--Roy Jones, senior manager of the 1963 national championship football team writes about his most unforgettable Longhorn player-- and it might surprise you.

I bet Nick Saban has a Mickey Riggs on his roster.  Kirby Smart too.
 I bet Bear Bryant had a Mickey Riggs among his "Junction Boys."
 I KNOW Darrell Royal had one.

 
 Any successful coach needs a Mickey Riggs. That's a player who may be short on talent but overbrimming with desire. One who goes up against more talented teammates every day. Because Mickey Riggs gives 110 percent every play and wouldn't quit if he was waterboarded with a gun to his head, he makes the starters work harder -- and makes them better.
 A Mickey Riggs epitomizes the mantra Coach Royal preached to the 1961-63 Longhorn teams he molded into the university's first national champions:  "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
 During my four years as a student manager for the Texas Longhorns football teams, I worked with dozens of really great players. Eleven of them were consensus All-Americans.  Two former Longhorn stars -- Tommy Nobis and my zany roommate George Sauer Jr. -- made the NFL Pro Bowl a total of nine times. But if I'm asked to name my most unforgettable player, none of these stars can hold a candle to the real Mickey Riggs.

Officially Michael Eb Riggs, Mickey was an undersized guard in high school at Sour Lake. Although he made all district, he wasn't recruited by UT.  He had always dreamed of playing for the Longhorns, so in the fall of 1960, he went to Austin and joined the freshman team as a walk-on. We started our UT careers on the same day: I dreamed of being a senior manager, which meant a full scholarship; Mickey dreamed of earning a scholarship.
Freshman Coach Robert Schulz admired Mickey's grit and determination when he went up against the likes of future All-American and Outland Trophy winner Scott Appleton and the strongest man on campus, future All-Pro Bob Young (who finished second in the inaugural World's Strongest Man competition in 1977; Coach Royal didn't condone Young's smoking cigarettes and using steroids, and Young left UT after his freshman year.
 Coach Schulz played Mickey in all of the freshman games as the talented "Class of 1964" gave a glimpse of what they would do for their three years of varsity.  The Yearlings weren't really challenged in an undefeated season.

  When the scholarship players went to their comfortable rooms in Moore-Hill Hall and ate nutritious meals in the athletic "chow hall," Mickey lived in an old Army barracks north of the Disch-Falk baseball field and ate at a nearby cafeteria.  After a few days of practice, barefoot kicker Tony Crosby told his new friend he had an idea that might help Mickey with meals.
  Tony introduced him to veteran Equipment Manager Jim Blaylock, whose wife, Thelma, was the director of the chow hall (and daughter of aged "Ma" Griffith, the "mother of UT athletes") .

   "I'll never forget what Tony did for me," Mickey recalled at the recent 60th reunion of the 1963 national championship team. "The Blaylocks gave me a job washing dishes after every meal, three times a day, in return for those good nutritious meals.  It was a win-win for me!"
   So,  while scholarship athletes were cramming for a morning or afternoon quiz -- or just taking it easy -- after their meals,  Mickey didn't have that luxury. He had to do his studying late at night in order to hurry to morning and early afternoon classes after he'd washed all the dishes. But he never complained.
     Although Mickey was at the bottom of the guards depth chart, he always stood out in a crowd.  That's because for four long years, he had an open, oozing wound on the bridge of his nose from having his helmet shoved down on his face. During that time, he got 42 stitches at the UT Health Center, no more than seven at a time.   In his four years, Mickey missed fewer than a dozen practices-- the last two weeks of spring training with a separated shoulder and once for three days with a knee sprain.
    He didn't miss a single practice due to the nose injuries. Stitches were ripped out as frequently as they were put in, resulting in the oozing wound from the first day of two-a-days in pads until the last day of spring training. Trainers would stop the bleeding with a bandage at practice, but they didn't stay on long.
  "It would finally heal over during the summer, then we'd start over in two-a-days," he said with a grin.
  By his sophomore year, Mickey's perseverance had caught the eye of Coach Royal.   He arranged for Mickey to register for classes on the first day with all the scholarship athletes. That way they could get classes that didn't interfere with afternoon practice.  He also offered to pay for Mickey's books and tuition.
  "Coach Royal was like a father  figure to me," Mickey said.  "I wanted to be a coach like him. I wanted to be a man like him."
  I doubt if any scholarship players would have put up with all Mickey went through trying to make the team: In addition to washing dishes and waiting tables.

Mickey:
   ** Never had a locker in the varsity dressing room, where the coaches mingled with the players and critiqued each practice. Mickey's locker was always with the freshmen at the opposite end of the building.
   ** Never got to live in Moore-Hill Hall, the athletic dorm (although Coach Royal gave him a partial scholarship that paid his rent at a nearby dorm his senior year).
   ** In his three varsity years, he never got to suit up for a home game. "But I got to stand on the sideline with the other players some games. That was fun," he said.
   ** Only once was he listed in the team roster in the game program. He was number 59 in the 1964 Cotton Bowl program.
   **He got to suit up for only four games during the three years his "Class of '64" won 30 games, while losing only two and tying one.  Coach Royal took him to College Station his senior year and took him, along with all the scholarship red-shirts, to the three Cotton Bowls, 1962-64. "It was a great thrill and honor for me to wear the burnt orange and white," he beamed.
   I wish I could tell you Mickey finally got to play in a Longhorn game.  But that was just another disappointment.
   It wasn't that Coach Royal didn't try.
   In the waning minutes of the victory over Roger Staubach-led Navy, Coach Royal yelled out his name and told him to go in for Ken Ferguson.
 Mickey said his cleats were barely touching the turf as he ran to the defensive huddle, tapped Ferguson on the shoulder, and said, "Coach sent me in for you."
 Ferguson, a fifth-year senior and three-year letterman, gave Mickey a menacing look and said, "This is my last game! I'm not coming out!"
 Mickey jogged back to the bench dejected. Just like that, the final gun sounded and his Longhorn career was over.
 "As much as I wanted to play I don't blame Fergy," Mickey said 60 years after the fact.  "He'd been through five years of practices. He wanted to savor that victory."
 Ferguson is one of the 18 members of the 1963 championship team who have died since that storybook season -- UT's first football national championship.  The fate or whereabouts of another dozen are unknown. Thirty-one were able to attend the 60th reunion on Sept. 1-2.
  I got to witness a big, emotional hug between Mickey and Tony Crosby at the reunion banqquet on Sept. 1. Each has gone on to a successful career, Tony as an architect and Mickey as, what else?, a football coach and later school administrator.
  After all, Mickey learned from the best, in sorta' "on the job training."
  In recognition of his perservance and determination against all odds, Coach Royal awarded Mickey a letter jacket and a national championship ring his senior year, as well as a coveted T-ring when Mickey received his BS degree in health, physical education and recreation. in 1965. All that dishwashing and waiting tables had put him
a year behind his Class of '64 teammates.
  "I loved Coach Royal for the man he was and for the opportnity he gave to me to be a very small part of the storied Longhorn football program," Mickey told me last week.
   Mickey later earned a master's degree in PE from the University of Houston and a mid-management degree with principal and superintendent certification from Lamar University.
  He retired in 2011 after 47 years in education, both public and private. As head coach at DeSoto from 1970-83, he led the Eagles to their first district championship in the school's history. The 1971 team was unscored upon in district play (seven games) and he was named Coach of the Year.
 (At the Rice game, a young man seated next to me saw my 1963 champions name tag and asked if I knew "a Michael or Mickey Riggs."  It turns out Tony Schell of Austin had played for him at DeSoto and had not seen him since 1983.  I had the pleasure of finding Mickey and reconnecting them.  Small world!)
 After his coaching days, Mickey was athletic director at DeSoto. Hardin-Jefferson, and Houston Christian, winning state championships at all three.  (His state champion boys basketball team at Hardin-Jefferson was coached by Dr. Charles Breithaupt, now executive director of the Texas UIL.)
  In his last job, dean of students and athletic director at Houston Christian High School, he helped organize the Texas Private Schools Coaches Association and served as its first president.
 Finally, I asked Mickey if he challenged his players with his own story of perseverance and sacfifice.   "I shared with my players a lot of things I considered important in life and football and especially persevrance, but I used examples of my former teammates, both in high school and college, not about myself," he said.
 Then he added, "There's no question about it. You have to persevere to succeed and reach your personal and team goals."..


On Sept. 2, 2023 Mickey Riggs right) had a reunion with Tony Schell, one of his former players, when he coached at DeSoto 1970-83.  They had not seen each other for 40 years.