Roy Jones says, “The best job I ever had didn’t pay a penny but was worth millions in memories.  It was the experiences, lessons learned and the people I met that made it special.” “I’m grateful for every opportunity, dear friends, colleagues, and, of course, the students and student/athletes I worked with! We’ve all got to start somewhere!” 

Roy Jones is a memory anomaly.  While many of us hold a few special moments of our lives in cognitive memory to access and recite at any time,  Roy saves thousands of special memories in his heart to share.  His stories are detailed and colorful.  Much like Don Draper’s from the MadMen TV. series, who said in the heart resides a carousel. A photo time machine reminding the brain what the heart has never forgotten.  Memories that are more powerful than the brain can ever absorb.      When Roy talks about the 1960s, get ready to listen to a heart-felt, colorful dialogue.

If the Don Draper analogy seems nonsensical to you, visit https://youtu.be/suRDUFpsHus to understand Roy’s carousel memories he clicks on coming from his heart, articulated in his oral history podcast.  His stories offer a panoramic view of the past.

In Kern Tips Book “Football Texas Style,” he states that each of us has “keepsakes pressed between the pages of a memory book’. I hope this website will open that memory box so you can once again experience Longhorn sports as the universal language of the Longhorn nation. Each of us has left something behind to make our University great.

It is about family, and most of all, it is about the heart. It is about a time that will live forever, caught between the mind and the soul, where dreams and hopes never really go away.

The link to Roy’s oral podcast is https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/royjonesjournalist-managerforlonghorns

 In 1960 Roy started Journalism school, and his classmate was Bill Little.  A friendship bonded by memories and shared careers.    Roy was the first to wear a burnt orange jersey in DKR-Texas  Memorial Stadium.   It was the spring game of 1963, and coach Royal asked him to wear it and run the down box on the east side of the stadium to see what it looked like from the press box.    He liked what he saw!

Roy Jones remembers Jim Hudson

One of my favorite memories of Jim was a freshman game (before freshmen could play varsity). We got the ball at our own one, and on first down, Jim ran a quarterback sneak to have a little room to operate. The QB sneak went for 99 yards and a Shorthorn TD. 

Tommy Ford

Roy was a student manager for all four of Tommy’s years at UT and was devastated to learn of his death. “I’m not surprised he didn’t want an obituary. He never drew attention to himself except to lead by example. “ Many of the great players (and some assistant coaches!) treated us volunteer managers like servants and demanded new shoelaces, etc. Tommy made us feel like fellow starting players. He called us by name and ASKED (as my good friend and mentor Juan Conde noted in his comments) for any equipment he needed. He was as kind as he was tough. (BTW, Tommy’s fellow tri-captains on the ’63 team, David McWilliams and the late Scott Appleton, were cut from the same cloth and treated us like humans as well.) ROY A. JONES II Senior Manager 1963.

 Roy was Super Bowl Champ George Sauer’s roommate.

 Freddie Edwards

 When the Longhorn nation lost Freddie Edwards, Roy said that Freddie was a prototypical Texas linebacker, savvy, strong, and, as Coach Royal would say ‘Knew the difference between ‘come here” and “sic em!’  Roy remembers that both of them “kinda got off on the wrong foot when he took offense to a joke I told.” Non-jocks often called football players “animals” and Moore-Hill Hall “Animal House.” During two-a-day practices when Freddie was a freshman, several fellow student managers and I were walking across the main Mall, heading back to the dorm from a movie on the Drag, when I heard Freddie and several other freshmen players walking behind us. I turned around and said, “Hey, you animals, hold it down!” Boy, Freddie came after me like he was shot from a cannon. Fortunately, Diron Talbert saved me when he hollered, “Cool it, Flex! They’re our managers.” We turned out to be friends, but to be on the safe side, I never called him an animal again! RIP Flex, you sure knew how to “Hook ’em!”

 The National Championship trophy

Ragan Gennusa see link https://www.texaslsn.org/ragan-gennusa

 Tony Crosby  

 About Tony Crosby, Roy says We spent four enjoyable years at UT together. The article fails to mention what made Tony so unique as a placekicker. True, he kicked without a shoe, but he didn’t address the ball with his toe like all other straight-on kickers of the day (or with his instep like the soccer-style kickers do now).

Tony got quicker height on his placement kicks because he turned up his toes and impacted the football with what is commonly called the “ball” of the foot. (For podiatrists, I would say he impacted the ball with the sole of the foot approximately where the phalanges — the toe bones– and the metatarsals are connected.)
As a student manager on game day, one of my jobs was getting the kickoff and placement tees on and off the field. During my freshman year, I also had to keep up with David Kristynik’s kicking shoe — which had the toe box cut out so he could impact the ball with his bare toes.
 A bit of irony about Tony. We, managers, spent a lot of practice time retrieving footballs that were kicked from the practice field into the “jungle” surrounding Waller Creek– and from the creek itself, I caught poison ivy more than once.

Journalist Gaylon Krizak tells Tony’s story at the link below.

https://www.texaslsn.org/tonycrosby/bygaylonkrizak

Billy Schott

So we were really glad when a young, enthusiastic kid came out every day and retrieved the balls for Tony. The kid was learning while he was watching. The “kid” was Billy Schott, who earned the nickname “Sure Shot” when he became the placement specialist for DKR’s last two Cotton Bowl squads and a Gator Bowl team.

Enjoy all of the stories about the 1963 football National Champions brought to you by the TLSN nostalgic carousel text and image time machine that will create “twinges from the heart when triggered by a photo stimulus.

Enjoy the Longhorn sports history Carousel as presented by TLSN, Inc.

 Here is a link to Billy’s TLSN podcast https://www.texaslsn.org/billy-schott-oralhistory

A Generational Story about Staley Faulkner and his grandson Preston Varoza

Staley “Bucket” Faulkner and I were talking in the opulent Founders Club (Sept. 2) about Assistant Coach Pat Culpepper losing his 1963 national championship ring (and all the rest of his Longhorn memorabilia) in a house fire earlier this year when Staley mentioned he too, had lost a treasured ring –, the T ring he received from Coach Darrell Royal when he graduated.

“But I still have this,” he said, flashing his hard-earned NCAA

championship ring. The 235-pound tackle, who wore a size 8 helmet, had red-shirted one year before becoming a starter on the 61-63 teams that won 30 games while losing only two and tying one.

Overhearing us talk, 26-year-old Preston Varoza one-upped his grandfather, proclaiming, “I’ve got three of those, and a T-ring, too!” “He does!” Staley said proudly.

Well, Preston doesn’t actually have three national championship

rings, but he WAS a member of three national championship teams at Texas. Preston swam the backstroke on longtime coach Eddie Reese’s NCAA swimming and diving champions in 2017. 2018 and 2021. Reese, of course, is the only college swimming coach to win NCAA titles in five separate decades: 15 championships between 1981 and 2021.

Royal started the T-ring tradition, initially paying for the rings

himself as a reward to football players when they received their degrees. The university eventually extended the reward to other sports and took over paying for the rings.

The 2023 Reunion of the 1963 Horns

 Below is part of a detailed article from Roy Jones, the team manager in 1963 and for 50 years a Newspaper journalist. Roy attended the 2023 banquet for the 1963 team before the Rice game and shared as an exclusive to this group on Facebook his special memories of the 1963 team. It is worth the read! Please share if you so choose.

Roy Jones says “David McWilliams, the lone surviving tri-captain of the 1963 national championship University of Texas football team — the school’s — had a surprise “guest” for his teammates at their 60th reunion Sept. 1-2, 2023, in Austin. The spirit of their late coach Darrell Royal hung heavily in the air as 31 octogenarians reminisced about the “glory days” and groused about their lack of Name, Image, and Likeness benefits. They only received $3 for an evening meal on gamedays when the chow hall was closed. And that spirit was never stronger than when McWilliams introduced a film clip from Royal’s widow, Edith, who will be 98 years old come Oct.27. She said she regretted not being able to attend in person but welcomed the players to Austin and congratulated them on their outstanding varsity years at UT. Counting their undefeated freshman season, the 1963 seniors compiled a record of 35 wins, two losses, and one tie.”

They came within a combined six points of winning national titles in 1961 and 1962 — a 6-0 upset by TCU, the only blemish on their sophomore season, and a 14-14 tie with Rice their junior year. Still, they finished no worse than fourth in the nation all three years on varsity.

He recalled how Royal prepared the defense to chase the Navy’s scrambling quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach, in their final game, the 1964 Cotton Bowl.

“He’d pitch a football to one of the reserve backs and tell the linemen to chase him until we caught him. Those guys would run across all three practice fields dodging us.”

For the full article with lots of photos and insightful comments, visit https://www.texaslsn.org/articles-and-photos-of…