In Black America; The Brenham High School Hall of Honor

Good Bye! From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. Here at Roosevelt Leaks tell it, he owed all of his success in high school with a great bunch of guys who were his team mates. I believe it.

I've always wondered how many players there were on Roosevelt teams. Everybody I know in Burnham claims to have blocked the roads. Germany and trance executive Delbert Baker played with Roosevelt in 1969 and 1970. And as an offensive guard said he is pretty sure he helped Leaks get at least half of his big yarded team. And he already know we're about to keep his team. Somehow I find it amazing that Rosie was able to continue making yards without these guys when he went on to power. John Barnhill Jr. On October 15, 1999, Brinham High School in Brinham, Texas held his first football hall of honor induction banquet to acknowledge the long and successful history of its football program. The initial inductees included three of the greatest players in the school history and one of his most successful coaches. Two of the honorees were Wilson Whitley and All-American Lyman and Lombardy Award winner at the University of Houston and Roosevelt Leaks and All-American in record setting running back at the University of Texas at Austin. Whitley went on to play professionally for the Cincinnati Bengals and using orders.

Leaks played for the Baltimore Cotes and Buffalo Bills in the NFL from 1975 to 1983. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, the Brinham High School football hall of honor in Black America. Wilson came as a young person coming up as a freshman. I was a junior and we saw this big kid down as an eighth grader. We said, wow, we're going to have a team. But he made us better as a team also. I mean, his players, the players that are playing. Yes, you know, you're talking about this record that they had when he was 48-4-1. That's difficult deal with any level of sports. They have that type of record. And you have to play with tremendous athletes around you in order to accomplish that. And sure, Brinham had that during this town. Brinham went through some lean years. But what I hear now, Coach West, we are on the way back up. Roosevelt Leaks, a 1971 graduate of Brinham High School, Brinham, Texas.

Leaks began his football career as a guard and defensive tackle. He holds the school record for career rushing yards with 3691 on 660 carries. Also, he scored the most points in his career with 344. And tied for number one in career touchdowns with 55. Leaks went on to a very successful collegiate career at the University of Texas at Austin where he achieved all American status. He led the Long Horns at all purpose yards in his junior and senior year. In 1973, he finished third in the Highest Win Trophy voting and was named the Southwest Conference Most Valuable Player by the Houston Post newspaper. Also in 1973, he set the Long Horns single-game rushing record with 342 yards. He held that record for 25 years. Today, Leaks is a member of the Longhorn Hall of Honor and his director of appraisals for the Texas Veterans Land Board. To hear Roosevelt Leaks tell it, he owed all of his success in High School to a great bunch of guys who were his teammates. I believe it.

I've always wondered how many players there were on Roosevelt's team. Everybody I know in Brinham claims to have blocked for Rosie. Germania insurance executive Delbert Baker played with Roosevelt in 1969 and 70 as an offensive guard said he is pretty sure he helped Leaks get at least half of his big yardage figures. And you already know where Valkeke stands. Somehow, I find it amazing that Rosie was able to continue making yards without these guys when he went on to college. Delbert was on coach Wasserman's 1969 team. It made it to the state quarterfinals and in 1970 was an all-district selection when that year's CUB team won the district. He's here now to present our Hall of Honor award to his old Chapel Hill friend and High School teammate, University of Texas All-American Roosevelt Leaks. Welcome, please another blocking specialist, Mr. Delbert Baker.

Great honor to be here and I appreciate all of your attendance. Roosevelt, I'm glad you were able to be here and be with us. As you've heard, we've got some plaques up here for you and we'll have to hold up on giving you years because when it came in, somehow another had Kiki's picture on it. We're going to have to get it remade. I don't know how he did it, but he got in there somehow. We're recognizing a lot of athletic ability here today and Roosevelt truly was a great athlete. A lot of you probably don't know that he was also a great baseball player. It's lucky that we're going to recognize him today though for football because I don't believe he's going to get a baseball award. He was a great friend and a great teammate. There are a lot of other teammates here today and I know that all of us are glad that you're here and that we can be here to celebrate this very great day with you.

As you heard, Roosevelt graduated from Brenham High School in 1971. While he was in on the Brenham CUB football team, he established four records. He still holds a top mark for career rushing yards at Brenham High School with 3,691 yards on 660 carries. I figured that up in almost 6 yards of carry. He also scored the most points of any CUB in his career with 344 points. Leaks is also tied for the number one slot with career touchdowns of 55. Among his individual season accomplishments, Leaks holds the top spot for touchdowns in a season with 32 set in 1969. He also owns the second and third best individual rushing seasons. In 69, Roosevelt rushed for 2016 yards on 354 carries.

He was also followed by a senior year when he had 1672 yards on 308 carries. He was all state three times. In 1969 against Taylor, he rushed for 250 yards on 22 carries at same year against Brian Camp. He reported 213 yards on 32 carries. As you know, Roosevelt went on to a highly successful career at the University of Texas. He was all American and finished third in the Heisman trophy balloting in 1973. I don't know, but I believe that at that point, I know he was a junior and I think that it was probably the first time that a junior had achieved that recognition and maybe if he had been a senior, he might have got the award that year. Leaks held a single game rushing record at the University of Texas and in the Southwest Conference with 342 yards, which he sent against SMU in 1973.

That record stood for 25 years until last year when some upstart kid named Williams came along and got a few more yards. Roosevelt also had a very successful career playing professional football. He was drafted by the Baltimore Colts and later finished his career with the Buffalo Bills in 1983. I'd like for you all to help me recognize and thank Roosevelt for those accomplishments if you would Roosevelt. Please come up. I will. You won.

Thank you. Thank you, my teammates. Thank you, Val. Many of you have had a lot of fun. Let me do this first. My parents, Mrs. Roosevelt, Lisa here. Got some friends from me from Austin, a line of bending who's a teammate of mine at the university. Then I get to my family, my wife, Beverly, my son, my son, Prince, my daughter, Sabrina. As Prince, he could stay down here with me tonight to watch Brennan play, but I don't think that's going to happen. His coach informed me that if he could not get back, he would come and get him. So he can play tonight, they are planned, or they are tied, or for first in their district up in Austin. He goes to their high school, they're in Austin. He's also playing to be a running back, but we know how that is.

And he plays linebacker, but it should be interesting to see how he comes out next few years also. It should be important points of the day for all the players who play with me and play with Wilson. Would you please stand? Now, that's what we're going to get the hands in. Both Washington, we had some good days. We had some great teams out from Chapel Hill. Many days, it took us a whole lot of times. It was probably five, six, seven of us started out as freshmen. Many evenings, we had to get a ride back down to Chapel Hill from Brennan to High School. And a lot of days, once we got to be a junior, seeing you at Val would bring the little, the grape limit, the purple limit.

Oh, excuse the blue van. We would ride in going back home. We've had some good days. La Roche, for you at. Well, that's what I'm saying. Oh, as he said, he was one of my blockers too. If it wasn't for him, it wouldn't have happened. But Brennan was very good. We had some good teams during the days and tremendous athletes that showed the tenacity to win. And that's what it was all about. As Lawrence talked about Wilson, you got a great player in Mr. Wilson Whitley. And when Wilson came as a young person coming up as a freshman, I was a junior. And we said, this big kid down as an eighth grader, we said, wow, we're going to have a team. But he made us better as a team also. I mean, his players, the players that play with him. Yes, you know, you talking about this record that they had when he was 48-4-1.

That's difficult deal with any level of sports. They have that type of record. And you have to play with tremendous athletes around you in order to accomplish that. And she or Brennan had that during this town. Brennan went through some lean years. But what I hear now, Coach West, we are on the way back up. We're on the way back up. As Deborah said, most of my family, my father, his brothers, most of my cousin, all the ones, were most of baseball players. And while I didn't develop all those skills that they had, I don't know. I just wasn't, I got a little wider, little bit stockier. So that's how I ended up playing football. But as we all know that the class of 70 won the first state baseball championship down here also. And I was a member of that team.

You remember that? Yes, we remember. I would know we won some state championships that time. I started to write a speech. I wrote it three or four times. In able to come up right. See, they all make sure you take care of all the need. As I was saying, after I did a whole lot for me, gave me an opportunity to get an education at the University of Texas. That was my child's skill there. I also wanted to go to the University of Houston also, but something happened that they stopped recruiting all of a sudden. And I ended up at the University of Texas only because they signed four or five other running backs out of Florida before they can get to me. But that's fine, too. My coach is at Coach Dave McWayne, who recruited me from University of Texas. We had some good times there. My biggest problem when I first got to the University was learning how to play on Astroturf, which was very difficult for me.

I had several injuries starting out that plan, but finally I got a little bit helping and got a chance to play. Yes, I did accomplish a lot of things at the University, but like when I was here in high school, when I was at the University, I played with tremendous athletes. As Val said, yeah, I kept running, but I had to play with tremendous athletes. When you play with tremendous athletes, great things will happen. And it just will happen that I happen to be the one that cared about. But the players that I played with, they had a whole lot to do with, I mean, a tremendous amount. If it wasn't for them, I'll play it on teams before that we didn't have all ways tremendous athletes that play. And it's dope, but you got to have the talent if you want to be the winner. I've done the field now the desire to win. It's a different story, but you know, everybody has that desire to win, but you got to play it out and get it done.

Those of L leaks, all American University of Texas at Austin, and professional football player. One of the other inductees until the Brinham High School Hall of Honor was Wilson Whitley, who graduated in 1973. From the moment he stepped on the field, he dominated the defensive side of the ball. He was a four-year starter, and in his four seasons at Brinham, the Cubs were 48, 4, and 1. Whitley went on to play for the University of Houston, where he earned a birth on the Southwest Conference, all-decade defensive team of the 70s, and was honored as college football top lineman with the prestigious Vince Lombardi Trophy. He played six seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals, including Super Bowl 16. In 1983, he finished his professional football career with the Houston owners. Wilson Whitley was a great human being and a great person, and I want to share with you a few of his awards to start out. He was the Lombardi Award winner, that is given to the best lineman in the nation.

He was a Southwest Conference Player of the Decade for the 70s, considering that Wilson only played in the Southwest Conference for one year, because you of H came into the Southwest Conference's senior year, that's quite an accomplishment. He, of course, was a consensus all-American. Houston Post named him Player of the Year, Washington Touchdown Club named him defensive player of the year, and he was named by a Texas football onto the post-war all-time Southwest Conference team. He was a first-round draft choice with the Cincinnati Bengals, eighth player taken overall, and he participated in the 1983 Super Bowl, quite an accomplishment from a young man from Old Washington in Britain. But if Wilson were here today, I know what he'd say. He'd tell you that being a husband and being a father was his greatest reward, and that the admiration and friendship of his teammates was his greatest accomplishment.

Wilson epitomized the word team. There was no premonition about Wilson. He was a hard worker who led by example. He had the respect and respected his coaches, and he had the admiration of his players and his players at My Heart Wilson. In thinking back and trying to relate some of the things that went on, there was only one time, Wilson, I never heard Wilson say a bad word about an opponent or another coach, or one of his teammates. He did like to whine to the official a lot. I will say that, and Adelaice can probably tell you that probably did stop when he got to U of H. Or when he wrote the Finns of Daddy for that matter. But I do recall one time when Wilson did get a little angry, and it was one of our games, and I can't even remember who it was, but you know, when other teams are kicking extra points, there's usually not a lot to do.

So I decided that I would, I'd never block the kick, and I'd like to try one. So I lined up at my lineback position, and Wilson got down, and I saw this, you know, that looked like a great springboard. So as they snapped the ball, I came up behind Wilson, planted my foot firmly in his back and went as high as I could, and I heard this terrific groan, and we all landed in his pile together and folks everywhere. And Wilson looked at me with this fire in his eyes that had never seen before, and he said, who did that? And now you have to understand that that I wasn't fast, and I wasn't big, so I had to be smart. I had to be decisive, and I had to use technique, and I used one of the techniques that I'm still using today. I pointed right at Roosevelt Leaks and said, he did it. Wilson played at Brennan High School from 1969 and 1972. Those teams established a four-year record of 48 wins, four losses, and one tie.

That is, over a 90% success rate, for you lineman out there, that's good. Roddy Holland, you there? Roddy, that's good. In 1969, as a freshman, he was all district, and 70 received all state honors, and 71 and 72, in addition to being named all state, he was a parade all American. Wilson was highly recruited and attended the University of Houston. There he had an outstanding college career, and in a senior year in 1976, he helped lead the U of H to their first Southwest Conference Championship, and a victory in the Cotton Bowl. In going through the press flippings of Wilson, I came across something, and I want to read this for Rosie's benefit, because I have to say a little bit about Rosie, too.

It says here that in 1976, a near perfect defensive performance on the road against the University of Texas University, I'm sorry. In the Cougar defense, held the long horns to eight total first downs, and 24 net yards rushing on the way to a 30 to nothing victory. And I just want to rind everybody that Rosie left in 75, and I always said that he would leave a huge void in the Texas running game, because I didn't think that Earl Guy was very good. But he proved me wrong, too. Wilson, unfortunately, suffered a fatal heart attack on October the 25th, 1992. Today, we honor his memory as well as his accomplishments. And to accept this award on behalf of Wilson in the rest of Wilson's family, Jerome Aguilar, his son is here. Jerome, would you come up? Okay.

And speaking on behalf of the family is one of Wilson's best friends, Eli's Blackwell. Eli's is also here representing the University of Houston. Again, I get the opportunity to speak on Wilson's behalf. It seems like Wilson won't leave me alone. I met Wilson. A matter of fact, I met Wilson and Brennan. We were being recruited by a TCU and a plane had flown down to Cairo and picked me up, and then we had flown back to Brennan to pick Wilson and Cleveland Franklin up. And at the time, we couldn't find the airport. So we circled and we circled and we circled. So finally, we found the airport. We saw Wilson down on the ground. So I guess that helped us.

We found the airport and we picked him up. And from that point on, my life has never been the same because he has constantly, you know how you can have that thorn in your side. Well, Wilson was a thorn in my side. No matter what I did, he was constantly there, agitating me. I go out on the field and I play and I come back and you say, you scared, aren't you? It was a fail. You know about how he is. And I'd say no. So finally, he graduated ahead of me because I was redshirted. And so we had won the Cotton Bowl the previous year. And we opened up number five in the nation that year. And UCLA was number six. And so they switched the game from Saturday to Monday night. So we were the second game, second game in the history of college football. We played on Monday night with Harold Cosell and the rest of the guys. So Wilson had played Cincinnati. He was with Cincinnati and he had played Houston that Sunday. So he stayed over for the game.

And so the game started. So he was on the sideline. The game started and I caught a ball out in the flat. And at that time, I got hit. And as I got hit, my helmet came down and I got cut right right up under here. So I go to the sideline and they have me on the sideline. And they, and I'm looking up in the dome and they try to stop the bleeding in the doctors and the trainers are saying, well, do you think we have to take him in and stitch him up now? Can we just wait till later? And at the time, vanity was pretty much a part of me. I'm thinking about I got cut in the face. I'm bleeding. And we three minutes deep in the game. And I don't know if I really want to go back in there. But I hear this voice says big home. I know you're going back in there. At the time, I was like, why is he here? Why is he here? So with Wilson being on the sideline and knowing that after the fourth quarter and the game and I have to put up with him, I figured it was better for me to go back in there. Now, I could arrested on my laurels the fact that I was the most valuable player of the cotton mold the previous year and nobody would have said anything on the team, but Wilson would have said something.

So I go back in there and we went to game and I get the MVP of the game. And the reason why that I tell you the story is because I think that everything that I achieved in sports as far as from the University Houston on playing with the Dallas Cowboys. Wilson was responsible for it because it's something about being around the best on a regular basis will bring out the best in you. And Wilson had that unique talent of being able to bring out the best in anyone that he was around. He was not only a great team player, but he was a great person. He was an extremely great diplomat. I think that Wilson could have been anything that he truly desired to be. Also, he thought he could do anything. Now, he was close to, he was about 280 pounds. Wilson thought he could play basketball, he thought he could dance. It was nothing that Wilson didn't think he could do. So I'm just happy that I, and we used to kid him all the time about Brennan.

Brennan really does have a great sports audience. And we used to kid him all the time and drive down to 90 real fast and come up here and get some food. And Bluebell ice cream. So again, you know, I think Wilson Willie was probably one of the best teammates I've ever had. And I just thank God that he gave me an opportunity to not only be his roommate my first year, but to be his best friend. A loose Blackwell former professional football player. If you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Alvarez, I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. And please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, communication building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas 78712.

From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. Join us this week on in Black America. We are here today to honor a respected long time coach and three great All-American football players. All of them share a common thread and involvement with Grinem High School football. Grinem High School football hall of honor induction ceremony this week on in Black America.