Gsquared
04-26-2007, 11:24 AM
The greatest player who never was - football legend Joe Don Looney; includes related article - Cover Story
Sporting News, The, Oct 2, 1995 by Douglas S. Looney
Find More Results for: "Joe Don Looney "
3rd Down and Forever:...
Looney Tunes: Back in...
Looney tuners crack up...
Looney Tunes: Back in...
The stillness roars.
This truly is a place that sound forgot. For miles, there is nothing. Nothing but the rolling and endless hills of West Texas. Nothing but quiet. Nothing but beauty. Nothing but peace, at 5,380 feet. The early morning haze and mist shrouding Cathedral Mountain is giving way to brighter promise.
Day is breaking, 14 miles south of Alpine, Tex., 70 miles north of Mexico's border, and 70 million light years in thought from the real world. Or is this the real world? The only sound is of day breaking. Sitting in the midst of 33 acres is a strangely odd dome house heated by solar power, with water and electricity generated by a windmill.
Joe Don Looney built this house and lived here. He was - arguably, like everything else in sports - the greatest football player ever to buckle a chinstrap.
He grew up wild as the Texas wind in Fort Worth, eventually wandered into an Oklahoma junior college and subsequently transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where his star was born as an extraordinary running back. And then he became the first-round draft pick of the Giants. During those years in Norman and in the pros - between 1962 and 1969 - he captured the nation's attention. Indeed, he had a stranglehold on the public's fascination.
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Says his uncle, Bill Looney, 68, of Abilene, "He was like something streaking across the sky. You see it once and you're not gonna forget about it." Joe Don could do everything on a football field; he could do anything with a football, including autograph it; he could do all the things little boys dream of doing in front of roaring and adoring crowds. He could. But he didn't want to. So he didn't.
The finest football player ever wasted it all.
The finest football player ever almost never played anywhere close to his ability, by most estimates displaying, maybe, 10 percent of his wondrous skills.
The finest football player ever "was like a guy squandering his inheritance," Bill Looney says.
The finest football player ever considered all his natural ability, evaluated his potential, examined his head, measured his heart, and concluded, "Naw."
The finest football player ever was almost a total bust.
The finest football player ever never was.
Joe Don's father, Don, 79, stares over at the dome house and shakes his head: "He was a bad little _____, but I loved him. You always forgive those you love."
Few needed more forgiving than Joe Don Looney, killed seven years ago last week - September 24, 1988 - down near the Mexican border, 8.6 miles north of Study Butte, when his motorcycle missed a curve on State Highway 118. Joe Don, 45 at the time, could never negotiate life's curves. The investigating highway patrolman says Looney never hit his brakes. Of course not Joe Don braked for nobody or no thing. When Looney was found face up under a mesquite bush, he was wearing a helmet. It may have been the only time in his life that he was caught doing the right thing.
Dan Devine, former head coach at Arizona State, Missouri, Notre Dame and of the Packers, doesn't temper his enthusiasm: "Joe Don Looney may have been to football what Mickey Mantle was to baseball."
Joe Don Looney fascinates. He always has. He always will.
It's partly because he is an enigma. Sam Huff, the superb Giants and Redskins linebacker, says that Joe Don "never had both shoes tied. His whole life made no sense. He always had a smart answer for you, and he was very clever. Most of all, he was always the subject of conversation."
Indeed it is difficult to be around football people for very long before Joe Don works his way into the conversation, whether you want him to or not Joe Don always generates smiles in remembrance. How can you not like a guy, who, as a Colt, punted a ball towering straight up, then put his hands on his hips and yelled, "Hey, God, how did you like that one?'
But Joe Don could never get the complete picture. Uncle Bill says, "You can't speak of the ocean to a frog inside a whale." Joe Don spent most of his life inside the whale.
Looney also had this marvelous albeit wacky sense of humor that almost always made an underlying point. Example: While living with a friend, Roger Parker, Parker got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When Parker returned, he found Joe Don had swiped his pillow. "I screamed and hollered," Parker says, "and he said to me, "If you care that much about something, you should take it with you.'"
He once told the Dallas Times-Herald, "It's funny. When I played football, I couldn't play life. And now that I can play life, I can't play football." Out of Joe Don's mouth came one of the most famous quotes in sport. While playing for Detroit in 1966, Coach Harry Gilmer turned to Joe Don, gave him the next play and told him to carry it onto the field. Joe Don refused, saying, "If you want a messenger, call Western Union." For that suggestion, he was suspended.
At the Giants, where Looney was the No. 1 pick in '64, Coach Allie Sherman saw Looney didn't have his ankles taped. He ordered it done. Looney refused, saying, "I know more about my ankles than you do." They worked out an uneasy compromise; Looney taped his ankles over his socks. He was traded to Baltimore after only 28 days as a Giant. "I wanted him," recalls then-Colts coach Don Shula. "He had all this fantastic natural ability." A few days after joining the team, Looney walked in 15 minutes late to a meeting, says Shula, who promptly fined him $100. Said Joe Don, "OK, but how come you didn't give me $100 for being 15 minutes early last night?" Shula shakes his head and says, "He just could never put it all together."
Sporting News, The, Oct 2, 1995 by Douglas S. Looney
Find More Results for: "Joe Don Looney "
3rd Down and Forever:...
Looney Tunes: Back in...
Looney tuners crack up...
Looney Tunes: Back in...
The stillness roars.
This truly is a place that sound forgot. For miles, there is nothing. Nothing but the rolling and endless hills of West Texas. Nothing but quiet. Nothing but beauty. Nothing but peace, at 5,380 feet. The early morning haze and mist shrouding Cathedral Mountain is giving way to brighter promise.
Day is breaking, 14 miles south of Alpine, Tex., 70 miles north of Mexico's border, and 70 million light years in thought from the real world. Or is this the real world? The only sound is of day breaking. Sitting in the midst of 33 acres is a strangely odd dome house heated by solar power, with water and electricity generated by a windmill.
Joe Don Looney built this house and lived here. He was - arguably, like everything else in sports - the greatest football player ever to buckle a chinstrap.
He grew up wild as the Texas wind in Fort Worth, eventually wandered into an Oklahoma junior college and subsequently transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where his star was born as an extraordinary running back. And then he became the first-round draft pick of the Giants. During those years in Norman and in the pros - between 1962 and 1969 - he captured the nation's attention. Indeed, he had a stranglehold on the public's fascination.
Advertisement
Says his uncle, Bill Looney, 68, of Abilene, "He was like something streaking across the sky. You see it once and you're not gonna forget about it." Joe Don could do everything on a football field; he could do anything with a football, including autograph it; he could do all the things little boys dream of doing in front of roaring and adoring crowds. He could. But he didn't want to. So he didn't.
The finest football player ever wasted it all.
The finest football player ever almost never played anywhere close to his ability, by most estimates displaying, maybe, 10 percent of his wondrous skills.
The finest football player ever "was like a guy squandering his inheritance," Bill Looney says.
The finest football player ever considered all his natural ability, evaluated his potential, examined his head, measured his heart, and concluded, "Naw."
The finest football player ever was almost a total bust.
The finest football player ever never was.
Joe Don's father, Don, 79, stares over at the dome house and shakes his head: "He was a bad little _____, but I loved him. You always forgive those you love."
Few needed more forgiving than Joe Don Looney, killed seven years ago last week - September 24, 1988 - down near the Mexican border, 8.6 miles north of Study Butte, when his motorcycle missed a curve on State Highway 118. Joe Don, 45 at the time, could never negotiate life's curves. The investigating highway patrolman says Looney never hit his brakes. Of course not Joe Don braked for nobody or no thing. When Looney was found face up under a mesquite bush, he was wearing a helmet. It may have been the only time in his life that he was caught doing the right thing.
Dan Devine, former head coach at Arizona State, Missouri, Notre Dame and of the Packers, doesn't temper his enthusiasm: "Joe Don Looney may have been to football what Mickey Mantle was to baseball."
Joe Don Looney fascinates. He always has. He always will.
It's partly because he is an enigma. Sam Huff, the superb Giants and Redskins linebacker, says that Joe Don "never had both shoes tied. His whole life made no sense. He always had a smart answer for you, and he was very clever. Most of all, he was always the subject of conversation."
Indeed it is difficult to be around football people for very long before Joe Don works his way into the conversation, whether you want him to or not Joe Don always generates smiles in remembrance. How can you not like a guy, who, as a Colt, punted a ball towering straight up, then put his hands on his hips and yelled, "Hey, God, how did you like that one?'
But Joe Don could never get the complete picture. Uncle Bill says, "You can't speak of the ocean to a frog inside a whale." Joe Don spent most of his life inside the whale.
Looney also had this marvelous albeit wacky sense of humor that almost always made an underlying point. Example: While living with a friend, Roger Parker, Parker got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When Parker returned, he found Joe Don had swiped his pillow. "I screamed and hollered," Parker says, "and he said to me, "If you care that much about something, you should take it with you.'"
He once told the Dallas Times-Herald, "It's funny. When I played football, I couldn't play life. And now that I can play life, I can't play football." Out of Joe Don's mouth came one of the most famous quotes in sport. While playing for Detroit in 1966, Coach Harry Gilmer turned to Joe Don, gave him the next play and told him to carry it onto the field. Joe Don refused, saying, "If you want a messenger, call Western Union." For that suggestion, he was suspended.
At the Giants, where Looney was the No. 1 pick in '64, Coach Allie Sherman saw Looney didn't have his ankles taped. He ordered it done. Looney refused, saying, "I know more about my ankles than you do." They worked out an uneasy compromise; Looney taped his ankles over his socks. He was traded to Baltimore after only 28 days as a Giant. "I wanted him," recalls then-Colts coach Don Shula. "He had all this fantastic natural ability." A few days after joining the team, Looney walked in 15 minutes late to a meeting, says Shula, who promptly fined him $100. Said Joe Don, "OK, but how come you didn't give me $100 for being 15 minutes early last night?" Shula shakes his head and says, "He just could never put it all together."