Who Got What?? Scholarship Offers to Wildcat Greats!!!!

Posted by Dan Jensen

I am in an e-mail group that includes former Clear Creek athletes.  Some respond infrequently but several have had interesting contributions.  Some of those are Paul Hackett, Lynn Davis, Buddy Carlisle, Scooter Lenox, Terry Mathis and Joe Adams.

I knew that Terry went to Sam Houston but, until recently, I never knew that he also had an offer from Southwest Texas out of Paris Junior College.  I knew that Paul Hackett transferred from Rice to Southwest Texas for basketball but never knew that he had a couple of football offers too.

 

A lot of our guys played a college sport and I know the schools but what other scholarship offers did they have?  I hope we have several former athletes that will share this interesting information with us.

 

Note from Ed Davis:  To get you guys started, let me share with you what Paul Hackett sent along on this topic.  Paul says:

 

I will start...
 
Football:  Naval Academy
              Washington University in St Louis
 
Basketball:  TCU
                  Rice...signed with them
 
Baseball:  Coach Tommy Davis told me years later that there was interest,   however, I signed early with Rice and that pretty well negated any further contact.

Now it is your turn, guys!!!!  Add your comments below.

 

 

Comments

[Joe McKinney]

In the old Southwest Conference:

Football: signed with TCU, had offers from Texas , Texas A&M, U of H, and SMU. Had a nomination to the Air Force Academy.

I played 4 years at Harvard. They didn’t give athletic scholarships, so as long as my grades were good enough it was called an academic scholarship, otherwise it was based on need. My Jr. and Sr. year I got to call it an academic scholarship.

By the way, back in the 60’s, but don’t know if it is true today, the Ivy League and the military academies did not honor national letters of intent—so I could sign with TCU and still have eligibility at Harvard and the AFA.

Joe McKinney

[Dan Jensen]

From Joe Adams, a teammate of Joe McKinney on that fine 9-1 team that had the season spoiled by a last game loss to Deer Park:

I had full football scholarship offers from Texas, Texas Tech,
University of Houston, University of Colorado and strong interest from Rice and Texas A&M.
I had my heart set on going to Texas and only visited UT and UH.

Had trip scheduled to Lubbock but did not go because I had my mind made up to go to Texas. I told Coach Gips I was not interested in going to A&M and did not have the academic standing to consider Rice University.

Never regretted choosing UT. Had a successful freshman year. Was on third string and dressing in varsity dressing room during spring training when I separated my shoulder.

During summer I decided not to return to Texas and be red shirted. Attended Kilgore Junior College.

Did not play football at Kilgore but was offered scholarship to Wichita State when Kilgore College coaches took coaching job there. By then I had decided to give football up.

[Buddy Carlisle]

I can't remember all the schools that I had interest from but know that Southwest Texas, Rice and TCU were interested. I visited only Texas and Baylor. I went to UT first and had a great time on 'Roundup Weekend'. Baylor was the next weekend and I fell in love with the smaller campus and friendly atmosphere.

I signed with the Bears and, basketball wise, probably would have done better at UT as they featured their point guard coming off lots of ball screens. That point guard was none other than Harry Larrabee who teamed with Larry Robinson from Hobbs, NM to form quite a duo in the early '70's. Harry was a good player from Indiana and don't know if i would have done as well as he did, but they definitely used his abilities very well, a good penetrator, saw the floor well and could score too. Harry went on to coach at SWT and University of Alaska/Anchorage where he started the great Alaska Shootout.

I loved Baylor but did end up being a way better high school player than a college one. I got to help as an asst. my last 2 years when it became apparent to me that they had no plans to play me. That decision was made by Carroll Dawson, the head coach at the time, and future asst. on the championship Houston Rocket teams and then general manager. Coach Dawson remains a good friend of the Carlisle family today and even attended Billy's memorial service.

I loved my time at Baylor and wish I could have played more but that was life and I learned to live with it. That situation helped me in my coaching career dealing with kids when I had to tell them their playing days were over, the toughest thing about coaching in my book.

[Paul Timmins]

Actually Bennie followed me to A&M (Gods country) as the story goes, I picked Bennie up for school the morning of signing day. Bennie got in the car and said to me, I’ve screwed up Pops I told texas I would sign today and I said you can’t do that we’re going to A&M. Bennie says your right lets go to the gym and I’ll call texas and tell them I am not signing. We called Bob Rogers at A&M he was there in 45 min. Rogers and Metcalf told me I was in. They did say something about having a good sr. year, which I did, thank the Lord. Bennie wanted me there because I am the only one that would pass him the ball, right?
Bennie and I had a wonderful experience at The Texas A&M University, to have won a SWC championship was very meaningful and just a whole lot of fun. I am sure Beno will back this story up.

[Dan Jensen]

"I did have lots of offers but it was pretty clear that I was going to A&M" said Paul to our e-mail group.

Come on Paul, list those offers. That's the main theme of this thread. I really did enjoy the Bennie Story though.

[Dan Jensen]

You know what I would really enjoy? That would be for Bennie Lenox to participate in this blog.

I consider him our greatest player but he prefers the telephone over the computer. Too bad. His brother Scooter has tried to prod him to no avail.

I know it was a tough decision for Bennie to choose between Texas A&M and Texas but surely the state's best player had many other offers.

Maybe his brothers can speak for him.