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News Nuggets, 08.10.04
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

League well-represented on Groza Award list

CHICAGO — Four Conference USA players are among the 30 preliminary candidates for the 13th annual Lou Groza Award, given to the nation's top collegiate placekicker. Dustin Bell of Houston, Stephen Gostkowski of Memphis, Darren McCaleb of Southern Miss and Nick Hayes of UAB represent C-USA on the list of preseason honorees.

Bell returns for his senior season with a streak of 66 consecutive converted extra points, including a perfect 56-for-56 last season. Besides his PAT prowess a year ago, Bell also nailed 14-of-19 field-goal attempts and drilled 54.4 percent of his kickoffs into the end zone, resulting in 36 touchbacks.

In 2003, Gostkowski became just the second player in Memphis history to score over 100 points in a season, tying the school record of 101. He connected on 19-of-29 field goal attempts and successfully converted all 44 extra-point attempts.

McCaleb capped an outstanding debut season at Southern Miss by being named to the C-USA All-Freshman team and earning Freshman All-American honors from The Sporting News. He ranked fourth in C-USA in field goals per game, closing out the season with 14 field goals made in 17 attempts. McCaleb was a perfect 9-for-9 on kicks of 30 yards or less and successfully converted 31-of-32 extra-point attempts.

Hayes enters his senior season at UAB as the schools' all-time leader in field goals made (44) and field goal percentage (.772). He owns eight of the ten longest kicks in Blazer history and is third all-time in PATs. Last season, Hayes earned second team All-Conference USA honors after connecting on 17-of-20 field goal attempts and 26-of-27 point after attempts.

Started in 1992, the Lou Groza Award is named after Lou "The Toe" Groza, the Cleveland Browns Hall of Fame placekicker who is credited with elevating the role of placekicker to one of an offensive weapon and scoring machine. Groza, who played 21 seasons in the NFL, ended his career with 10 league records and 24 Cleveland Browns marks.

Four times players from Conference USA schools have won the award. Memphis' Joe Allison was the first-ever recipient in 1992 and Texas Christian's Michael Reeder won it in 1995. C-USA produced back-to-back winners in 2000 and 2001, when Cincinnati's Jonathan Ruffin and Tulane's Seth Marler won the award, respectively.

Matt Prater of future Conference USA member Central Florida also landed on the list of 30.

No players from Carolinas schools made the cut.

SMU civil rights pioneers set for enshrinement

DALLAS — Jerry LeVias faced death threats, isolation and verbal and physical assaults just to play football for Southern Methodist University in 1966.

The first black player in the Southwest Conference, he came to SMU at a time of racial upheaval at the urging of coach Hayden Fry, who is white.

Their decisions forever changed the conference and will be recognized Aug. 13-14 with their enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.

They agree they sped integration on the football field but, with the perspective of years, disagree if they would choose the same course again.

"No, I wouldn't do it again," said LeVias, who went on to play in the NFL and is now vice president of marketing for a Houston-area court reporting firm. "If it hadn't been for Coach Fry, I don't think it would have happened. But I am amazed by the results we had under the circumstances."

Fry, though, wouldn't change a thing.

"It was one of the best decisions I ever made," said Fry, 75, who coached at SMU from 1962-1972 before going on to Iowa. "It was the right thing to do. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

As a senior in 1968, LeVias caught 80 passes for a school-record 1,131 yards and was All-America. His years at SMU brought the first Southwest Conference Championship in 18 years — since the time of Doak Walker and Kyle Rote — and a No. 9 national ranking.

He helped SMU to its first bowl victory since the 1949 Cotton Bowl with a 28-27 win over Oklahoma in the 1968 Bluebonnet Bowl and finished fifth in Heisman Trophy voting.

Fry, who grew up poor in Odessa, Texas, and had many black friends, didn't realize until junior high that they were treated differently.

When SMU offered the head coaching job to Fry, then a 33-year-old Arkansas assistant, he made one demand. "I told them I wouldn't accept the job unless I could have black players," he said.

After almost a month, the administration relented and said he could have one black player, but insisted on strenuous admission standards, including a 1,000 SAT score. White players only had to score a 750.

It took Fry and his staff two years of screening black players before they found LeVias.

"He had to have real thick skin because there were a lot of rednecks still fighting the Civil War," said Fry, who retired in 1998 after 20 years at Iowa with 232 career wins. "If he would have failed or quit it would have set back the integration of the Southwest Conference."

LeVias says he didn't experience any real racism while growing up in Beaumont, Texas, so he was surprised by some of the questions he got at his first SMU news conference.

"People started asking me, 'Is the conference ready for a colored player?"' he said. "I was in shock. I just said, 'Are they ready for me?"'

No one would room with him. He says most of the players were fine to him on the field but wouldn't socialize with him off the field.

Aside from the athletic staff, his interactions on campus and in the city were almost completely negative. He feels like he missed out on the college experience and still deals with the pain of that rejection and isolation.

"There is a lot to be said about innocence," he said. "I was just like a little puppy and I loved everyone. It was a culture shock."

He dealt with racial slurs in class, on the field and around Dallas. Early in his career, a teammate spit in his face and bruised his ribs after putting a knee in his back. Someone viciously gouged a fist into his eye socket when he ended up on the bottom of a pile. Three bones were crushed that required an operation.

Then there were the things Fry kept from LeVias.

Police screened telephone calls, the FBI investigated bomb threats and checked airplanes and locker rooms for explosives, Fry said.

Before one out-of-town game, there was a report that a sniper was planning to kill LeVias, and Fry's staff informed the other team's coaches.

"When we watched the film we realized that every time Jerry lined up toward the other teams' sideline you could see the coaches scatter," he said. "I guess they were worried that the sniper would miss Jerry and hit them."

LeVias learned to survive and even thrive amid the turbulent racial environment, turning negatives into positives.

"The majority of the time, big plays were made after something bad had happened to me," he said. "They would have been better off leaving me alone."

Both men believe that Fry was fired in 1972 after a 7-4 season because many people didn't approve of black players at SMU.

"People always talk about what I had to go through," said LeVias, who was NFL Rookie of the Year and played six seasons for Houston and San Diego. "But can you imagine what he had to go through. He had guts."

LeVias said many people didn't know or care about his story until December, when the documentary "Jerry LeVias: A Marked Man" aired on Fox Sports Net.

After more than 30 years, the teammate who spit in his face called and apologized. That helped heal some old wounds.

"I don't think a lot of people realized what we did," LeVias said. "We got lost in the shuffle. I think the people of Texas should know this story. They should be proud of what we did in leading the South."

News Nuggets are compiled periodically from staff, ECU, Conference USA and its member schools, and from Associated Press and other reports. Copyright 2004 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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