Four decades later, Texas legend Brad Shearer still rocks

ByLARRY CARLSON Aug 30, 2019

The last Longhorn to take home the Outland Trophy — some four decades ago — is allowing himself a short break from another busy workday to reminisce a little on this broiling summer afternoon.

A framed poster of Vince Lombardi’s “What It Takes To Be Number One” credo is the only noticeable hint of football ties in an otherwise basic, utilitarian office.

But Brad Shearer still vividly recalls one of the most storied defensive plays in Texas Longhorn lore.

Just a few minutes remained on the clock at the Cotton Bowl that steamy October day in 1977. Texas was clinging to a 13-6 lead, but Oklahoma had driven to the UT 5-yard yard line.

It was fourth-and-1.

A year earlier, a terrific Texas defense — without much help from any offense — had played an all-time gem, allowing a potent Sooner team just two first downs until a Longhorn fumble gave OU some momentum and then a touchdown to tie the game, 6-6, with 1:38 remaining. Oklahoma’s center then snapped the ball over the kicker’s head on the PAT attempt and a desperation pass was intercepted.

The game ended in a deflating tie.

Darrell Royal exited the field, bent over and dry-heaved en route to the locker room. Less than two months later, as soon as his only non-winning season (5-5-1) in two decades at the Forty Acres was over, Royal would retire.

A year later and Texas was a different team, with youthful coach Fred Akers unleashing Earl Campbell from the wishbone into the veer and I-formation. OU was again a top national contender, entering the day ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25. Texas, a surprising No. 5, had outscored its first three opponents 184-15 and was on the verge of a huge win.

But now the Horns were facing a nauseating case of deja vu.

***

Shearer enjoyed one of the finest careers ever for a Texas defensive player, winning the Outland Trophy in 1977.

Shearer’s Texas class might become the fourth straight class with not a single “W” against their arch-rival.

Thomas Lott, Oklahoma’s jet-fast quarterback, looked over the line and took the snap.

“Thomas took the ball down the right side,” Shearer narrates now. “I just scooted all the way down the line and Thomas decided to cut it up.”

The rest is in the UT history books.

“Johnnie hit him high and I hit him low.”

No gain.

Texas, backed up against its goal line, then managed only one yard on three runs. But All-American punter Russell Erxleben coolly launched a 69-yard rocket and Texas finished out the drought-buster victory.

“(The ’76 tie) was probably the most frustrating moment of my entire time at Texas, and probably the best moment was when we beat ’em,” Shearer explains, leaning forward from behind his desk at work in San Antonio.

The ’77 season is one of the most beloved in Longhorn history. The Horns, picked for a second-division finish in the Southwest Conference, went 11-0 in the regular season.

They beat OU after UT’s first two quarterbacks went out for the season in the first quarter. Untested Randy McEachern aided more than a bit by Campbell’s Mmm-mmm good Heisman season, then capably managed the offense.

The defense didn’t even surrender a rushing touchdown until game eight. And a standout defender named Shearer was a consensus All-American and became the third Longhorn in 15 years — following Scott Appleton in ’63 and Tommy Nobis in ’65 — to win the coveted Outland Trophy, awarded to the country’s top interior lineman.

No UT player has won it since.

Ten years before Shearer’s finest season, he had been just another pre-teen with music on his mind at least as much as football. One of his young buddies was a guitar player, so Brad signed up for lessons — $5 per hour — from the boyfriend of his pal’s big sister. The accomplished tutor had a garage band, the Moving Sidewalks, that was getting some acclaim in Houston. After months of working with Shearer, he provided sage counsel.

“One day he said, ‘’Brad, you’ve got to find something else to do because you’re tone-deaf and your fingers don’t work on the guitar,'” Shearer laughs now. “So I took that advice.”

And so it was that Billy Gibbons, soon to be the frontman/lead singer/guitarist for ZZ Top, had perhaps first nudged a growing boy away from chasing dreams and onto catching ball carriers.

Shearer’s profile photo representing his induction into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame shows off his long locks from his Westlake days.

High school was an odyssey for Shearer. Born and raised in Houston, a teen-aged Brad had been forced to adjust to the death of his father several years earlier. He and his mother, an apartment builder, bounced back and forth between Houston and Austin. He played freshman football at Austin’s powerhouse Reagan High in ’70 when the Raiders won state, then was set to play both ways at Houston’s Robert E. Lee as a sophomore.

But he was denied eligibility in spite of a “single mom” plea. Now it was back to the Capitol City for the first day of Brad’s junior year. His mother was having a house built on the outskirts of Austin and Shearer showed up for classes at a 2A school (when 4A was the state’s largest classification) named Westlake, in just its third year of existence.

Forty-seven years later, Shearer sports a mischievous grin as he flashes back to day one in the Westlake counselor’s office. He noticed her dialing up someone on her phone and saying, “Some big sonofagun just checked in here. This guy’s like 6-3 and 240.”

When Shearer got out of first period, Coach Ken Dabbs was waiting for the king-sized kid.

He had him report to the coach’s office for sixth period, promising to get his class schedule adjusted. They talked for most of practice, Dabbs quickly arranging for a big, big uniform to be shipped in pronto from Rooster Andrews’ Sporting Goods.

Shearer managed to suit up late in “sticky, never-been-washed pants” and walked onto a dirt field for the last bit of practice. The Chaps were running 220s.

Not having done much in the way of football for a year, Shearer was quickly gassed and remembers being “clapped in” by the rest of the team, urging on their new, XXL teammate.

Still, Dabbs thought he had made a catch. And Shearer, for his part, proved to be a powerful persuader.

Brad’s face crinkles with glee now, recalling his words to Dabbs.

“Coach, I’ve never run 220 yards to tackle or block anyone. If we can cut those (220s) down to forties, I’m in.”

As Shearer recalls, Dabbs said, “Well, I’ll think about it.”

“The next day, Coach lines us up after practice and says ‘Aight, let’s get 10 forties,” Shearer laughs.

Maybe Brad’s teammates were beginning to like the newest Chaparral.

But one thing grated on the veterans. They were all following the rules of the times, with hair neatly trimmed above their ears, and the transfer guy had bushy, long hair.

“Hell, it was the ’70s,” Brad shrugs.

Looking back, Shearer says two team leaders, Beck and Ingraham, went to Dabbs and asked him when he was gonna make the big guy cut his hair. The two stud veterans didn’t appreciate the preferential treatment of Shearer in an era of longer and longer hair among not just high school and college students but even many athletes.

Shearer remembers that Dabbs pondered the question, then surprised Rick and Alec with his response: “Well, I don’t know about you boys, but…I’m thinking about growing mine out.”

Talk about a players’ coach. Dabbs might have been the first one.

“By the end of that season, our whole team looked like Golden Richards wannabes,” Shearer cracks, with an arcane reference only old-school Dallas Cowboys fans can appreciate.

***

Long locks aside, it was the start of golden years for the new school, its coach and the biggest, most talented Chaps.

In less than 18 months, Dabbs would become a UT assistant coach and the recruiter in charge of bird-dogging a certain stud running back out of East Texas.

Dabbs knew talent. The Longhorns and the former Westlake boss would sign three recruits from the small 2A school in 1974 — Shearer, Ingraham, and Beck. Beck would be dogged by injuries at UT but became a big-time businessman and philanthropist. He died tragically in a helicopter crash at age 50. Dabbs would become a longtime coach and ace recruiter — he’s now in the Longhorn Hall of Honor — while Shearer would win the Outland and Ingraham would earn All-SWC honors at guard, paving the way for Campbell.

“The Tyler Rose” always credited his offensive line at Texas, regularly singling out Rick for his prowess and commitment, later calling Ingraham “the toughest man I knew.”

It was quite a crop from little Westlake.

“Coach Dabbs was absolutely the best thing that ever happened to me in my life,” says Shearer. “I mean the guy took me in.”

Shearer didn’t even make a campus visit to UT. He did take a recruiting trip to OU but says it was merely a favor for a Sooner player, Obie Moore, who had befriended him back in his days at Reagan. Texas A&M recruited him hard and Shearer’s dad had been an Aggie as had his godparents and many family friends. Shearer remembers being in Kyle Field in 1967, wearing maroon and white, when the Ags beat Texas the only time in Royal’s first 18 seasons at UT.

But Shearer didn’t have any doubts about where he would choose to matriculate. Dabbs told Brad what time Royal would phone about a scholarship, and the youngster immediately accepted the legend’s offer.

“I just wanted to be a Texas Longhorn,” says Shearer who still sports his cherished “T” ring on a beefy finger. “But I got a lot of calls from my dad’s friends when I signed with Texas.”

***

Shearer played on Royal’s final squad in 1976, a 5-5-1 season for the Longhorns. (Photo: Bettmann, Getty)

When Shearer showed up for two-a-days preceding fall classes in August 1974, Texas was coming off six consecutive Southwest Conference championships, including two national titles.

His freshman class was not the first to be eligible for varsity play (that had come in ’72) but it was the first smaller signing class — as regulated by the NCAA — that provided fewer players, resulting in no freshman teams for experience. Every recruit was now essentially “on varsity.”

Brad had two close buddies, Ingraham and Beck, to ease him into the process and quickly recognized another fellow freshman when the muscular young man appeared.

“I was sitting in the locker room when Earl walked in. Gee whiz, he looked 30 years old, like he was literally chiseled out of stone,” Shearer recollects. “I was happy he was on my team.”

Midway through two-a-days, before classes started, UT’s Memorial Stadium opened up for its first-ever rock concert. Call it fate. It was “ZZ Top’s First Annual Barn Dance and Barbecue,” with Gibbons and his now renowned “Li’l Ol’ Band from Texas” headlining over Santana, Joe Cocker, and others. Plywood, bandstands, monster amplifiers and all the accouterments of a music festival rocked and littered the football temple from 3 p.m. until midnight, with 80,000 fans attending despite the Labor Day weekend heat.

“We go to the concert, we party. No way they’re gonna have this field cleaned up by tomorrow for two-a-days,” Shearer’s freshman reasoning went. Maybe there would be a day off.

“We show up and, man, everything was gone.”

The show — rugged practice time — would go on. But not any more concerts, not under Royal’s watch.

Fuming about holes burned in the new Astroturf, “Daddy D” wanted UT out of the rock ‘n’ roll biz. When Royal talked, the power brokers listened. The Longhorn Band would provide the venerable stadium’s musical entertainment, and not another concert was hosted there until 1995.

When the ’74 season began at last with a road win in cooler weather against Boston College, Shearer still wasn’t settled in, not knowing whether the coaches who wanted him on offense would win out over those, like Brad, favoring defense. But injuries quickly knocked out two veterans on the D-line and Shearer was glad to have a mentor in a talented senior who helped him learn the ropes and become a starter by late in that first season.

“Doug English taught me how to use my hands,” Shearer says. According to Shearer, the senior tackle who would go on to Pro Bowl status with the Detroit Lions, repaid Shearer’s gratitude by telling others that Brad’s presence helped him by sometimes putting double-team blocks on the freshman, freeing English from the burden.

***

Shearer helped Texas win two Southwest Conference titles in his time with the Longhorns. (Photo: Photo via University of Texas, 247Sports)

As a sophomore, Shearer made all-conference for a team that went 10-2 behind the offensive 1-2 running punch of Earl and Marty Akins and a defense paced by Brad and a pass-rushing freshman runt named Tim Campbell, one of three Tyler siblings on the squad.

Things went sour in ’76. Injuries and the lack of a running quarterback to guide the wishbone doomed Texas to the aforementioned 5-5-1 record, and the resignation of Royal, weary and ready to abandon the headphones at the age of 52.

When Akers was named to replace Royal, Shearer and those in his senior class were already familiar with their new boss. Akers had been at UT as an assistant before taking his first head coaching job at Wyoming for two seasons. But familiarity did not breed complacency.

Shearer missed spring drills to successfully rehab an injury, then found himself at “like, seventh string” when the fall depth charts appeared in August.

“You had to go prove yourself all over,” says Shearer, acknowledging the ways of a new coaching staff, “but by the end of the first week I was starting.”

As already documented, the season was a magical one for Akers, Campbell, Shearer, McEachern and the entire Longhorn Nation, long before it was referred to that way.

But while Texas closed out a perfect regular season by throttling A&M, 57-28, in College Station — 10 years after a pre-teen Shearer had rooted for the Aggies in the same spot — one key piece of the Longhorn team went down. All-SWC middle linebacker Lance Taylor separated a shoulder. He would miss the Cotton Bowl matchup against Notre Dame, essentially a national title defense for number one Texas.

With Taylor out, Texas shuffled the defensive deck but had no real experience or talent to replace him. And then there was this: The Horns handed over six turnovers after a year of very, very few giveaways. The Irish had only to move 30 yards or less for their touchdowns in what turned into a nightmarish day for the burnt orange.

For Notre Dame, it meant an instant national title that the Domers, previously ranked number five, probably shouldn’t have had a shot at.

“Ever have a bad day, man?” a stunned Akers later asked some of us in the assembled media in a hushed locker room.

“We had a bad day, man,” he answered himself.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about the Notre Dame loss,” Shearer confesses now. “We all played pretty poorly.”

***

In the spring of ’78, the Chicago Bears selected Shearer in the third round of the NFL draft.

What had seemingly come easy at Westlake and UT — winning and success — wasn’t simple with the Bears of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Shearer was nagged with knee problems and forced to sit out the entire ’79 season, the only winning year in his career that came to a close during the 1981 season. Repeatedly having to have a knee drained and unable to compete at one-hundred percent health-wise, Shearer said he woke up one day and simply said to himself, “I’m done.”

“It wasn’t that tough because they didn’t pay us anything,” Shearer grins wryly.

“I really enjoyed it and I liked the organization,” he says of his time in the Windy City, just a few years before Mike Ditka rebuilt the Monsters of the Midway and won a Super Bowl.

“When I played, I played okay but I couldn’t play (a full season each year) with a bad wheel,” Shearer concludes.

These days Shearer plays the role of a busy, involved, veteran businessman. He’s Vice President of Satterfield & Pontikes, a leading San Antonio construction firm. He’s a veteran road warrior, too, still commuting back to Austin where he resides with his wife of more than four decades, Nancy.

They have a daughter and son — Calen, who lettered in football at Texas Tech and now serves as Business Development Manager at the same company as his dad. And both kids have provided Brad and Nancy with plenty of joy in the form of one grandkid each.

“I’m fortunate my kids and grandkids live in Austin,” Shearer beams. “We see them a lot and we have a great relationship.”

In the little spare time Shearer has away from work and family, he says he still likes cranking up the old-time rock and roll, especially the tunes of ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones. And he enjoys hunting and some bay fishing while also maintaining long-time bonds of friendship.

“Rick Ingraham lives down the street from me,” Shearer smiles. “Really a bunch of high school guys I ran with is who I’m still running with.”

And Shearer is a season-ticket holder for Longhorn home games. He was happy with last season’s progress and looks forward to this fall.

“I think we’re showing something. I don’t like losing four games but nobody does.

“I think they’ve changed the culture. I’m excited about it. I know it’s a grind but, hey man, you want to be successful, you’re not gonna sit around at a country club and do anything.”

Shearer readily acknowledges that playing defense in today’s college game is not what it was, for better or worse, four decades ago.

“I liked lining up, knowing they’re just comin’. To me, that was football.

“The game is fast now. I don’t think I could chase the quarterback 27 times a game,”

***

Shearer loves what Ehlinger, he himself a Westlake product, brings to the field. (Photo: Chuck Cook, USA TODAY Sports)

The ’77 Outland winner knows other things have changed in college ball.

“When (the coaches) cut us loose after spring, we didn’t see those guys until two-a-days. These guys are going year-round. They put in a lot of time. I respect ’em for that.”

Shearer, who knows a little about injuries and playing in pain — he once had to survive a UT practice filled with goal-line drills with a just-injured arm taped to his chest (it turned out to be a dislocated elbow) — has had a hip replaced and now awaits the replacement of both knees in 2020.

But when he is asked to ponder the outlook for a UT football team should a certain prominent fellow Westlake alumnus get hurt this fall, Shearer immediately dismisses the thought.

“I can guarantee Sam Ehlinger is not the type of kid that ever is worried about being hurt. He goes into the game going full bore. It’s never even in his mind. What comes, comes. It’s football. He’s gonna play hard no matter what. He’s not gonna shy away from anything. That’s what you’ve gotta love about him.”

As Shearer looks ahead to a battle with LSU on Sept. 7: “It’s gonna be a telling tale,” he says.

What brings the happiest memories from among all the successes he can look back upon?

Would it be the Westlake days of forging lifelong connections to a coach and friends?

The Royal era at Texas?

“The stop” that punched out OU or the entire magnificent ’77 season and Outland Trophy?

Stepping onto the turf of Soldier Field for the first time?

“Probably of all my involvement in football, my favorite time was coaching those young kids (son Calen and his buddies, some 20-25 years ago) in Pop Warner,” Shearer booms. “I had a blast. We’d load up the Suburbans and I’d stop and get ’em Snickers bars and play ZZ Top.

“Rock ‘n roll, all the way to the game.”

The big guy is smiling broadly now, checking his watch as a business meeting nears. “I still see a bunch of those kids today,” he marvels. “They’re real ZZ Top fans, too.”

Somewhere, Billy Gibbons, Rock & Rock Hall of Famer and one-time career counselor, is smiling. That Shearer kid did alright. Kinda fits that song, “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide.”

Write to Larry Carlson at lc13@txstate.edu