James Horace Higginbotham (1893-1918)

Higginbotham Was The First Of Three Lettermen (And Four Members Total) From The 1912 Texas Longhorn Football Team To Die While In Military Service.

James Higginbotham- A member of the 1912 team, who died in an airplane training accident in the U.S.

Higginbotham enrolled at UT after graduating from the Terrill School. Playing on the 1912 Longhorn varsity squad as a 19-year-old freshman, Higginbotham saw enough playing time at the end position to earn a letter for that season. He later transferred to Yale and played football at that college as well, earning a letter in 1915 before graduating the following year.

According to a story in the February 24, 1918 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Higginbotham and his friend, “Ensign Lynch” (the story did not mention his first name), took a ride in the latter’s plane, but during the flight the plane’s “steering apparatus” malfunctioned, causing it to crash some three miles away from the airfield. Lynch was wounded but managed to pull Higginbotham from the wreckage and carry him to a hill where he was able to signal for help from the airfield. Lynch ultimately survived the crash, but Higginbotham did not. He was 24 years old.

Though he was not killed in a theater of war, because of his membership in the naval reserve flying corps, he was considered to have died in the line of duty. Subsequently, his name was regularly included in published lists of former Texas students who had passed during World War I.

(The number of men on that team lost in service was close to five or more. K.L. Berry, a tackle on that team who had a long military career, survived the Bataan death march after being captured by Japanese forces in the Philippines during World War II.)