One Tough Hoss

Mac White Helped Lead SMU To ’66 SWC Title

GREENVILLE, Tex. - Sandwiched between SMU’s Southwest Conference championships in 1948, with Heisman trophy-winner Doak Walker, and 1982, with the vaunted Pony Express, stands one lone title from 1966.

That year, SMU was led by a gritty senior, the 5-10, 180-pound sprint-out quarterback from Gainesville, Tex., Mac White. As the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys were starting to smother the local sports scene, White and the Mustangs captured the imagination of SMU fans all over again.

“It was real exciting, to say the least,” said White, 64, last week at a local Starbucks.

SMU ran the SWC table in ‘66, save for a loss to Arkansas, with dramatic wins over Texas, Rice, Baylor and Texas A&M.

Mac White, of Gainesville, Tex., had offers to play for Alabama, Oklahoma and 15 other schools.

White’s career stats weren’t monstrous but his clutch leadership and fearless play were decisive, again and again.

“He was a good quarterback and we wouldn’t have won the conference without him,” said SMU All-American noseguard John LaGrone, by phone. “He was tough. He’d stick it in there.”

“Mac’s one of the gutsiest guys I played with,” said All-American receiver Jerry LeVias.

Offers Aplenty

In 1961, White led Gainesville to the 3A state semifinals against eventual champion Dumas. Along the way he garnered plenty of attention from the college ranks, ultimately receiving 17 scholarship offers.

“That was a lot of offers back then,” White said, “because they didn’t do a lot of recruiting on a national basis like they do now.”

White could have played college football about anywhere - Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas - and would have, too, if not for his … chiropractor. (More in a minute.)

Raised in the Christian Church, White always wanted to go to TCU. Chuck Curtis, another Gainesville star, had been a two-time All-SWC quarterback for the Frogs in the 50s. It seemed like the place to go.

But White had begun looking at other schools as the offers rolled in. His chiropractor, Dr. Davenport, whom he’d seen since throwing his arm out as a fifth-grade curve-ball pitcher, asked him one day which school he’d picked. White still didn’t know.

“Well, let me tell you where you’re going to go,” Davenport said. “You’re going to go to SMU.”  

The Mustangs, 2-16-2 the last two years, hadn’t been on White’s radar. Davenport, though, was sold on SMU’s incoming first–year head coach, Hayden Fry. White started noticing Fry on television and in the paper and finally met with him.

“Coach Fry was young, very enthusiastic and very impressive,” White said. “And he recruited a good class.”

It came down, finally, to Texas and SMU , White said, and Fry was the difference.

Rally Times

SMU’s ‘66 season, like the one before it, was packed with close games. One of the best endings for the Mustangs came at Texas. SMU trailed late, 12-10, when Texas quarterback Bill Bradley fumbled at the SMU 32 after a hit by Billy Bob Stewart. George Wilmot fell on it for the Mustangs.

(White said a teammate tells of seeing Longhorns head coach Darrell Royal, at that moment, throw his customary glass of milk on the folks nearby.)

On the game-winning drive, White threw to Mike Richardson for 24 yards to the Texas 32 with a minute left. White then ran twice to the 15 before kicker Dennis Partee booted home the winner with 18 seconds to spare.

An earlier comeback over Rice in Dallas was another barnburner. “It was a wild game,” White said. “They had a little sophomore quarterback named Robby Shelton. Man, he was quick. We just couldn’t stop the guy.”

Rice couldn’t stop White either, as he gouged the Owls for a career-high 141 yards rushing, behind the likes of big Lynn Thornhill and George Gaiser.

And what a finish.

Trailing, 24-21, with three minutes left, White led a 90-yard scoring drive with no timeouts left, running for 62 of it himself.

On fourth-and-nine from the Owls’ 21, it appeared SMU would settle for a tying field goal. In what should have been a giveaway, LeVias set up for the first time as holder – on the left side for the right-footed Partee.

“That was one of Hayden’s calls and I thought he was crazy,” LeVias said. “He drew that up in the dirt.”

LeVias took the snap and jetted left for the first down. White chugged to the five on two carries. Then, with the clock ticking below 10 seconds, White found LeVias on an out-route in the end zone for the win.

White said he’d seen the defender turn his back to LeVias. “I knew we had ‘em then,” he said.

In A Pinch

White’s first year on The Hilltop, 1962, the freshmen Colts went undefeated. Days after the season ended, White lost the tip of his throwing-hand index finger in a dorm accident. Pinched completely off in a door, the fingertip lay on the floor. A friend grabbed it and, with others, whisked White to the campus infirmary.

Thinking reattachment was hopeless, a nurse tossed the digit scrap in the trash. The doctor arrived, retrieved it and sewed it back on. But too much time had passed. The graft didn’t take.

White led SMU on thrilling last-second drives to beat Texas and Rice on the way to the SWC title in 1966. photo credit: SMU Heritage Hall

White said his finger remained tender for some time. “I had to shave left-handed for weeks,” he said. And he had to learn to throw a football without that finger touching it, a tricky deal requiring new wrist action.

White missed off-season training and started spring practice in ’63 as the thirteenth quarterback, he said - dead last. “By the third week, I was up to number one - until they graded the defensive film. Then I went back to number three.”

Navy Sunk

That fall, White had a hand in one of SMU’s greatest games of all time: the 32-28 win over No. 4 Navy and its All-American quarterback, Roger Staubach, in Dallas.

Trailing, 10-0, late in the first quarter, Fry sent White in with instructions to run a quarterback draw. Thomas had driven the team to Navy’s 22-yard-line.

At this point, the sophomore White had zero varsity carries and just one play from scrimmage - a handoff against Air Force the week before.

His first run would be memorable.

“You were supposed to take four steps back,” White said. “But I wanted those linebackers to really flush out of there, so I took six.” Breaking a tackle at the line, White cut left behind split end Tom Hillary’s block and scored.

“I think guys realized then that, you know, we can do this,” White said.

SMU tailback John Roderick ran wild that night, finishing with 146 yards and two touchdowns on just 11 carries. His electrifying 45-yard touchdown scamper pulled SMU to within six points early in the third quarter. Running left on the play, White had pitched to Roderick at the last moment then, as Roderick cut all the way back across the field, White laid a crucial block.

“The action’s going to be around the ball,” White said of his propensity for blocking. “Just like in business, action’s going to be around the money. If you want to be in on the action, get around the money.”

With two minutes to go, Billy Gannon’s one-yard touchdown run gave SMU a 32-28 edge. Navy’s hopes ended when Staubach’s pass was broken up in the end zone by Tommy Caughran with eight seconds left.

The Middies wouldn’t lose again until facing No. 1 Texas for the national championship in the Cotton Bowl. SMU’s upset of Navy vaulted the Mustangs to the Sun Bowl, with an eventual 4-6 record.

“Man, we were riding high,” White said after the back-to-back wins over top ten Air Force and Navy. “We weren’t really cocky, but we were fired up, which you would be.”

The ride didn’t last.

Knocked Out

SMU lost to Rice at Houston, 13-7, the next week in a game White called “probably the most physical game I’ve ever played in.”

“Roderick and I both got put out of the game - physically . I got knocked out on the first play of the fourth quarter and the next thing I knew there was two minutes left in the game.”

Later, the Mustangs narrowly lost at home to top-ranked Texas, 17-12.

In a 9-7 win at Texas A&M, White got “high-lowed,” knocking him out again and rupturing a disc in his back. He finished the season, though in pain.

“[White] was just an amazing guy,” said Gerry York, curator of SMU’s Heritage Hall. “He kept getting banged up and banged up, but somehow they put enough tape on him to get him back out there.”

Off-season back and knee surgery caused White to miss the entire ’64 slate. “He was lucky,” LaGrone said. “We went 1-9 that year.”

“They didn’t have arthroscopic surgery back then,” said White. “It was the ol ’ knife. The odds were about one out of a hundred I’d ever play again.”

White credits his recovery, in large part, to swimming workouts with legendary SMU swim coach Red Barr.

White went on to lead SMU in rushing in ’65 and ’66, with his best mark in ’66: 606 yards on 135 carries, a healthy 4.4-yard average. White’s top passing year was ’65 when he tallied 658 yards.

Big games in ’65’s 4-5-1 campaign included a 14-14 tie with No. 2 Purdue and Bob Griese, and a 31-14 win over Texas, both in Dallas.

> Check out the CUSA Fans 2008 SMU football preview to see what SMU Correspondent thinks of June Jones' Mustangs in 2008!

These Days

Today, White lives in Greenville, working in oil and gas, and other investments. He keeps up with several teammates, including LaGrone, LeVias, Stewart and Jerry Wilson. And he still follows the Mustangs.

White is plenty excited about the June Jones hire too. “I think that was a tremendous step forward,” he said. “I think he’s a positive coach.”

White’s three grown children, two daughters and a son, live in South Carolina.

In the end, White said he always approached the game “with as much intensity as I could get.”

“It’s a tough game,” he said. “If you’re not gonna play it tough, don’t play it.”

More Mac White Notes:

• Before the ’81 SMU-Texas game, at the height of the Cold War, White told a reporter that if Texas played the Russians, he’d pull for the Russians. At the game, he was pleased to see SMU fans wearing t-shirts displaying his quote.
• SMU lost to Oregon, 21-14, in the ’63 Sun Bowl and to Georgia, 24-9, in the ’66 Cotton Bowl. Both games were played on New Year’s Eve.
• Hayden Fry finished 49-66-1 in 11 seasons at SMU. He later coached Iowa for 20 years, finishing 143-89-6 with three Big Ten titles and 14 bowl appearances. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.