THE COTTON BOWL : Funny, Odd, Unusual Are Commonplace

Before Big D was very big, there was a nice little bowl game being played for the first time in a brand-new stadium built on the grounds of the State Fair of Texas. The year was 1937, the day was Jan. 1 and the game was the Cotton Bowl.

Marquette, which has since dropped football, and TCU, which probably ought to, played in that very first Cotton Bowl game when it was threatening to rain. Alas, despite heroic offensive efforts by Buzz Buivid and Art Guepe, Marquette’s Golden Avalanche fell to the Horned Frogs, 16-6, as L. D. Meyer, the nephew of Coach Dutch Meyer, scored all of TCU’s points.

The 12,000 faithful fans who gathered under dull gray clouds to watch this contest could not have realized what they had just witnessed. In that very first game, the Cotton Bowl was given a good shove on its way toward a place in the modern-day bowl picture. It was at once both competitive and, well, slightly eccentric. It has become known for funny names, odd twists, unusual games.

Picture the Cotton this way: It may not be the best bowl game and it may not always have the best teams, yet over the years the Cotton Bowl not only had its share of the game’s great players, but also some pretty interesting moments as well.

A survivor from the days of the old Big Four New Year’s Day games, the Cotton Bowl has recently taken on a title sponsor, which entails an estimated $12 million from Mobil and a new name, the Mobil Cotton Bowl.

Nothing wrong with oil companies, mind you, but as a title sponsor? Why? Were all the shrinks already lined up with somebody else?

To begin with, what do we know about the Cotton Bowl? Besides, of course, the searing words of television announcer Lindsey Nelson, who in 1977 shrieked over and over again, “He threw a mallard duck! He threw a mallard duck!” after a wobbly touchdown pass by Houston quarterback Danny Davis.

How did he know it was a mallard? Must have been from the spiral. Like Marquette, though, Nelson is gone from the Cotton Bowl now, taking his test-pattern sport coats with him. That is not the only change in Fair Park, though.

The Cotton Bowl, one of the high rollers for years, has been hard-pressed to keep up with the bigger-moneyed boys on the bowl block, whose clout in getting the glamour teams increases in direct proportion to the size of their wallets.

Finally, CBS, which has televised the Cotton Bowl since 1957, hinted broadly that the bowl folks here needed to get themselves a title sponsor or the network would just have to make the rights fee they pay so small it wouldn’t fill J. R.’s Stetson.

It didn’t always used to be that way, said Jim Brock, who has headed the Cotton Bowl since 1976.

“If you had told me back when I took this position that we were going to have a title sponsor, I’d have told you that you were smoking something,” Brock said.

Mobil’s involvement is increasing the payout to at least $2.5 million each for UCLA and Arkansas, which is about $300,000 more a team than last season’s Notre Dame-Texas A & M game.

“We had to do it to stay competitive,” Brock said.

What has happened on the field is something else. Out there, nothing may compare to one single play from the 1954 game, which may be the most talked-about and bizarre event in the history of college bowl games.

That was during Rice’s 28-6 victory over Alabama in which Tommy Lewis of the Crimson Tide left the sidelines to tackle the Owls’ startled Dicky Moegle, who was on his way to a 95-yard touchdown run. It was an act of serendipity that is still talked about and has continues to touch the lives of both Lewis and Moegle in different, sometimes troubling ways.

Rice led Lewis’ Alabama team in the second quarter, 7-6. After a fumble by Tide quarterback Bart Starr deep in Owl territory, Rice had first and 15 at their own 5. Moegle took a hand-off from quarterback Leroy Fenstemaker, swept right end, cut up-field and then started up the sideline.

Lewis, an alternate captain playing his last game as a senior, was standing on the sideline next to teammate Corky Tharp.

“I said, ‘Corky, he’s going all the way,’ ” Lewis said. “He said, ‘He sure is, Lew.’ ”

Nearing midfield, meanwhile, Moegle saw something he wasn’t expecting.

“I looked over to the side and I saw this guy kind of creeping out,” Maegle said. “I saw him real good. I thought the guy had dropped his headgear and he was going out there to pick it up.

“Then it just hit me like a light in my head. And I said, ‘By God, that guy is coming off the bench.’ By then I was right on top of him. I veered a step to my left. If I hadn’t veered, I’m quite sure he would have broken both of my legs.”

At the Alabama 40, Lewis, who was not wearing his helmet, made his move. The consequences, he said, still haunt him nearly 34 years later and he said he expects them to haunt him forever.

“He was right in my sights,” Lewis said. “Right in my gun sights. Without further ado, I lambasted him. I let him have it. God knows, if I had thought that thing out, I would have at least put my headgear on.”

Lewis had put a rolling body block into Moegle, who fell to the turf in a heap.

“It was a hell of a shot,” Moegle said. “It was kind of like a guy running down a dark alley, somebody opens up an exit door and you run into it.”

There was little confusion about the correct official’s call, however, as crew chief Cliff Shaw immediately ruled that Moegle would be awarded a touchdown. Lewis, who had gone to sit down on the bench, buried his head in his hands and wept.

“I hung my head then,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, this is a bad dream. I am still at the hotel and this is a bad dream.’ Then I heard what sounded like 80,000 people booing. and when the fans picked up on it, I realized it wasn’t a dream at all.”

Moegle went on to gain 265 yards in just 11 carries in the Rice victory. He is now in the hotel business in Houston and in his office there is a photo of the tackle Lewis made on him. Moegle said he is asked about the play at least 5 times a week. He said he has seen Lewis 3 or 4 times in the 34 years since the incident and that Lewis has long since apologized. Moegle would like to believe Lewis is sincere.

“The only thing to this day that in my own mind I give him the benefit of the doubt that it was spontaneous was the fact that he did not have headgear on,” Moegle said. “I know the guy probably feels real bad about it because I’m sure it’s mentioned to him probably every day. Somebody, somehow, some way comes up with ‘Why did you do it?’ ”

Lewis owns an insurance agency in Huntsville, Ala. He refers to the 1954 tackle as “that event.” When asked about the play recently, he said he would rather not talk about it, but he did anyway and was both gracious and candid.

“I still am embarrassed by it,” Lewis said. “I always will be till I go to my grave, I suppose.

“I was full of Alabama. I didn’t want to lose at any cost, especially my last game at Alabama. I didn’t want to end my career at Alabama on a sour note and I certainly did. It demoralized Alabama’s football team, without a doubt, although the better team won that day, without a doubt.

“Folks told me that I would sit back and laugh about it later. I never have. But the shoe fits. And I must wear it.”

There have been other games in the Cotton Bowl, more normal ones, featuring such players as Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Doak Walker, Norm Van Brocklin, Bobby Layne, Byron (Whizzer) White, Sammy Baugh, Joe Theismann, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Bo Jackson, Doug Flutie, Earl Campbell and Roger Staubach.

The games?

How about a back-to-back series between Notre Dame and Texas in 1970 and 1971 with Texas winning the first and Notre Dame the second. The Longhorns’ 1970 victory, not only won the national title for Darrell Royal, but it also spoiled the Fighting Irish’s return to bowl games after a 45-year absence.

In a rematch, Notre Dame, with Theismann at the throttle, broke Texas’ 30-game winning streak by scoring 21 points in the first 16 1/2 minutes.

The 1964 game featured Texas and Navy in a battle between No. 1 and No. 2 with Longhorn quarterback Duke Carlisle out-dueling Staubach. But Texas wasn’t as fortunate in the 1978 game when Notre Dame won, 38-10, knocking off the No. 1 team in the nation and jumping from No. 4 to replace Texas atop the polls.

Then there was the famous “Ice Bowl” of 1979 between Notre Dame and Houston, played on a field coated with ice. The chill factor was below zero as Montana, playing despite a high fever, rallied the Irish from a 34-12 deficit with just 8 minutes to go. Montana threw a touchdown pass that tied the game as the clock ran out and Joe Unis’ conversion with no time left won it, 35-34.

Still, there may never be anything in the Cotton Bowl that will be Lewis’ tackle of Moegle for its numbing ability to shock and its abject unpredictability. In fact, Moegle is still a little perplexed by it all.

“What really mystifies me about the whole thing is that every guy says, ‘You know, I was sitting right up there behind the Alabama bench about 5 rows back.’ They’ve told me that over the last 34 years. If everybody who has told me that was sitting where they said, there was nobody on the other side of the stadium.”

But that’s another story.