A history of Texas Longhorn football-baseball athletes
Here is the link to Jonathan Wells whole article A history of Texas Longhorn football-baseball athletes (msn.com)
Research and Story by Jonathan Wells- Edited for TLSN History of Longhorn sports.
Jonathan Wells says:
“The football and baseball programs at the University of Texas are both among the most prestigious college programs in the country, and easily the most high-profile in their sports within the state of Texas. Texas has claimed four national championships in football and has won the College World Series six times since the NCAA Division I baseball tournament was first held in 1947. Not since 1939 has another Texas school won a Division I national championship in football, and all other Texas colleges in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III have won a combined five national titles in baseball (Rice is the only other Texas college to win a Division I championship).”
Many Longhorn student-athletes over the years have contributed to the prestige and accomplishments of both programs. Though it’s very much a rarity now, it was once common for the University’s best athletes to play multiple sports, and frequently that meant suiting up for both the gridiron and the baseball diamond. From the very start of the football and baseball histories at UT, there were figures who were familiar to local fans of both sports.”
Richard Unett “Dick” Lee, who played halfback on the first Longhorn football team, and he was the captain of the UT baseball team before it became a varsity sport.
“When baseball became a recognized varsity sport in 1895, UT’s first team was captained by catcher John O’Keefe, a law student who also played halfback on the 1895 football team.
Over the next 100 years, there were no less than 70 men who won letters at Texas in both football and baseball. The vast majority of them wore a UT uniform between the late 1890s and the late 1930s, and the football-baseball dual athlete was seldom seen at Texas in the years after World War II. There were a handful of notables between the late 1940s and the early 1990s, but they all but disappeared from UT athletics after that.
Of the many Longhorns who played both sports, most were much better at one sport than the other, several were good enough to be starters in both, but only a select few truly excelled in both sports and made an undeniable impact on both the football and baseball programs at the University of Texas.”
samuel Fenner Leslie football — 1900-01 baseball — 1901-02
Samuel Fenner Leslie possessed a combination of size, speed, and skill that was uncommon for his era; standing about six feet tall and weighing close to 200 pounds, he was bigger than most of the team’s linemen of that time and also had the speed to run the 100-yard dash in eleven seconds flat.
In baseball, Fenner Leslie played catcher for two years (1901-02) and was UT’s team captain in both seasons. He was renowned in his time for his power hitting and his strong arm, which he used effectively against would-be base-stealers.
He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1983.
Maxey Hart football — 1916, 1919-20 baseball — 1916-17, 1920-21
Thomas Maxey Hart was the second man to be a team captain in both sports.
He made the All-Southwest Conference football team in 1916 as an end, and in the following spring he played catcher and was captain of the 1917 Longhorn baseball team that compiled a record of 12-3 before spring athletics were canceled early due to the United States’ entry into World War I.
Hart returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1919 and re-entered the University of Texas. He played end on the football team that fall, and a few weeks after the close of the 1919 season he was elected team captain for the 1920 football season. That 1920 Longhorn team was the program’s last one to go undefeated and untied until the 1963 national championship team, and they outscored their nine opponents by a combined total of 282-13.
He played another two seasons of baseball at Texas after the war. He was once again the regular catcher in 1920 and 1921 for two conference champion teams, and as a senior in 1921, he led the team in hitting with a .438 average.
Maxey Hart was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1965.
Bibb Falk- Football at the University of Texas:
Before his baseball career, Falk played football at the University of Texas.
In 1919, he earned All-Southwest Conference honors as a tackle.
baseball — 1918-20
1918 All-SWC at tackle
Bibb Falk played right tackle and served as a placekicker on the 1918 Longhorn football team. That Longhorn team went 9-0 during the 1918 college football season, which was affected by both World War I and the “Spanish Flu” pandemic.
On the baseball diamond, Falk was a star pitcher and first baseman, and on the strength of his performance during the springs and summers of 1918 and 1919, he was signed by the Chicago White Sox of the American League in October of 1919. Falk completed that year’s football season, then was the leading hitter on the 1920 Longhorn baseball team that won the championship of the Southwest Conference for a sixth straight season.
He was not the first ex-Longhorn to play professional baseball, but he was the first to have a sustained career in the major leagues, and he still ranks high among UT products in several career MLB hitting statistics.
Bibb Falk returned to UT in 1940 as its new head baseball coach, and in his 25 seasons at the helm (1940-42, and 1946-67) he guided the Longhorns to 20 outright or shared conference titles, ten College World Series appearances, and the program’s first two CWS championships in 1949 and 1950. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1962, and is the partial namesake of UFCU Disch-Falk Field, the home stadium for
Oscar Eckhardt football — 1922-23 baseball — 1922-24
Oscar Eckhardt was among the program’s most highly-regarded all-around players of his time. An Austin High School graduate, he enrolled at Texas in 1919, but didn’t get his first regular playing time on the Longhorn football squad until 1922. He was a star at halfback for two years and was a triple threat who could run, pass, and punt.
After the 1923 football season he was unanimously voted to the All-Southwest Conference team, and he was given an honorable mention on Walter Camp’s All-America team.
He was also a star pitcher and outfielder for the Longhorn baseball team, on which he played for three seasons. Texas won SWC championships in two of his three seasons with the team, and in Eckhart’s final season (1924) he was an All-SWC pitcher on a team that produced an incredible record of 28-1.
Four years before his first major league baseball appearance, he played his one and only season of pro football. He played in 11 games at fullback for the 1928 New York Giants, which was five years after his final season on the gridiron with the Texas Longhorns. He became the first of two Longhorn athletes to play in both the NFL and Major League Baseball.
Oscar Eckhardt was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1961. He has also been inducted into the halls of fame of the Pacific Coast League and the Texas League for his minor-league hitting exploits.
Ernie Koy Sr. football — 1930-32 , baseball — 1931-33
1933-1934 Edmonds, Andeman, Howle, Koy, Sullivan, Baumgarten, Blanton, Bloebaum, Veltman, Ater, Captain Watson, Disch, second row Lovelady, Stramler, Roberts, Magee, Fuqua, Crow, Conner, Viebig, Tyson, Cole, basebal,
Ernie Koy Sr. was an all-around star athlete from Sealy who excelled on the athletic fields at UT in the early 1930s and was arguably the most decorated football-baseball athlete the University had produced up to that point. In football, he played fullback and made the All-Southwest Conference first team three times, while in baseball, he was thrice a first-team All-SWC outfielder.
Standing six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, he was one of the Longhorns’ two or three heaviest players as a senior on the 1932 football team, of which he was a co-captain. In the following spring, he was the captain of the 1933 Longhorn baseball team and became one of UT’s first two baseball All-Americans, along with his teammate, shortstop Ray Ater.
Ernie Koy is often considered the best fullback in the history of the University of Texas football team. He was named the first fullback on All-Time Longhorn football teams in 1934 and 1935 by notable sports editors in Austin, Dallas, and Waco. His sons, Ernie Koy Jr. and Ted Koy, were also football stars at UT in the 1960s and played on the national championship teams of 1963 and 1969. Ernie Koy Jr. went on to play six seasons in the NFL, while Ted Koy played five NFL seasons. Ernie Koy Sr. was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1960.
Bohn Hilliard football — 1932-34 baseball — 1933-35
Bohn Hilliard running wizardry
Bohn Hilliard was a standout athlete at Orange High School in southeast Texas, where he graduated in 1928. After spending two years as a student-athlete at the Schreiner Institute in Kerrville, he enrolled at the University of Texas in 1930 and played that year for UT’s freshmen football team. Despite taking a year off from school due to academic issues, he returned to UT and joined the football team in 1932. At that point, he was a married 24-year-old sophomore and soon to be a father.
Bohn led Texas in scoring for three straight seasons, finishing his career with 23 touchdowns.
He made the All-SWC first team as a sophomore in 1932, and the All-SWC second team in 1933. He was a team captain as a 26-year-old senior in 1934, and during that season he made a 94-yard touchdown run against Texas Tech, the longest run in program history at the time, and today the second-longest behind only Chris Gilbert’s 96-yard touchdown run against TCU in 1967. He was the recipient of the 1934 Houston Post Trophy, which was awarded to the Southwest Conference’s most valuable player based on the votes of a group of prominent sportswriters who covered the conference.
In three seasons with the Longhorn baseball team he played second base, outfield, and also pitched, and was twice named to the All-SWC team. His efforts on the diamond as a senior in 1935 helped lead Texas to a conference title. Bohn Hilliard was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1964.
Pete Layden football — 1939-41 baseball — 1939-41
Pete Layden was a three-year letterman in football, playing fullback in coach Dana X. Bible’s single-wing offense. He was UT’s leading rusher in both 1940 and 1941, the leading passer in 1939 and 1940, the leading scorer (with 7 touchdowns) in 1940, and the team’s punter in 1940 and 1941. As a junior in 1940 he made the All-SWC first team and was one of the “Immortal Thirteen” players who helped the Longhorns topple undefeated Texas A&M by a 7-0 score. Layden scored the only touchdown in that legendary Thanksgiving Day upset, which denied the Aggies a chance at a second consecutive national championship.
Layden was a captain of the 1941 team- perhaps the best team in school history up to that point — and was the first in program history to be ranked #1 by the Associated Press after a dominating 6-0 start, but finished the year 8-1-1.
Following the 1941 season, Layden was again named to the All-SWC team, and was named to the All-America third team of the Central Press Association, and the AP’s honorable mention All-America team.
Away from the gridiron, Layden played in the outfield for three consecutive conference champion Longhorn teams (1939-41). He was the captain of the 1941 UT baseball team and was the squad’s leading hitter with a batting average of .397, and he was named to the All-SWC team following that season.
In early 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, and two years later he was serving as a B-25 instructor. His football skills were put to good use during that time, as he played on the 1944 football team for Randolph Field air base in San Antonio, which went 11-0 and allowed just 19 total points against a slate of opponents that included five colleges and six military base teams. That Randolph Field team, which was loaded with former college and pro football talents, beat Texas 42-6 in an October 7 game in Austin.
Following the conclusion of the 1948 baseball season, Layden finally began a belated pro football career, by which point he was 28 years old and nearly seven years removed from his last game as a Longhorn, and four years after he’d played on the 1944 Randolph Field football team. Layden quickly became a regular in the lineup and ended up being its second-leading rusher, second-leading passer, and second-leading punter, and he also recorded three interceptions on defense. He played with the Yankees again in 1949, the final year of the AAFC’s existence, then played one more season of pro football in 1950 with an unrelated NFL franchise called the New York Yanks.
Pete Layden was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1961. He and Oscar Eckhardt remain the only two Longhorns to have played in both the NFL and in Major League Baseball.
Bobby Layne football — 1944-47 baseball — 1944, 1946-48
During his four-year career with the Longhorn football team, he made the All-SWC team in all four seasons and won All-America plaudits as a junior and senior.
Layne led the Longhorns in rushing in 1944 and 1946, was the team’s leading passer in every season from 1944 to 1947, became the first Longhorn to pass for over 1,000 yards in the 1946 season, and on the defensive side he had a team-leading six interceptions in 1946.
As a senior in 1947 he was a consensus All-American and finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting. He re-wrote the passing record book at Texas, and his program record for career passing yardage stood until 1986 when it was broken by Bret Stafford.
He also made a big impact in baseball, becoming one of the best pitchers in Longhorn history. He was a member of the team for four seasons, playing as a freshman in 1944, missing the 1945 season while serving in the Merchant Marines, and returning for the 1946 through 1948 seasons. He set career records for wins and strikeouts that stood until the 1970s, and during the 1946 season he pitched the program’s first two no-hitters.
He had a career record of 28-0 as a starting pitcher in conference games while at Texas, and made the All-SWC first team in all four of his seasons on the diamond.
Layne was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1963, and four years later in 1967 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, becoming the Hall’s first Texas Longhorn.
James Street football — 1968-69 baseball — 1968-70
As a sophomore in 1967, he practiced as a backup QB and a backup tailback, and only appeared in a pair of games. He was the backup QB at the start of the 1968 season, which saw the Longhorns unveil the new wishbone triple-option offense. But after struggles in the wishbone’s first two games that resulted in a tie against Houston and a loss to Texas Tech, Street took over at quarterback, while former starting QB Bill Bradley was moved to receiver, then ultimately to defensive back. All James Street did in two seasons as Texas’s starting QB was win games. Twenty consecutive games, in fact. The Longhorns won their last nine games of the 1968 season, capped off with a 36-13 domination of Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl, and were ranked 3rd in that season’s final AP poll.
As a senior, Street was a team captain of the 1969 Longhorn team and started all 11 games at QB during that legendary season, which concluded with Texas beating 2nd-ranked Arkansas 15-14 in the “Game of the Century” on December 6, and then defeating Notre Dame 21-17 in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day 1970 to secure the program’s second national championship in football.
In his three seasons pitching for the Longhorn baseball team, Street made the All-SWC team every year, was a second team All-American in 1968 and 1969, was a member of three SWC championship teams, and helped Texas reach the College World Series in all three years. He was the first Longhorn to be named baseball team MVP three times, and he tossed the fifth and sixth no-hitters in program history. The latter of his two no-hitters was a perfect game against Texas Tech on April 3, 1970, still the only perfect game thrown by a Longhorn in baseball. He was taken in the 31st round of the 1970 MLB draft, but did not have a pro baseball career.
James Street was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1982.
Johnny Walker football (1987-90) baseball (1990)
The Austin American-Statesman ranked Walker as the third overall prospect in the state on its “Fab 50” list for the 1987 class. He was also a speedy outfielder and power hitter for the Holmes baseball team, and after his senior season he was picked in the 43rd round of the 1987 MLB Draft by the Chicago Cubs, but he did not sign with them.
He totaled 19 receptions during his freshman and sophomore seasons at Texas, then he broke out as a junior in 1989 and made the All-SWC first team after catching 55 passes (a new single-season program record) for 785 yards (2nd all-time in Longhorn history at that point) and 4 touchdowns.
After receiving little playing time in baseball during his first two years at UT, Walker played in 35 games as an outfielder during the 1990 baseball season, hitting .326 and helping the team reach the NCAA Central Regional tournament. In the first round of that tournament he had a walk-off two-run double to give Texas a 9-8 win over UT-Arlington, but Texas went on to drop two games to Cal State Fullerton to end its season.
Longhorn coach Cliff Gustafson raved about his potential but lamented his lack of experience, given that spring football practices conflicted with the college baseball season, and Walker had not played baseball during the summers as many other players had. Walker was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 4th round (as the 102nd overall pick) of the 1990 MLB Draft. He signed a contract with the Braves in June of 1990 that reportedly paid him a $172,000 signing bonus and allowed him to return to Texas and play his senior season of football and potentially pursue a pro football career while playing baseball. Walker played in 39 games for Atlanta’s rookie league affiliate in Pulaski, Virginia, then re-joined his Longhorn football teammates that fall.
The 1990 season — the high-water mark of the David McWilliams era — saw the Longhorns go 10-2, finishing with their highest win total since 1983. Walker was again the team’s leading receiver, making 40 receptions for 565 yards, and though he didn’t find the end zone on any of his catches, he still impressed enough to make the All-SWC first team. In the 1991 NFL Draft, he was taken by the Green Bay Packers in the 8th round with the 203rd overall pick. That summer he reported to the Green Bay Packers’ training camp, but he was waived in August and never appeared in an NFL game.
Shea Morenz football — 1993-94 baseball — 1993-95
Shea Morenz was an elite two-sport recruit who came to UT from San Angelo Central in 1992. As a high school senior he was rated as the state’s top overall football prospect — and by some analysts as the nation’s top quarterback prospect — in his class. He was the headline signee of the first recruiting class of newly-hired head coach John Mackovic and viewed as the potential savior of a sputtering Longhorn offense that had averaged under 18 points per game in the 1991 season and brought an end to the tenure of head coach David McWilliams.
The Toronto Blue Jays selected him in the sixth round of the 1992 baseball draft. He was reportedly offered a signing bonus more appropriate for a first-round pick, but he elected not to sign.
After redshirting during his first football season at Texas, Morenz became the starting QB as a redshirt freshman in 1993, and during that campaign he set new Longhorn freshmen records for pass attempts (335), completions (183), passing yards (2,341), and passing touchdowns (13). The 1993 Longhorns finished 5-5-1, but had high hopes going into the 1994 season with the return of Morenz and all-conference wide receivers Mike Adams and Lovell Pinkney.
While Morenz experienced an up-and-down career due to injuries on the gridiron as a Longhorn, his baseball career blossomed after a freshman season in which he hit just .143 in limited at-bats. As a sophomore in 1994, he had a batting average of .330 and was a first-team All-SWC outfielder while participating in both baseball and football’s spring practices. After his injury-marred 1994 football season, he was allowed by Mackovic to skip spring practices and focus solely on baseball, and in the spring of 1995 he continued to establish himself as a bona fide baseball prospect by hitting .338 with nine home runs and 33 total extra-base hits in 210 at-bats, once again earning all-conference honors.
The discussion of whether Morenz would return to football that fall and battle with James Brown to reclaim the starting quarterback spot became moot after he was picked by the New York Yankees in the first round (and 27th overall pick) of the 1995 MLB Draft. He never appeared in the major leagues. He retired from baseball after the 1999 season, in which injuries limited him to just 25 games.
I know of no Longhorn since Shea Morenz’s time who has won letters in both football and baseball.
Honorable Mention
Here are five more football-baseball dual athletes who didn’t shine quite as brightly in both sports but who at least merit a mention in a post on this topic.
James Slaughter “Snaky” Jones football — 1895-96 baseball — 1896-97
Jones was one of the first two men to be recognized as three-sport lettermen at UT, and the first to be a captain in both football and baseball. A resident of Bastrop, he enrolled at UT as a law student in 1895 after graduating from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), and competed in football, baseball, and track & field while in Austin. He was captain of UT’s 1896 football team, and also captained the 1897 baseball team. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1983.
Pete Edmond football — 1913-15 baseball — 1913-16
A Waco High School product, Edmond was one of the University’s top all-around athletes of his era. He was a standout end on the Longhorn football team and played third base on two conference championship baseball teams. In addition to that, he was also twice an All-SWC basketball player, and was a team captain in both baseball and basketball. He was killed in action while serving with the Army during World War I, and was one of four Longhorn football lettermen who died while in service during that war. He was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Honor in 1959.
Football uniform
Fred Thompson football — 1924-25 baseball — 1925-26
Thompson - top row far right
Thompson’s college career is one of the great, if forgotten, “what could have been” stories of Longhorn athletics. A Rusk native, he was a two-year letterman in both football and baseball. He was very inexperienced at football when he arrived in Austin but developed into a regular halfback and a good all-around player. In baseball, he was seen as the best player on campus even as a freshman in the spring of 1924, before he was eligible for the varsity squad and at a time when the team had two future major leaguers on the roster. UT’s longtime baseball coach Billy Disch would later call Thompson, “one of the most brilliant major league prospects I ever saw in a college uniform.”
He was an All-SWC outfielder in 1925 and arguably the conference’s best power hitter. But late in the 1925 football season he suffered a separated shoulder while making a tackle vs. Texas A&M, which ruined his throwing arm. Forced to move to second base because of his arm’s limitations, he was an All-SWC player again in 1926, but he quit athletics after his graduation and went on to a long career as a teacher and school administrator.
1925 football - Top Row- 5th from the left
Ransom Jackson football — 1945 baseball — 1946-47
Jackson graduated from Little Rock High School in Arkansas during the World War II years. After enrolling at Arkansas, he enlisted in the Navy and was part of its V-12 officer training program, which ended up transferring him first to TCU in 1944, then to Texas in 1945. He played football at both schools, becoming the first man ever to play in the Cotton Bowl for different schools in consecutive years. He played on two Longhorn baseball teams that dominated the Southwest Conference, and then signed with the Chicago Cubs in 1947. He made his major league debut in 1950, and ended up playing for three teams during a ten-year MLB career. Notably, he was a member of the 1957 Brooklyn Dodgers, the last year that franchise remained in Brooklyn before its move to Los Angeles. Ransom Jackson is the answer to the trivia question: “Who hit the last home run for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957 before the team moved to Los Angeles?”
Max Alvis football — 1957 baseball — 1958
A talented dual-athlete from Jasper in southeast Texas, Alvis was a member of Darrell Royal’s first Longhorn football team as a sophomore in 1957 and started for most of that season at right halfback. He had skill as a passer, runner, receiver, and blocker, and was noted for his ferocious tackling while on defense. He would likely have been a three-year letterman and an all-conference candidate had he remained at Texas through his senior year, but he was too good at baseball. After playing on the 1958 Longhorn baseball team and leading the SWC in hitting, he was signed to a pro baseball contract by the Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians) in the summer of 1958. (This was seven years before the MLB’s first amateur draft, back when pro teams could sign amateurs at any point in their college careers.) Alvis made his MLB debut in 1962 and was Cleveland’s everyday third baseman for most of seven seasons and made two American League All-Star teams. He retired after the 1970 season.
Frank “Pinky” Higgins and Keith Moreland,
Frank and Keith both played football and baseball for Texas and then played for a combined 26 seasons in the major leagues. ( looking for photos of Frank Higgins)
Calvin Murray:
Baseball: Calvin Murray played baseball for the Longhorns and later went on to have a successful career in Major League Baseball (MLB).
Football: In addition to baseball, he also played as a wide receiver for the Longhorns’ football team.
MLB Career: Murray was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the first round of the 1992 MLB Draft. p1.
Kip Harkrider:
Baseball: Kip Harkrider was a standout baseball player at UT.
Football: He also played as a defensive back for the Longhorns’ football team.
MLB Career: Harkrider was drafted by the Houston Astros in the 1994 MLB Draft. He played in the minor leagues but did not reach the majors1.
Taylor Teagarden:
Baseball: Taylor Teagarden was a catcher for the Longhorns’ baseball team.
Football: He also played as a safety for the Longhorns’ football team.
MLB Career: Teagarden was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 2005 MLB Draft. He played in the majors for several teams, including the Rangers, the Baltimore Orioles, and the New York Mets1.
University of Texas athletes who were team captains in both football and baseball
James “Snaky” Jones - Football: 1896 Baseball: 1897
Maxey Hart- Football: 1920 Baseball: 1917
Ernie Koy- Football: 1932 Baseball: 1933
Pete Layden- Football: 1941 Baseball: 1941
Texas Longhorn football lettermen who appeared in at least one Major League Baseball game, in order of their MLB debut (year in parentheses)
Bibb Falk (1920) Frank “Pinky” Higgins (1930) Thomas Hughes (1930) Oscar Eckhardt (1932)
Ernie Koy (1938) Melvin Preibisch (1940) Pete Layden (1948) Ransom Jackson (1950) Max Alvis (1962)
Gary Moore (1970) Keith Moreland (1978)
Texas Longhorn baseball lettermen who played in the NFL
Oscar Eckhardt
Pete Layden
Bobby Layne
