Nov. 7, 2006
Editor's Note: This is Part II in a series on Baylor's 2006 Athletic Hall of Fame Class.
By Carrol Fadal
For anyone who followed Baylor football in the early 1990s, the memory is vivid. A slender quarterback would take the snap, turn and run down the line of scrimmage to his right, looking for all the world as if were about to run a veer option play.
About the time he'd hit the tackle slot, No. 13 would suddenly turn 90 degrees to his right, drop back, then let fly with a deep pass to No. 83, more often than not wide open on a post route, and before you knew it, the Bears had scored a touchdown.
The J.J. Joe to Melvin Bonner connection certainly was one of the most productive in school history, and it's just one of the reasons that Joe, who quarterbacked the Bears from 1990-1993, was inducted into the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 27.
The on-field numbers bear out Joe's Hall of Fame credentials. He ranks No. 1 all time in total offensive plays (1,073), total-offense yards (6,815), touchdowns responsible for (43), passing yards (5,995), yards per pass attempt (9.015), yards per pass completion (17.277) and pass efficiency (134.87 rating). He's in the Top 10 in most other passing categories, and these statistics become more impressive when you consider that unlike today's Bears, J.J's teams ran Grant Teaff's version of the veer offense.
As good as those numbers are, they pale in comparison to Joe's best statistic: he is Baylor's only three-time Academic All-American, receiving second-team honors in 1991, 1992 and 1993. Each of those years, he was Academic All-Southwest Conference as well.
"At Baylor moreso than at other places, they put weight on what kind of student was he, what kind of guy was he," Joe said. "Baylor was the perfect place for me, with the overriding values of the university. I just felt like I was a perfect fit there, athletically and academically. It was the right size. Coach Teaff was the perfect coach for me."
As well as it turned out, J.J. wasn't one of those guys who always dreamed of coming to Baylor. In fact, it was another former Southwest Conference school that seemed to be the front-runner for the services of the Arlington Lamar product who went 28-6 in three years as a high school starter.
"I was headed to A&M," he said. "To be honest with you, Vanderbilt had recruited me longer than anybody, and I was committed to taking a visit to Vanderbilt, then visiting A&M the following weekend. But Bob David, who was the coach at A&M, tried to move my visit up, saying they were holding scholarship for the Dallas Carter guys like Jesse Armstead and that if I wanted to be sure there was a scholarship for me, I needed to come that weekend. But I couldn't do the guy at Vanderbilt like that."
So, even though Davie had told him he and Tommy Maddox, who went on to an All-America career at UCLA, were the only quarterbacks the powerhouse A&M program was recruiting, Joe's integrity wouldn't let him stiff Vanderbilt. Enter Teaff assistant Bill Lane, who, according to Joe "did a great job of recruiting me." A&M didn't hold the scholarship, and J.J. Joe, the Fort Worth Star Telegram's Metroplex Offensive Player of the Year after his senior season at Lamar, was headed to Baylor.
"God worked it out that way," he said.
But J.J. had to wonder about the Almighty's intentions when he finished spring training after his redshirt season as the No. 4 quarterback. By the time fall rolled around, the redshirt freshman was all the way up to No. 3, behind starter Brad Goebel and backup Steve Needham. But in a game versus Texas Tech, Goebel broke his hand, and the legend of J.J. Joe was born. In that game, he came in to hit four of seven passes of 77 yards, engineering drives of 80 and 54 yards to give the Bears a win. He started the next three games, Baylor victories over Houston, SMU and TCU, but then broke his hand in practice the week before the Arkansas game. For that abbreviated season, he completed 43-of-73 passes for 714 yards and five touchdowns with just two interceptions.
The next year started out as if it were going to be the year. With Joe at the helm, the Bears started out 5-0 and looked as if they were going to run the table. In fact, Dallas-area sports personality Randy Galloway was predicting on his afternoon talk show that "J.J. Joe and the Baylor Bears will beat Florida State for the national championship." But all that talk ended abruptly with an upset by an old nemesis.
"We had beaten Colorado, the defending national champion, in the second game of the year," Joe said. "It was a great experience. We started out 5-0. But lo and behold, here came the old pesky Rice Owls. If there was one team that was a thorn in my side throughout my college career, the Rice Owls always played us tough. They beat us (20-17), and we lost our air of invincibility. We kind of sputtered to the finish."
BU finished that season 8-4 (5-3 in conference play), then lost, 24-0, to Trent Green and Indiana in the Copper Bowl. The next season, Teaff's last at Baylor, also found the Bears in a postseason bowl, the John Hancock in El Paso, where BU gave its Hall of Fame Coach a nice going away present, a 20-15 victory that featured one of those patented Joe-to-Bonner touchdown passes.
Despite another fast start in Joe's senior year, the Bears and new head coach Chuck Reedy wound up 5-6. But that didn't dull the records J.J. put up or the memories of his outstanding Baylor career.
"Just from a playing standpoint, there are two things I remember the most," Joe said. "The first was beating Colorado at their place in 1991. But the top memory was my true freshman year. I was redshirted, and Baylor was playing A&M in Waco on homecoming. It was packed (45,565 in attendance), it was loud. We were winning the whole game and lost at the end (14-11). There was so much talent on the field, I remember saying, `Wow, this is why I came to college.' "
He certainly made the most of his college experience, doing well enough to land in the university's Hall of Fame. While it wasn't something he expected, he's proud of the honor.
"It wasn't anything on the top of my mind, but for a guy who's now 12-13 years removed, for the people to vote for you has to feel pretty good," he said. "When you're playing and going through it, it's not something you think about. I really only knew about it when I was broadcasting, when they would induct a class every year. Whenever you play, you want to leave a legacy somewhere; I know my records will be broken, probably this year, but you want to be thought of as a good guy."
Not only is he thought of as a good guy, he's known as a successful one, as well. Parlaying his BBA in economics into a successful banking career, J.J., in his third year as analyst on Baylor's radio broadcasts, has recently begun a new venture. He and a partner, high school friend Jamal Davis, have started BSGS, which does operations and maintenance at overseas camps in far-flung places such as Iraq.
"We started the company two years ago, and I can't do it part-time anymore," Joe said. "I have 24% ownership and am the CFO (chief financial officer). The life of entrepreneurship is different from life in banking."
But in the same way he went from fourth-stringer to Hall-of-Famer, count on J.J. Joe making the right kind of adjustments and making the long-distance connections to score touchdowns in his new field, as well.
