Loyd Wainscott By barbara wainscott

For my husband, Longhorn football was like a religion. He lived and breathed it for long after he finished playing it. He went on to play for the Houston Oilers for a couple of years, until he destroyed his knee and then on to play one season for the FIRST Houston Texans of the fleeting WFL league. But when asked where he had played, he always responded the same…The University of Texas. There was power in the words and when he said them people knew, and knew that he meant those words reflected a host of qualities of the highest order. They meant tradition, legacy, quality, integrity, determination and excellence.

For him, one of the most important of those was excellence. Not only was there excellence of achievement but the expectation of excellence. You simply did not accept failure; you planned on success. Which is to say that it didn’t protect you from failing; but you could never fully accept it. It was that atmosphere of expectation of excellence that drove him in college and for the rest of his life.

One day he came back to his dorm room to find his roommate, Mike Perrin, as well as other players living in the basement of Moore-Hill Hall had been working on a few arts and crafts. They had thumbtacked a picture on the bulletin board. It was either a Rolex watch with Loyd’s face cut out and glued on the face of the watch or Loyd’s picture with the face of a Rolex superimposed on top of his face…I forget these many years later. But the implication at the time was as crystal clear as the crystal of a watch could be. He had a job to do his part to achieve the collective goal of the team. They told him that he was part of the plan to help win them all a Rolex and that he needed to take good care of himself. I remember a story about the guys rough-housing around one night and someone picked up a chair and threw it across the room. It hit Loyd in the hand and a voice yelled out something to the effect of “Don’t break our Rolex!”

Loyd was proud to have been a part of that effort and even more proud to have been a part of that team. He continued to wear that watch off and on for the rest of his life. To Loyd, the  Cotton Bowl watch was never just a piece of jewelry. It represented so many things…blood, sweat, tears, concentration, dedication, camaraderie and the march to manhood. It was a life lesson that served him well in learning how to meet challenges in the days and years that followed. 

One time when Texas played Baylor, Loyd had a good game and graded 95%. He went into films feeling pretty full of himself and sat down to an entire film session of the coaches all over him…especially Coach Royal. He ripped him up one side and down the other and Loyd was fuming. He went back to his room and started throwing clothes into a bag, packing to leave. The coaches caught wind of it and came to his room and were scrambling to talk him out of it. They finally slowed him down and convinced him to wait until morning. They told him Coach Royal wanted to talk to him. It took him all night to cool down enough to go in and talk to Coach.

 When he walked into Coach Royal’s office the next morning Coach calmly asked, “Do you have a problem?” Loyd was furious and exploded into a rant of how he had done his job and even the coaches had graded him at 95%. Coach said, “You did your job. But did you do your best?”   

Trainer Frank Medina decided Loyd gained too much weight his freshman year and when he sent him home for the summer he gave him strict instructions to “not eat anything white”. Loyd followed his instructions to the T. When he got back for two-a-days Coach Royal saw him and said “My God! Where did you spend the summer…in a concentration camp?!” and he put him on the scales. He had lost down to 197 lbs. Loyd told him what Frank had instructed and Coach yelled “FRANK!”…as Frank went scurrying around the corner, no where to be found. From then on Frank took Loyd under his wing to bring him back. He would take him into the back room to tape his ankles where there was air conditioning and give him Mama Medina’s cookies and milk. He even gave me an interview for the school paper for my journalism requirements and gave me a hand-woven peasant purse from the old country. He had a very special place in Loyd’s heart, as I’m sure he did in many a Longhorn player. 

His Sophomore year I was aware of the fact that he would spend extra time at the stadium watching films…a lot of extra time.  But by his Junior year I had a front row seat for his studies.  He, of course, had all the preparations of game week that the coaches planned for every game, but in addition he had preparations of his own. He called every player at every school that he knew who might know anything about the opposing players…who was quick, who was fast, who didn’t like to get hit.  Next, he would check out the films of the upcoming opponent and bring them to my apartment. He would take the picture off the wall opposite the couch and set the projector up opposite the large expanse of white; and then he would run films…for hours. 
 
First he would run whole game films several times to get the feel of the team as a whole, then focusing on individual players.  Finally, he would concentrate on the center and players who would be lining up in front of him.  I could always tell when he approached this pivotal point in his studies because he would move to the edge of the couch, with his right elbow on his right knee and his chin resting on his thumb as his index finger pressed down on his upper lip.  He was completely focused and barely knew I was in the room.  There he would sit for an hour or two, and sometimes more. And then from the quiet his voice would ring out “Got it!” and he would start packing up the projector and films.  I was always curious to ask what keys he had discovered, and they were always different, but always something to the effect of “when the ball’s moving left the center kicks his left heel in” or “the guy who’ll be in front of me dips his shoulder” when he’s doing some particular move.  It was so fascinating for me that he had dissected their every move to anticipate where they were going next. 

One time when Texas played Baylor, Loyd had a good game and graded 95%. He went into films feeling pretty full of himself and sat down to an entire film session of the coaches all over him…especially Coach Royal. He ripped him up one side and down the other and Loyd was fuming. He went back to his room and started throwing clothes into a bag, packing to leave. The coaches caught wind of it and came to his room and were scrambling to talk him out of it. They finally slowed him down and convinced him to wait until morning. They told him Coach Royal wanted to talk to him. It took him all night to cool down enough to go in and talk to Coach.

 When he walked into Coach Royal’s office the next morning Coach calmly asked, “Do you have a problem?” Loyd was furious and exploded into a rant of how he had done his job and even the coaches had graded him at 95%. Coach said, “You did your job. But did you do your best?” 

Loyd thought for a moment and said no. “Why not?” Coach asked. “Because it was Baylor; and I didn’t have to.” he replied. Coach looked him square in the eye and said, “If you give me 100% every time I’ll make you an All-American” And he did.

 Trainer Frank Medina

He had lost down to 197 lbs. Loyd told him what Frank had instructed and Coach yelled “FRANK!”…as Frank went scurrying around the corner, no where to be found. From then on Frank took Loyd under his wing to bring him back. He would take him into the back room to tape his ankles where there was air conditioning and give him Mama Medina’s cookies and milk. He even gave me an interview for the school paper for my journalism requirements and gave me a hand-woven peasant purse from the old country. He had a very special place in Loyd’s heart, as I’m sure he did in many a Longhorn player.