. With a 7-0 record, "we had dreams of winning the national championship," recalled Teaff. "And then San Jose upset us."

Coming up next for the staggered Bears was Lou Holtz's Arkansas Razorbacks, conference co-champions the year before and riding a three-game winning streak in the Baylor rivalry. Baylor's old grads gathered for homecoming festivities, fearing the worst would confront them that Saturday afternoon on the gridiron.

Instead, the Bears romped, 42-15, scoring their most decisive victory over the Razorbacks since 1922.

"Kyle was in our dressing room in a wheel chair before that game," said Scott Smith. "I remember thinking that here was a young man who had lost everything, and here we were talking about losing a silly game. Then just before we went out on the field, Kyle pushed himself up from that wheel chair -- we didn't think he could do that -- and as a couple of guys helped him he actually walked a few steps. And I can still remember what he told us: 'Guys, you have to take a setback and make it into a comeback.'

"There wasn't a dry eye in that room after that. I remember thinking that this was bigger than a game, this was life. We were not to be denied that day. There was no way Arkansas was going to beat us. No way.

"Those two things really stick out in my mind about Kyle -- what he said before the Peach Bowl game and what he said before the Arkansas game. I think a majority of our players think that way.

"THERE'S NOTHING WE can do to pay back what he has given us. And I ask myself, why didn't we do this earlier? I give Radar credit, he was the driving force behind this (special van) deal. He kept telling me, 'Scott, we need to do something. We need to do something.'

"So at least we've done this. I've never been a part of something like this, and what sticks out to me is how many good people, kind people, there really are in this country. Seventy-five thousand dollars, that's incredible. Overwhelming. God is good."

THAT DOESN'T HAVE to be the end of the story, of course. Contributions are still coming in and being accepted. They should be sent to Ricky Thompson at the address noted above.

"I look at it as a life-long commitment," said Radar. "Kyle will have other needs. Sooner or later, the van will need repairs. Or there will be something else.

"Actually, Corky Nelson and his family have already jumped in to help in a big way."

Baylor fans might remember that Corky was the father of three daughters, Tracy and younger sisters Carlyn and Kerie, who were twins. Some years ago, Carlyn, living in Austin, was left paralyzed in a diving mishap. After months of rehab, she became owner of a wheelchair-modified van of the type that will be purchased for Kyle Woods.

On April 6 of this year, Carlyn died in another tragic accident. As Corky told the INSIDER last week, "The van has a special lift in it, it's a fantastic vehicle. When Carlyn died, Doak Field (All-SWC linebacker on the 1980 Baylor team) contacted Tracy and asked about the possibility of Kyle using the van until he could get one of his own. And we all decided this was something Carlyn would have wanted. The timing was right."

So Kyle soon will be in a special van, learning to operate it as he awaits a new one.

MEANWHILE, GRANT TEAFF regards these efforts to help Kyle as further proof that the 1979-80 Bears were truly special. "We had excellent leadership on that team, and I'm excited for them. I'm really proud to see that the players haven't forgotten Kyle, and they have recognized a need that he has," Teaff said. "This is tantamount to a miracle. There are a lot of people who have just heard about the story for the first time, and my, have they responded.

"I think this all brings Kyle back into focus. There's a tendency that people who have suffered a major misfortune like Kyle did to wind up getting forgotten. But Kyle has not been forgotten. He will never be forgotten," Teaff pledged.

"And since his injury he's just been extraordinary in the wisdom he has shown and the motivation he has displayed and been able to give others."

THE KYLE WOODS STORY would not be complete without a full chapter being devoted to Teaff and what he has done for Kyle and his family. With money secured from his own speaking engagements and from other sources, he quietly set up a trust fund for Kyle 20 years ago (in October of 1979) and saw it grow to almost $500,000. Through the trust the Woods family was able to buy a home and maintain it, to help take care of monthly needs, insurance, etc. The trust helped pay for the degree Kyle secured at UT-Arlington.

"I'll never forget a single detail of that terrible accident that day," said Teaff. "I got to know Kyle's parents well. Both of them are dead now. Kyle lost his mother not too long ago. And you know, not once did I ever hear them -- or Kyle -- complain. Not once."

IN COMMENTS MADE not long ago to Jerry Hill (WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD), Scott Smith made a similar point.

"As you get older," he told Hill, "the realization comes to light of what an impact Kyle has had on your life. And then to see what he has done with his life, never complaining, just staying the course. It's unbelievable."

Hill also noted: "With that hard-earned degree, Woods still wants to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a sportscaster. When Baylor's 1980 Southwest Conference championship team is honored this year at the Nov. 11 homecoming game against Missouri, Teaff hopes Woods can spend some time in the (radio) booth.

"If the opportunity knocks, I'm listening," Woods said. "I'd love to get up and go."

Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.