Mick Shots: "Hollywood" Henderson 1-On-1

they supplied to the National Football League. And going through their Hall of Fame, I found two guys that are joining us today to be able to talk about that presentation and their careers at HBCU schools. No better than my Mick SHOT's partner Everson Walls, who we haven't talked on screen for quite some time. Bags, I miss you, man, I miss you, and mission do your deal. And also

former Cowboys Pro Bowl linebacker Thomas Hollywood Henderson. And these two guys are members of that Black College Football Hall of Fame. Thomas, good to have you with us, Thank you, good, good to be seen specially now. It's good to just have somebody else to talk to you other than my wife. I'm probably driving her crazier. So good to have you guys here. And Everson, you were well aware of the presentation that the Black College Football Hall of Fame put

on last week on the website. I thought it was awfully interesting, and you even had a partner, had had some stuff to say on your experience there and working with coach Rob and so I just thought we'd start off and you guys kind of tell the story of why you ended up at Grambling State and Thomas ended

up at Langston. Uh. You know the HBCUs schools back then, and you know, if anybody's not familiar, if you go back into the sixties, um, and and through some of the seventies, Uh, there wasn't a lot of opportunities for black athletes to go uh to colleges and universities, other than maybe some that were in the North, but certainly not in the South. Uh. And Everson ended up going to Grambling State. I believe you got there sixties seven? Is that right? Was the seventies seven? Sorry, I probably

would be dead by now that David, Yeah, it's seventy seven. Yeah, that was mine. I graduated from Berlin in high school and Richardson and I had to go to that black college experience after growing up in Richardson, h I think with what's going on now with the whole Black Lives Matter thing, I think it kind of just brings up a whole new relevance of what I went through and

what most HBCU players went through. I'm sure Hollywood probably has even more strange stories being up in Oklahoma, but coming from Richardson, we were part of the suburbs here in Dallas, but the racism was still as under shaved as it was. It's still very prevalent in our lives at that time, and I think this is just extremely prevalent now with what's going on, uh in society. This, you know, this has put a whole new light to me on all HBCU athletes and why we ended up

at HBCUs. You can, you know, talk about the way society was at that time and well and as you as you peeled back to fail, uh, you still having these same problems. So I think that's what's so universal about this. We're still having the same problems now that myself in Hollywood and Doug Williams and all those guys went through even back then, which is a sad part about it, but it also it lends to the fortitude and strength that we had to keep on pushing as

HPCU athletes. Thomas, you ended up you were from Texas, and you ended up going, as ever soon pointed out into Oklahoma to Langston University. And I'm not sure I ever heard of Langston until I knew you went to college. I up in Austin, and I went to live with my grandmother my junior year, and because Oklahoma and Texas or border states, I couldn't play football my junior year if you moved to a state without your parents exactly. So I end up nineteen seventy one, finishing high school.

Met Barry Switzer at Douglas High School. And see there was the Vietnam War, and being drafted was in nineteen seventy one. I was one egg, Like that's six weeks in Vietnam. So I flunk geometry in Austin and had to go to summer school to finish high school. So colleges weren't looking at me. I'll tell you a quick story, which tall I don't can't remember which college it was, which Tall state? I think plane crash in nineteen seventy he lost the whole football program. I write this long letter.

I say, boy, now, if I could make a football team, I can that one, because ain't nobody left. They sent me a Dear Jo. They sent me a Dear John. Uh No, you know, and I go wow. So I really was a walk on at Lunston University nineteen seventy one, you know, as a history would have it. I get there on a Tuesday, the starting defensive end broke his ankle on Wednesday. I was starting at Kentucky State up

in Kentucky that Saturday. So my career at Langston. But you know, I didn't even know what an HBCU was in eighteen seventy one, but I knew there was a college up there called Langston and they had a football team. And I had made All City Honorable mention All States. So they let me walk on. And my life has been better because as I went to an HBCUUM. Barry Switzer always says he regrets not signing me. He was

signed a boy named Rod Sholt instead. Um. But and actually my experience for the HBCU was I sawted at some point my junior year. I'm making all these all America teams and all this stuff, but the scouts weren't coming, and so I said, I'm gonna run truck. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna run truck. So I end up. You know, I gotta tell you that I went to the Kansas Relays in nineteen seventy three and I won the Oklahoma Clegia Conference hundred yard dash and nine to six.

And I go to Kansas and I don't remember the pouncing twins and some of these boys back in the day. The winning time was nine two Thomas Henders and came in dead last. Nine five pulled me. They pulled me a tenth of a second. What size were you when you were running bad two eighteen two seventeen sixty three. Huh the typical track athlete. I triple jumped. I long jumped, and um, I'd have thrown the javelins. They give me one.

So track gate you some notoriety. Uh people noticed, I think, yeah, I think Gil Brandt and uh um texts and uh. The rams were really high on me. They were gonna take me the twenty fourth or twenty SECNT remember which which picked they had tank Younger scouted me, letting himself Grambling State. Yeah, and I, um, you know what I do at Lenkston because there would be so few, because it'd be one scout, one patent measure, you know, one

starting line once finished, like one guy. And I run my butt off that first first one and I come up and he goes, I think someone wrong my watch. I said, what's wrong? What did you get? He's like, I got a full fall, but I think my watches broke. I said, well, I ain't run the move so all the time, Everson, Uh, your experience at Grambling when you first got there, what was your impression? You get coach rob Eddie Robinson as their head coach, and uh, how

did that? What was your impression when you've got to Grambling State. I tell the story all the time. My mom drove me there. Everybody knows my mom. She was a beautiful lady, and she was pretty, you know at hip as they call it. You know, we're driving a Corvette to Gramley State University. So everyone at on campus when they first saw me and my mom and her car, they just thought we were rich, you know, which we

surely were not growing up in Hamington Park. And so we ended up going there and it was really a desperate cause we were going there to see if I could sign on with this team. I had not been off of the scholarship. I had only been given an invitation to the spring football game. So if you haven't signed a player by the spring football game, most likely you're not gonna That player is not gonna get signed.

So I was really going up there for hell, married my mom, you know, just pleading with coach Robinson, and we were able to get that last scholarship that was available. So as much as people think I walked on, I walked in, and I walked into coach Robb's office and basically begged him to give me an opportunity. And I'm pretty sure someone had renagged on a scholarship because otherwise you just don't have scholarships like that laying around, especially

at HBCUs at the time. And so I was able to get that last scholarship, and the opportunity came for me to really indoctrinate myself into the system. So I went to summer school. I was all in, you know, that was it. If I don't get that scholarship, I don't know what happens to me, because I needed to go to college at that time, things which were just pretty tough in my neighborhood, pretty tough in the city

of Dallas. I had had a history with with the law at going through high school, so I did not want to revisit any of those issues when my mom was trying to use this opportunity for me to move on out of the situation I was in. By the grace of God, Coach Robinson was very amenable to understood what was going on, and typically Coach Robinson, he saw a family that needed help, He saw a mother that needed assistance with her son, and he was there to lend a hand. And I think he could see that

immediately when we walked into the office. I think the desperation on our face was probably pretty pretty palpable because he was able to be very nice to us and and very of commandant. Was it comforting for you to go to an HBCU at that time in your life? To be yes, oh, dad, that's a good question, Fan, I truly needed that. My self esteem was pretty low, which brings out anger in most kids, and I was. I was an angry young man, even going through Grambling

and of course playing for the cowboys as well. I had an issue with the people that didn't agree with me, and I needed the HBCU atmosphere to really give me a sense of self, to learn about my people, and to really have a lot of confidence in how I felt about myself as a person. And by the time I left Grammar State University, I think I was fully armored with all the twos that I need from a

social standpoint and economically as well. Hollywood for you, so you said you started there in seventy one, and I pardoned for asking. But when you were in high school in Austin where the schools already integrated them, No, they integrated and I think seventy I had went to school, Junior High School and University of Texas, Little Junior High, Court, University, Junior High. We integrated it. In nineteen sixty six, Linkston

didn't have scholarships. I told him my mother made a dollar an hour, and they said, were you you good for the pel grant? So I went to my HBCU four years on financial aid. Of course, you know, I never had to pay anything, but scholarships really came along later. I think for the black athlete, the pel grants U were a lifesaver for HBCUs because you didn't have to

pay that back. And so being in All America. You know, I've made All Conference a sophomore year, made All America, my junior year, made four or five All Americas my senior year, and I knew guys on scholarship. But I was doing a lot better because I got access to some money, you know, I to spend the chase. Oh they look at They gave me a check one day they stuck it, stuck a checking through the little thing at at the student and it was thirteen hundred dollars

and my name was on it. She put it through that I took it ran I cash that check. So the next semester I come up there and are you come in here? You're extealing this check. But but the experience with the fraternities and the brotherhood, the bands, the camarade with other guys, crazy people, your name, you know, you name people and the nickname Staywood him forever you know, Um,

I'm oh man, I have to tell you all. One story at Langston when I sort of knew I was pretty good, but we had a thing called bulling the ring, and that means the player gets in the middle of list and put fifty guys around you in a circle, and the coach will call in number, you know, twelve, fifteen. So I was lightening people up, I mean jack and when they came out there running at me, and finally nobody would come. The coach would say fifteen, nobody would come, twenty,

every everybody had a number that wouldn't come. So a lot of fun times um playing at length to university. Yeah, I wouldn't change any part of my my college experience, the relationships, the friendships that are still going ongoing. I'm still friends with you know, all the guys I played with same here. So it's a it's a pretty it's a family affair when you go to an HBCU. And so people will find me on Facebook all the time and I don't know who the hell they are. Then

they remind me of something. Go ahead, go ahead, fact I was gonna say. I was just gonna give everybody some historical reference to back. So Thomas and I are basically the same age. I started college in seventy one, so we were in high school at the same time. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, I didn't know anything about segregation. I went to a high school of about, I don't know, four thousand and twenty five percent of the school was African American. So I just

thought that that was life, right. And so I'll tell and I knew better, but I'm going to give you a story of how naive I was. I was working at the newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, and this would have been roughly forty years ago, and we were doing these neat stories, going into these little towns and doing a story on an athlete from there along with the town's

history and so. And I cannot remember the guy's name, but he was a defensive player in high school and handed up going to Michigan State be Doherty at that time,

and Thomas might remember this. He was he was coming into the South in Mississippi and recruiting the black athletes because they couldn't go to the schools in state, you know, LSU, Alabama, Mississippi, Missississippi states not available to him, right, And so I'm doing the interview and this guy telling me in high school all the awards he got and how good he was, and dumb me goes, you mean to tell me you

were that good. And so he's coming out of high school and about sixty seven sixty six, right, and I go, you were that good and like old miss and Mississippi State didn't offer you a scholarship. He looked at me and he goes, Son, he goes, where did you grow up? At about time? I wanted to just crawl into the ground to do what I had just done, He goes, Those opportunities for people like me weren't available at that time. And the truth because those schools really didn't integrate to

late sixties early seventies for sure. You know, as you as you listen, as you listen to what Hollywood was talking about and his career at Langston, you still had different levels of HBCUs. You know, as you can tell from from what Hollywood was talking about, Langston didn't have many resources at all. As much as you've got Hollywood there, it's pretty I'm sure some other great athletes that were there.

I was blessed enough to go to to really the the the the pinnacle of HBCUs, especially when it came to football. Grambling as much as we were known as this this rich institution at the time, Grambling's home home stadium only held three thousand people, and that that went on until until the Eddie Robinson Stadium was built, so we're talking about it maybe around two thousand. That went

on until around two thousand. So if you're gonna play a game at Grambling, they don't even have the facilities there to where you can set up a televised game. So all of our games, and to me, by the grace of Guy, all of our games were on the road. We had eight road games a year, eight and every time we went on the road, we would play other teams in the biggest stadium in that state. So if we go to play Jackson State at all Corn, then we're gonna play where Old miss plays. We're gonna play

in their stadium. If we're gonna go to Houston, we're not gonna play at Prairie View, or we're gonna gonna play a Texas Southern, We're gonna play in the Astrodome at the time. And so that's what really helped me in regards to my growth as a person, being able to travel to all these different places of the standards that Coach Robinson put upon us as we traveled and how we went to represent ourselves and our university suits and ties everywhere you go. Uh, don't be don't step

out of line. You know we're representing Grambling. It was all about representing our institution. And when you're doing that eight times a year, as well as your homework and this vow that he made to our parents that he's gonna graduate, You're gonna graduate your sons. Uh. It was. It was a type of responsibility that I have never been had to adhere to ever in my life. Those kind of responsibilities, that kind of activity, and that kind of adhering to those kind of things were something new

for me. And it really it forces you when you go to an HBCU. It forces you to grow up and be more responsible, not just to yourself but to your let's just be real, to your race into your school. When when you guys you your football schedule. Did you only play HBC schools or did you play some colleges that were already integrate It depended on I remember my rookie year. I was so mad I did not I made every trip. Uh. My freshman year couldn't believe it.

I made every trip except for when Doug Williams and the guys went to China and played Temple. They went and played Temple and they left me at home. Man, I was so hot, you know, because I mean, I'm a kid from Hamilton Park. I got a chance to go to China, and if I'm not mistaken it with two days to go, they made up their mind that I could not make the trip. So they probably gave my trip up to some professor or something that coach coach rob knew and probably a neighbor of coach Robinsons.

But now I had to stay home and my girlfriend Severn go to you Hollywood? Did you only you were in AIA at that time? Was that right? Yeah? But we were. We were in the Oklahoma Collegiate Conference, so we we played Northeastern, Northwestern, we played Cameron, we played Central State, so we we played Panhandle and and uh so it was it was if if you were to rate our game in nineteen seventy one, seventy two, seventy three, we were like high school sixth a. We had a

motley crew man. But I wouldn't I wouldn't trade any of that. Several guys, Gerard Williams, Kenneth Payne, played in the NFL that played with me. There were year ahead of me, and and I got to play against them. One was with the Skins, one was with the Green Bay UM. But my experience at Langston UM. I worked in the oil fields. In the off season. I would go to Louisiana do lac Venice h Morgan City and I work on oil rigs U for the summer of

seventy two and seventy three. And I was making like five hundred dollars a week, you know, working twelve hours shifts and going in you know, I was on a drilling rig. And and so I would come back to Oklahoma and buy me a piece of a car, you know, I buy a Cadillac, you know, some big piece of you know nothing. Um. But I wouldn't trade the experience of the life on an HBCU campus for anything. Um.

You know, integration came when it came. Um. I even think that I was part of the population of Dallas. I integrated Dallas. I went everywhere in Dallas. I mean I went to places I wasn't supposed to go in Dallas. Yeah, and I'd walk in and sit down, I'm like, what what that's bad? That's reason and the reason I asked that question. So that presentation on the Black College Football Hall of Fame, it was called Black College Football The Road to Equality, and they had an interview with Deacon Jones.

Uh and uh. He was given a speech and it might have been his acceptance speech into the Black College Hall of Fame, right, and he was talking about you know, and this is back in he's in college and around sixty one, I guess and uh, and you know he was HBCU and and basically all they played was other HBCU schools. And his quote was he said I had to get to the pros to hit a white guy. Yeah, right,

you know what He's right. You know, that Deacon Jones talk is the greatest talk I've ever heard about race. That's true, Hollywood, every time they play it, it is the deepest. You know, he integrated football like no. I mean, you know, Dick Knight train Lane, who also went to my high school in Austin, integrated to the Rams and Detroit. But I don't think there's been a better spoken African

American on the experience of equality. And you know when he says I had to get all the way into the NFL to hit a white guy without getting arrested, without getting arrested, you know you should play that. That is that's very powerful. And I'm I'm very, very honor to be in the Black College Football Hall of Fame. As I say to my friends, I you know, I have to make up stuff. I go, I'm in the NFL Hall of Fame. I just came through the kitchen.

Well guess what part of this presentation that I learned? And Everson knows this. So the Black College Football Hall of Fames in Atlanta, but they're moving it to Canton, Ohio. It's going to be a part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame campus area and they're doing it there. So you've you've moved through the kitchen. They've they've already moved. They already have a display in there. Yeah. Right. And I talked to two Tall and made him laugh. I said, yeah, you know, I'm I'm in the Hall of Fame. I

came to the kitchen, but I'm in the hall. Well, you know, in the Cowboys. I mean, so you've got two guys right here in the Hall of Fame, Black College Hall of Fame along with to Tall, Jethro pu uh, Rayfield Wright, Bob Hayes. Uh And I didn't know this one, Timmy Newsom Winston said. And then uh, in twenty twenty

the induction class, Eric Williams has just been selected. So boys, you know, and they've had other guys that when South Carolina State, right, Jumy King also South Carolina State, right, And you know Nce Norman was one of the first guys. Uh it was what J. C. Smith College in in Charlotte,

North Carolina. Uh So there that's one of the oldest black colleges in the country, right right, And you know, and he told me some great stories when he got here and the whole lunch counter thing when Gil was going to take him to lunch after they got here and they wouldn't let him in, and uh and and and and got Jethro Pu was another guy that had gone to HBCU. So there was a Cowboys recruited or I should say drafted well or had guys walk in uh for to to beyond the team. And I was, uh, yeah,

I was surprised. The other thing, I was surprised, and I Hollywood, I had told them, uh Everson about this. Well, there was other guys you mentioned uh Dexter Kling Skills, Jimmy Smith, Jackson State. Remember uh Mark Washington Pedis, I said, fedis North, Yeah, Kenneth Kenny Gant, Payson Hatcher went to Grambling State. Mike Hegman, I mentioned what Florida A and m right? Uh so, yeah, the Cowboys had been very

familiar bringing. But but I didn't realize was all the very prominent players in the NFL that had gone to HBCUs that I I didn't realize guys like Charlie Joyner and Leroy Kelly and regular Art Shell. I had no idea until I saw that and started going through the live I think went to Virginia Union? Was Virginia? Was Maryland Eastern? Did you so when you guys went to those schools, did you know that there were other prominent NFL players already that had gone to HBCUs. Yeah, I

had no idea. I was from Dallas, man, all I knew big from the suburbs of Dallas. All I knew was Cowboys. And even my father went to Prayer of View for one year before he had to drop out. But and he was the first in his family to go to college period. So no, there were some things. I there was a lot, a whole lot. I did not know about it. But what I did come to find out was all those HBCU players that came to

the Cowboys, every last one of them was underpaid. You can say what you want, the plantation mentality was still there, even though we got opportunities that we would never give back. I'm sure Holly would love playing for the Cowboys. To play for the Cowboys American team was amazing. But let's be real. Gil Brant is in the Hall of Fame right now because he was able to fire cheap labor, is to it. Let's just be real. He knew that we were cheap, and he knew we were talented, and

so he was able. And as we went through all our careers, I don't know, probably every HBCU player had to hold out during negotiations at least once undergo. Well, I actually got paid because I was the number one draft choice. Oh sorry, I was just a free energy I'm speaking for the free agency. And then Landry named me for the starting lineup and I held them up. I mean I robbed him. Uh. Gil didn't know what to do, and I just I bought a house. I made him buy me a house and to give me

another sign of bonus. And so we didn't make a lot, but I, as a number one pick, I was able to make a living. Um, you know, still grateful that they picked me. Landry still shaking his head on why he let them pick me. But it was an honor and a privilege to be a cowboy. I tell the story when Hollywood was talking about going places in Dallas that he never should have been. I'm sitting in my own living room, in my mom's house. I'm still at Grammy Stage University, and I look up. I'm talking to

my girlfriend on the phone. I look up. Hollywood is standing in my doorway. I had never met Hollywood in my life, and he's in Hamilton's Park in my house, calling some girl in my neighborhood. How he ended up in my house to this case, I will never know. So, yes, go on places that were surprised the heck out of you, but no one was more surprised to see him standing in my living room trying to call some girl. So

he didn't go visit him in my neighborhood. Hollywood, tell why, I mean, let me tell you what I did to Hamilton's Park was the closest I couldn't go to South Dallas. I lived in North Dallas. But I have to tell you what I did for the Cowboys. So it's uh seventy maybe seventy seven. I go into the shower thing and there was this brillo brillow whatever it was for white hair. You know, put on put you know, make

my hair hard. And so I knew about glycering. Glycering is what to put the Jerry curl in your hair you want. I had hair, but you know, make your hair shine, you know. So I went to the cowboy locker room and raised hell. I said, I want some afro combs, some ice, some some cake cake cake picks, and I want some glycering in here. And Buck Buchanan went down to Halton Park and bought up a bunch

of glycering. So I integrated the hair down cowboys. Hey, and you know what, it's so crazy, Spats when you think about the locker room itself, it was an entity of its own. Not only did you have to integrate the hair products as Hollywood was talking about. From what I hear, Jene Fuga came in and tried to integrate the music in the locker room. Now, the music was all country music. And you know, when when you I would imagine when you're in there every day all day.

After a while, it's just white noise. Nobody really cares about what the music is. But as soon as Gene Fuget went in with different types of music, went in with the R and B music, the pop music, jazz, blues. He had it all because he was a DJ at North Texas State University called flight Time from nine to midnight. I used to listen to him every night when I was fourteen fifteen years old. So he tried to integrate

the locker room in regards to just music. And from what I hear, it was an undertaking as if it was a march on the Petway Bridge in Birmingham. I mean it was that serious to where all of a sudden he goes in, he starts changing the music, and all the white guys go crazy, Hey, who's changing the music? Well, they're gonna listen to music. We want to listen No.

So from what I hear now, I wasn't. I wasn't there at the time, but I heard the story that they had to have this big power out about integrating music. So you talk about, you know, being a micro Cosmo society, the locker room itself was always a Michael Cosmo society. You know. One of the other things they pointed out on that the road to your quality. They pointed out the quality of the players that had gone to the HBCU.

And they pointed out that, you know, at one point Walter Payton was the all time leading rusher HBCU, right Jackson State, Jerry Rice the all time leader still in the receptions and touchdowns HBCU Mississippi Valley State. They mentioned Deacon Jones being defensive end and the strayhand which I had forgotten, had gone to Texas Southern, I believe in single season record for sacks. And they were just talking

about the quality of players they came for. And it wasn't just you know, and I think the thing that mcgoth grammed state that left the league and interceptions three times as well. Right, I heard about this guy, I heard about this guy and that list of players. You have to have your own section right to get your get your name out there. Right. But but and so it appeared to me listening to these guys talk that

they all kind of made their own presentations. Not only were they great athletes, but they they sounded like they matured going to those schools and became prominent people in society. Also, it wasn't just in athletics. And a lot of them were saying, well, this is what raised me, this is why I got where I ended up getting. Yeah. Um, you know, I came into the Cowboys from an HBCU

and we were we were flashy, we were showoffs. We were we talked crap, we talked, you know, and so um Tom and Landry being conservative military background Texas background, um he and I you know, you know, and I had no fear. I had no sense. A matter of fact, I didn't have enough sense to have any fear. Um. I just loved to play football. I didn't. I hated the politics, and I hated the racism. And the racism

was like it was so thick you could cut it. Uh. During my time as a Dallas Cowboy, and there were there were there, there were us and them, and that just ain't no way to describe it. Um. And and I fought against it. I raised hell more times than anybody knows. And um, we won concessions, We won some equality in the Dollars Cowboy locker room. Not because it

was me being crazy. It was because Raphael was watching, and Jethro was watching, and two Tall was watching, and Dick, I mean Gregory was watching, and and Benny Barnes was watching, and Mail noticed and and and so I sort of, you know, made myself the target. But I like to think that, as crazy as one may think, my life was, I played some quality football for the Dollars Cowboys and and and in that locker room. Uh, I made a difference.

All I wanted was respect, you know. I didn't like Jerry Tubbs coming up like this close to my face talking to him. I pushed him. You know, you don't I did. I had to break I hit him. I hit him. I hit him on the sideline. He never came up to me again. I said, don't don't do that. Don't don't do that. You don't come right here. You might have COVID, you know. One of the one of the stories on that presentation, The Road to Equality, Robert Brazil. I guess he played for the Houston I remember right

ilay with him. You did. Yeah, I was on oiler for a little while. For a little while, and he was talking about, uh, he had got invited to play in the East West Shrine Game, which I guess it was in San Francisco maybe back then. Yeah, and he was talking about getting coming off an elevator and it was a black man on an elevator and he said the next thing he knew, there was a gun at his head, like what are you doing there? And somebody with the Shrine game said, well, we're gonna wait a minute.

He's one of our players. And he said, if somebody hadn't spoken up for me, because I was a black man in the sixties on an elevator, I was in trouble. And I think a lot of those those stories probably getting lost because people just assume this is forty fifty years later or everything was just fine. And Everson, you

reminded me and I was listening to it. James Harris quarterback from he basically broke the color line for quarterbacks, and I think one of the people were telling the stories about him coming out of Grambling and they were obviously no black quarterbacks in the NFL back then, and it was like, well, we're gonna look at you as a wide receiver or a defensive back, and I think I don't know if he said it was Eddie Robinson or whoever. Basically told the scout he's a quarterback. Don't

look at him as anything else. And I think you were at least familiar with him, having gone to Grambling Stake. Well, yeah, they called him Shack, So James Shaq Hamms. I don't know why they called him Shack, but that name is with him to this day. I talked to him the other day. He tells a story, of course, when he gets to Buffalo, if I'm not mistaken, because the drafted Buffalo first, and of course they immediately try to put

him at tight end. And so he tells a story of they asked him to running four of your dash, and and you know, if he would have run that four of your dash at a decent time, the way he really could have, then he probably would have been been placed at the tight end position. He said, he ran the slowest for to your dash you can ever run without making it look too obvious, you know, it was. These are the kind of things that they just become

part of our psyche, you know. And the Hollywood talks about how what he had to go through with the Cowboys. I pretty much sounds like my career as well. As soon as I got there, Jeene Stalins first drill, Jene Stalins curses me out, not just curses me out and calls me a boy to my face. And that's that's been documented. You can find that video out there on

YouTube anywhere. And these are kind of things that you know, you you want to react to, but you really can't because you know that your career is on the line, and so it messes with you and it stays with you as well to where you have to take that. It wasn't just about a coach versus player. He would not have called a white player a boy if he would have gotten in his face. It just wouldn't be that type of reaction. So what you saw was you saw what was really going on in the league, and

you saw what you had to deal with. That anger stayed with me throughout my entire career, and it became I became kind of like like Thomas, that locker room lawyer as they call off. And as much as I was mad about, you know what, however the whites treated us, I was able to channel that that locker room lawyer attitude, not just for the blacks, but I also tried to

champion for whites as well. If you had a negotiation problem with the cowboys, which was that was rampant, like like Corona itself, with the cowboy locker room, you were always going to have a negotiation problem. Even Randy White had to hold out for the cowboys fags. I don't know if you were there then, but I was. That was my first year. If you recall, we all had

our fifty four towers on. We had fifty four written somewhere on our uniforms because we want to show that it wasn't just a black white thing, it's a cowboy thing. And that's what we tried to have permeated throughout the entire locker room. But that was on the heels of how management really treated I thought treated the HBCU players throughout my entire career there. So being that locker room lawyer as much as you might be fighting and a

champion for the cause, that's a great deal. But it's gonna it's gonna happen to you like it happened to Hollywood and myself. They're gonna ship you out of there, and I gonna ta in that locker room for your whole career. Just about it. I since you mentioned Randy White, people don't know the story. But in seventy seven, which would been my third year as a cowboy, Randy White and I competed for the starting position a strong side linebacker. And we went through all the training camp and and

I was, you know, I was clowning him. You know, I'm at that covering the tight end. And said, this, how you do it? Randy? You look too big on me, You look tight, You look tight. You can't so so so this is Landry. So obviously I beat him out. I beat m anyway out. They put him in tackle, but they wanted him to play the strong side linebacker. So instead of Landry giving me my victory, I still hold a resentment about this. He said to me, Okay, now you and Hegman are going to compete for the job.

And when I beat Hegman out, Jerry Tubbs comes to me in the locker room and just whispered to me. He said it was real close. I mean, it just couldn't give me the benefit of the doubt. You know, I'm a pro bowler, I'm an all pro. I don't give a damn who voted otherwise. I was a great player, and you can't take that away from me, not quietly, not with a whisper. I am great. You can't take mine. Even you were talking about negotiations. Even Rod had a

hard time getting time. And I don't know if this happened after when you got there or was early seventies, but he he'll tell the story about how he was trying to get in to talk to Texts about his contract and they kept stalling, and he was waiting in the in the old tower right out the central uh and his administrative assistant, Yeah, Tex will be with you, and he said, I waited and waited and waited, and finally it was like, Hi, I know what's going on.

And evidently there was kind of a ledge, kind of a walkway outside the window. It was like seven stories high or whatever, and he climbed out the window and jumped in front of Texts, who was sitting on his desk with his feet up, and all of a sudden he sees his quarterback out on the left, seven stories high. I said to get in. He goes, you're there, right? I got Yeah, I got paid. I finally am I my second contract with the kill Boys, I got a house out of it, some money and double my salary'll

become a starter. I wasn't going to play that first game. After they naming the starter, I had power and I went into Guil and said, this is what I want and they gave it to me. Now, I thought Danny White had funny story about negotiations. So when you were there, Danny ended up being the PUNTERO. Yeah, back up, quarterback, backup.

But he was the punter the whole time. And then when he came the starter in eighty, they kept him as the punter, right, And so he said the next year he went to Gill and said, Bill, you know, you think I get a little extras. You know, I'm the starting quarterback, but I'm also punny. And He'll would tell him, I don't worry, You're not going to punt. He goes, We'll find another punter, and he's in. I funny.

This went on for like two years, and so he said the third year, I went in and I said, look, I'm still the quarterback and I'm still funny, and yeah, he probably have to talk to Tom about that. He goes in and lays his case out to Landry right, and Landry looked at him and they go and he said, you know, Danny, most players in this league, boy, the more they can do for the team, they're glad to do it. And he goes, I had nothing to come back. I just out the door and gave up. Yeah, the Cowboys,

the cowboy I called him the three headed monster. Between texts, Tom and Gil, they had their act together. Man, they knew how to work you over. You know, they knew the worst to say. By the time I came along, man, they were they were adept head you know, kind of stalling and negotiations and things of that nature. They became very prolific and trying to get the most out of you for the least amount of months. I have to tell you one, I got one good story. I got

one good story. I never had the chance to play against Grambling. I really wanted to. And so I was rookie with the Dallas Cowboys, and I looked up and Langston was on Grambling schedule. And so I went to bed that night. Man, I woke up that morning. I called my coach at Langston. I go, how did it go? How did it go? He said, Well, he said, we kicked off in all hell broke loose, maybe the sixty eighth or nothing of something. I was in that game.

I was in that game. I got a reception that game. Yeah, you guys were like a preview of HBCU. They were like six A five eight, Yeah, like five We love. We had a good time going up there. I must say. Uh, the Lanston fans were amazing. They were cheering for us, Hollywood, all of you. Yeah, yeah, but they cheered for us. They didn't cheer for you. Guy. Yeah we were We went eleven and oh and seventy three, and so that

was sort of the greatest season in Lankston's history. So I claim I'm pretty close about fifty four sacks my junior year. One year, you mean one year, one year all my tackle your junior year, but you mean one year, one year. Everybody else make any tackles. Yeah yeah, but they just they just I had two jobs at Lanston, Contain and Gold, and so the contain was first and goal.

So I was everywhere I was in the secondary. I was everywhere when I was when I was working at the newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, so we obviously covered the swack with all the school the HBCUs schools in in Mississippi, and I had just left to come to Dallas, but they were getting ready to have this huge game. Uh, unbeaten Mississippi Valley stayed again unbeaten Elkhorn State. I don't know if you guys remember this. They ended up they were supposed to play the game at Elkhorn and they

ended up saying no, it was too popular. They ended up playing at Mississippi Memorial Stadium. Sold it out sixty three thousand people. Yes, And the station in Jackson actually the day before finally got the okay to televise the game. So that would have been Willie Totton and Jerry Rice at Valley State that was coached by Archie Cooley, whose nickname was the Gunslinger. Right, so this is eighty four. And then at Alcorn it was Marino Cassim. He was

known as the Godfather. So the paper I was working for they wanted to promote the game and it was like during the week, so they had the Gunslinger and the Godfather. They showed profiles of each guy. And you couldn't do this today, right, it's so politically and correct from and they each had had a pistol in their hand and they were like blowing the end of the basic to each other. Those coaches probably loved doing that. They didn't see anything anything for or anything to get

some publicity. Right. Elkhorn ended up winning the game, uh, forty two twenty eight. And you'll get a kick out of this. The guy that made the interception for Elkhorn to seal the game, I could wow. Isaac Hool ended up playing for the Cowboys. You walker trade, Yeah, but it was it was huge and and and then I I understood the you know the value of those games and those institutes. Those coaches were great, They were just wonderful.

I have to stay spans. I have played in many what we call classics, and uh that was that was the norm. We sold out everywhere Yankee Stadium. You can go back and look at the James Shack Harris game versus h I think it was Morgan State at the time. They would. I read it in a book that they had maybe four HBCU Hall of Famers in that game and probably four NFL Hall of Famers ended up coming from that game. Back in nineteen sixty nine, James Shack

Harris tells the story in Hollywood would love this. You know, we're all country boys. They were all country boys that have never been on a plane before back in sixty eight sixty nine. And so these guys Rob hasn't wearing suits. They're probably hot. The suits are probably too too small because they probably never wore them. So they get on a plane and these guys have never flown before. At the plane as the plane takes off, these big guys are trying to find a way to roll the window down.

I'm sorry, man, but that's classic. You know, it's classic. You know HBC players back in sixty nine, they're groundbreakers. But of course we had to do it in a comical fashion. Shack Havs has some of the best stories that you ever want to hear, and to me, that's

one of the better ones. But it allowed us as as young men to really develop mentally and physically, to grow up and to be you know, citizens of the United States, and in a good way to where you know, we tried to contribute as much as we could, more than just being on the field. I mean, that's pretty much the monarch of everyone that I know that went to an HBCU They made a difference, not just before they went to Grambling, but continue to make a difference

after we left left our HBCUs. One of the contributors to the Black College Hall of Football Hall of Fame is Doug william and you would have frost passed with him at Grambling one year. I was there when he was going for the Higsman. I saw it all like it was like watching Michael Jordan and cleats. That's how good he was. And then he ends up being the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl. Did you ever get to play against him from Hollywood? I didn't know. No,

I'm old, You're old, that's right. I didn't know how if he had gotten there early enough. But yeah, you wouldn't a cross paths. But did you understand how good he was? He was a big contributor to the Hall of Fame too, But did you realize how good he was? Everson? I mean you said the black Michael, There's not about it. I actually played against a couple of times in the pros, and man took me a lot to trying to keep him from trying to teast me because he was coming

at me big time. I have some of you know how because you have some of your better games against some of your former teammates, But you know that was that was as important. Doug's senior year going for the Heisman was as important to HBCUs as take Younger being drafted by the Rams way back in the day. That's just how impactful it was on everything that HBCU players did after that, and then as it even continued as

he went to the Super Bowl. You know, he was such an odd of ty to to all of the reporters there, even after playing over what nine ten years of the league. You have these crazy questions and press conferences asking him how long has he been a black collegue?

Has he been a black quarterback? You know, they didn't know what to ask him at the press conference, and thinks that nature and when you look at not just Shack story because Shock and Dug to me or go hand in hand in regards to bringing the Noli riding

to HBCUs. But if you look at what Doug and Shock had to go through from being HBCUs, I don't know how they still have their sanity because that would have really it would have been something that would still be eating away of me even more than it is today. And if you meet these two men, and I'm sure you have stags you would, you can you can see you can just see the royalty in what they're doing.

You can see how not only are they understated, but they're still very ambitious in regards to what HBCUs deserve. That's why we have that. That's so small exhibition there at h at the Hall of Fame right now in Canton, but it's only going to be bigger. It's going to be around I think thirty plus thousand square feet or something of that nature. Right now. Right now, it's no bigger than my den. Okay, that's what it looks like right now. But it's going to be amazing when it's finished.

And that's simply because mister Baker with the Hall of Fame and Shack and Doug have all been in unison in regards to bringing more nor Voety to HBC play. I also want to want to mention that I got a great education at my HBCU. I had to stay eligible, I had to have a certain great point everything, and I'm here to report I am a college graduate from Lankston University and I have an honorary doctorate from university.

Well that's because I gave him a lot of money. Hey, you can get it baby anyway, you guys, I think on that note, with those two comments, I just want to thank you very much, and I want to encourage the people that have listened to us or to go to the Black College Football Hall of Fame and check out the presentation on the road deal quality and just go through and see the guys that have been inducted.

I think I saw in that College Football Hall of Fame thirty one of those inductees had been HBCU athletes. It's really enlightening, especially at this day and age. So I want to thank you guys completely. I know we've taken up your time, but the stories were great, and I hope that everybody that gives everybody some sort of context to history and what's gone through and how far football has come. And it's probably not all the way there yet, but the NFL has made a lot of

progress since probably nineteen sixty. So, Hollywood, thanks very much for just Everson. We'll get going on mix shots here a couple of weeks, hopefully when the Cowboys crank things up, get everybody tested and in building safetally right, so we'll get back going on Dallas Cowboys dot com. I'm Mickey Spagnola and that's mix shots one on one. See you guys,