Aggie Flashback with former A&M RB Wendell Housley

Key quotes from Wendell Housley interview

“Basically, I’m semi-retired. I’m still trying to sell a little bit of real estate myself. I’ve had a few medical problems that have slowed me down, so I’m just taking it one day at a time and trying to live life.”

“I was recruited pretty extensively throughout the Southwest Conference and even at the national level as far as the Naval Academy. I thought I had made up my mind several different times. One was Oklahoma. One was Texas Tech. Coach Gene Stallings came in, and Coach Stallings sold my mother. It was my choice. (My parents) left that up to me, but Coach Stallings was very convincing. He said that we were going to go put a team together and that we were going to win the conference and even shoot for the national championship. I wanted to be a part of that.”

“Coach Elmer Smith was the first one to contact me, and I was leaning toward OU and also Tech. Then Coach Stallings came in and changed the atmosphere and changed my attitude towards A&M, for sure. We had an uphill battle to fight. He put together – my freshman squad had a lot of talented people and a lot of folks that believed that our destiny was in front of us. We were going to have to make it our own.”

“Everybody was excited about the new football coach and about our football team (heading into the ’65 season), but when we got onto the practice field, it was 110% business. Coach Stallings didn’t believe in the hype and the pomp. It was strictly business when we got on that field.”

“The training (under Gene Stallings) was unlike anything that I’d ever been through or seen. We were literally going back through living through the days of Junction. We just weren’t in Junction. We were in College Station. Most of the hype that you hear about that – you probably haven’t heard all of it.”

“(Allowing women to attend A&M) raised mixed emotions there with a lot of folks, especially in the Corps. I think the football team welcomed it, and I got to be friends with a lot of those gals that came in at first, like the professors’ daughters. I think that it made a world of difference. It paved the way for my girls to attend A&M. We didn’t have time to really take a look at what was going on around us. I tell everybody today that when we score, I kiss my wife twice just to make up for all the kisses that I missed back in the ‘60s.”

“In Lubbock, Texas, (in 1967) – that game was unbelievable. We were going back and forth and back and forth. They scored late in the game, and all we could hear was, ‘Poor Aggies! Poor Aggies! Poor Aggies!’ Of course we had driven it back down to the fifteen. The ball was set and ready to go. The ball was snapped, and (Edd) Hargett dropped back, and all of the receivers were covered. I can picture it right now. Hargett was there, and there was nobody there. I felt like I – I don’t know if I was open or not. Hargett kept the ball, and he started running. I said, ‘Oh, no.’ After a couple of really tense – it seemed like an eternity. There were a couple of great blocks, and Hargett scored the winning touchdown. All of sudden, the stands started emptying and the ‘Poor Aggies!’ chant was gone. Edd had an arm. Edd was not the swiftest guy on the field, but before he got hurt I’m sure he did a great job. Anyway, to see Edd with that big knee brace on tucking that ball and starting toward the goal line seemed like eternity.”

“It was a really tough game (against the Longhorns in 1967). It was one for all the marbles, because the team that won that game won the championship. We had a record of 50,000 people at Kyle Field, and that was just unheard of back then. The Aggie defense, our defense, came up with four interceptions and two fumbles. We were just nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes, and it was three yards and a cloud of dust. When it was all settled, we were ahead 10 to 7 on the scoreboard. That was the first time we really beat them, so what a joy that was for us. It was just a great game for the Aggies.”

“(The ’67 Cotton Bowl against Alabama) is probably one of the biggest highlights of my career at A&M. Even along with the freezing temperatures and the wind and everything else – that day was miserable. It was miserable. The sportswriters were having a field day with Coach Bryant and Coach Stallings leading up to the (game). Of course we had all the hype and pomp that goes on. We had some problems – both teams had a bunch of flu going around, so we didn’t get to go to all of the activities, but we participated in a lot of it. It just culminated in the game, and we were just so fired up. Frankly, we were really tired of hearing about Coach Bryant. If you look at warm-ups, for example, prior to that game, we were a mirror image on the opposite field. We warmed up just like Alabama. When the game started, there was a record crowd there. It felt like a record crowd – 75,000 people. I’d never played before that many people. Then you had Ken “Snake” Stabler and Denny Homan. It was just an unbelievable atmosphere.”

“Edd had called the play (on the game-winning touchdown in the ’67 Cotton Bowl), and we had a triple-option that he hit off-tackle. If the hole was open, he gave the ball to me. That’s usually not the situation that I remember going through the first time. There were two runs there on that series that I had almost another 20-yard run before that. I almost stumbled on a blade of grass, because I was so open that I couldn’t believe it. We ran a couple more plays, and they called the play again. It worked again, and that’s when we went 20 yards to the goal line. The way they had the endzone painted, they had the goal line and about a yard in, they had the maroon paint of the endzone. The endzone was painted maroon. I saw that paint, and for some reason I thought that was the goal line. I slammed the ball down, and the next thing I know, Tommy Buckman was lifting me up. ‘You scored! You scored! You scored!’”

“I can’t hardly talk about this team without mentioning the memory of our lost teammates: Grady Allen, Steve Mullins, who was lost in Vietnam, Billy Hobbs, Dan Snyder, Mark Weaver, Buster Adami, Dale Watts and Ivan Jones. All good men that we lost too early. I miss my old roommate Grady Allen. May the Lord rest his soul. Happy birthday to the U.S. Marine Corps! 240 years!”