Joe Nobis
Joe Nobis drowned while swimming near Mansfield Dam in 1968. Tommy Nobis was his older brother. Joe was a member of the 1967 football recruiting class at UT Austin. If he had survived, Joe would have contributed to two national football championships.
Tommy Nobis asked Loyd (my husband) to go with him to clean out Joe’s room. He wanted to make sure there was nothing in his things that would upset his mother. I always thought that was such a beautiful tribute to a strong and loving family.
Joe Nobis younger brother of Tommy Nobis drowned. It was a very sad day for the 1967 Recruiting class with a bus Ride by teammates to his funeral in San Antonio.
Tom Campbell
I cannot drive across the bridge next to Mansfield Dam without thinking of Joe. Mike was dam-sliding with Joe and others that day. When Joe disappeared under the water and never came back up Mike had to go to a pay-phone and called our Dad (Longhorn defensive coordinator). Daddy got in the car and drove to San Antonio to tell Mr. and Mrs. Nobis. He told me it was the hardest thing he ever had to do
Dam It
Posted on September 26, 2011by thecoveyletter
thecoveyletter Robert White
Copyright
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Last year I drove out to Mansfield Dam on the Colorado river north of Austin, the dam that creates Lake Travis. I parked at one end and walked out along the sidewalk to where I could gaze down at the river below the dam where on a spring day in 1968 one of the more traumatic events of my life played out. I hadn’t been here since that day, and as memories flooded in I wept for a group of young men in an age of innocence long gone.
We were heroes of the gridiron, in our own minds anyway. To be a football jock at The University of Texas playing under the tutelage of Darrell Royal was to be a minor Texas god in those days, invincible…and invisible if one chose it. I doubt it is that way today. How could it be? I was completing my sophomore year, had made the travelling squad the previous season backing up an all SWC guard and playing on special teams. Spring training had ended that very morning and we were feeling pretty spunky, ready to get out, drink us some cold beer and kick up our heels out from under the critical eyes of coaches and trainers.
Five of us piled into my ’64 Chevy Bel Air and headed out to go dam sliding. Somehow we managed to pick up a few cases of beer, popped tops and headed to Mansfield Dam. By the time we arrived at the river the back floor boards were heavily cluttered with empties.
As I recall there was a parking area by the river there, under the towering concrete dam, where we left the car and walked to river’s edge with our cooler of brewskies. Not a lot of current there, but the water is icy cold as it comes through the spillways off the bottom of Lake Travis. The spillways are tunnels through the dam midway up its face with moss-covered troughs that run down to the river below. It was a swim of maybe 100 yard from the bank to the edge of the dam. We floated the cooler and, amidst yelps and hoots over the icy water, made our way in a group to the dam where we climbed up and stretched out to dry in the Texas sunshine on the sloping, warm concrete like lizards.
Dam sliding was an extreme sport for the day. The technique was to go back up in the tunnels, run out like crazy screaming obscenities, drop onto your backside in the slimy trough, and go sliding down the steep side of the dam to slam into the chilly water below. The slide down was only about 30 yards, but it was fast and fun. About an hour after we arrived, a group of four freshman ball players arrived on the far bank. As they began their swim across the river, complaining about the cold water, we berated them for being lightweights, wimps. Some came across quickly, and as they were just arriving at the slanted wall of Mansfield Dam, I noticed that one player had turned around and was swimming back toward the shore.
He swam toward the shore for a bit before I realized that Joe was in trouble and beginning to struggle in the cold water. Unlike the typical portrayal of drowning victims, floundering and hollering for help, actual drowning victims rarely make much noise. Joe was quiet and almost peaceful as his forward progress stopped, and I caught sight of the panic in his eyes. I dove in and swam as fast as possible toward him as I heard teammates on the dam laughing and taunting Joe because they thought he was just cold and had turned back. I somehow knew differently.
I did not save Joe Nobis; he drowned that day. I got very close to him, and our eyes met as he took one last gulp of air before disappearing below the surface of that cold, cold water. One or two more strokes, and I would have been able to grab ahold of him. I was winded and unable to hold my breath to go underwater in search of him. I was wild and frantic, but it did us no good, neither Joe nor I. My friend Tully was running along the face of the dam screaming, others were shouting at me “go down and get him,” someone was wailing like a banshee and falling down repeatedly, blood streaming from scrapes to face and knees and hands. I swam onto the shore because it was so much closer. Joe had almost made it back before the water took him.
It took the divers an hour or so to find Joe, and I was asked to identify him, which I did. I remember one of the coaches calling me into my dorm room that night and asking if I was OK. I told him yes, and that was the extent of my psychological support.
And so I wept as I stood looking over the edge of that dam forty-two years later. That may have been the first time. The feelings and emotions of the moment swept over me, and I experienced a sense of relief, almost of elation, as I let it all come back and flow over and through me. I had managed to push it all down very deep for these many years, but standing on top of that dam, I felt the panic, the guilt, and the deep sadness come back like a mighty rush of eagles. I only remember a couple of the others who were there that day. I wonder sometimes how they have dealt, or not dealt, with their experience on that warm spring day at the bottom of that damn dam………….. I was no longer invincible. …… And so I wept for a group of nine young men in an age of innocence long gone.
As a ’75 graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School (San Antonio) – Tommy & Joe’s alma mater ….. I was VERY familiar with Tommy Nobis as his framed picture from the cover of Life Magazine (I think) was over the entrance into the locker room. My trigonometry teacher, Mr. Hutchinson (Hutch), loved to talk about UT, and it was through him I first heard that the legendary Tommy Nobis had a younger brother, Joe. In fact, Hutch said he believed that Joe was going to be even better than Tommy but had tragically drowned before he got to play at UT…………very sad.
Billy, I revisit your FB page from time to time; many I did not know personally, but so many recollections and stories bring it home to me. Thanks
When I was younger, my neighbors were Tommy Woodard and Russell Heald (LSU). These guys introduced … See More.
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Tommy asked Loyd to go with him to clean out Joe’s room. He wanted to make sure there was nothing in his things that would upset his mother. I always thought that was a beautiful tribute to a strong and loving family.
