Oct. 24, 2001
(Following the August death of football great L. G. Dupre, Dallas Morning News columnist Blackie Sherrod observed that former teammates of the Baylor and Baltimore Colt running back all agreed on one thing. Dupre was the "toughest man they ever knew." Later, Sherrod used Dupre's memorial service in Dallas as the backdrop for a column on the passing of old athletes. The Aug. 23 article is reprinted with permission of the Dallas Morning News.)
The fraternity still gathers to pay its respects
By Blackie Sherrod
Copyright 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Ogden Nash is the runaway favorite poet at this desk, even though he wouldn't know an iambic pentameter from a rectal thermometer. Mr. Nash is the one who advised us, when called by a panther, don't anther. But once, just once, the fellow stepped away from humor:
People expect old men to dieThey do not really mourn old men.Old men are different. People lookAt them with eyes that wonder whenPeople watch with unshocked eyesBut the old men know when an old man dies
Surely, this is true with old athletes. A jock is not necessarily "old" in his 60s, but even he won't deny he has crested. Old jocks notice the obituaries, perhaps more than any other clan. They gather in sort of a protective shell against outsiders. Theirs is a closed community, a private fraternity, and when a member goes south, as they say, they automatically rally, partly to pay respect to their comrade's survivors but also to see each other once more.
This commonality seems more alive among geezers. The current jocks, thanks to unprecedented incomes, are more likely to be independent businessmen with more pressing issues than faded camaraderie. Jerry Mays never, in one year, made as much money as Shaq O'Neal spends on limos alone. But he had many more pals.
When Jerry died a half-dozen years ago, his old Kansas City teammates held a reunion at the service in Highland Park. Jerry had been instrumental in bonding the ex-Chiefs, and here they came, must have been two dozen, from all over the land. One memory lingers: E.J. Holub, the tireless lineback, proudly showing a poem that Jerry Mays had written, on the plane ride back from a Boston diagnostic clinic where he learned there was no hope.
When Doak Walker memorial rites were held in the same neighborhood, there came another batch, not just locals but Darrell Royal up from Austin and John David Crow and Yale Lary and all degrees of headliners from yesteryear.
The Mickey Mantle ceremony, of course, drew the most national attention and a turnaway crowd. There were reporters and TV cameras and press credentials. You saw former Cowboy assistant Jim Myers directing the parking lot and television's Murphy Martin handling admittance and seating like a maitre 'd.
That bent fellow over there was Stan Musial. And Yogi Berra, whose diminutive stature is always surprising, flew in on a private plane loaned by Bob Hope. Roy Clark played his guitar and sang Yesterday. There was some fraternal bonding, but it was more reserved. Not as much codger hugging going on. When you see an old guy hug another old guy, you're seeing the real tribal handshake.
There was a lot of that last week when the codgers put on starched white shirts and dark suits and went out in cruel afternoon heat for the Long Gone Dupre memorial services. There were no cameras or gawkers like at the Mantle and the meticulously orchestrated Tom Landry rites.
These were bedrockers, gray or thinning, some with bay windows, many on gimpy knees, all with the trademark solid neck.
Memories tumbled like a Laundromat dryer. Doyle Traylor, golly, couldn't he throw the ball. Dave Sherer, could he ever kick it. Has it been really 40 years since Jack Spikes was MVP in the Texans' first AFL championship? The handsome bloke under the white hair surely was Lee Roy Jordan, and the trim slickhead must be Jerry Tubbs. Herschel Forester, wasn't he a Paul Brown messenger guard? And Forrest Gregg, Hall of Famer, gray and hulking, and Jim Ray Smith and Don McIlhenny, old pros and longtime cronies of the irrepressible rascal that was Long Gone. And the grande dame Alicia Landry paying quiet respects.
The fraternity came to respect an old comrade, sure, but they also came to see each other and be counted. Mostly, there were hugs and arms flung around shoulders and laughter. Once again, the geezers were in their heyday, and when they left First Baptist into that outside blinding oven, they didn't seem to limp quite as much.
