A Lasting Impression

SMU’s Chip Vasquez Had Winning Spirit

A handsome cedar bench on the west side of SMU’s Ford Stadium bears the name of a walk-on football player from the Mustangs’ first post-death penalty team – a player who appeared sparingly in games but whose words and actions still inspire an NFL Hall-of-Famer.

Chip Vasquez' memorial bench sits on the west side of Ford Stadium near Gate 3. NFL Hall-of-Famer Forrest Gregg spoke at the 1995 dedication ceremony.

The memorial bench was donated in 1995 by the player’s parents, Joe and Ilda Vasquez, of Weslaco, Tex., one year after their son’s death. The plaque reads:

In Loving Memory Of Our Son

Chip Vasquez

A Player And Lover Of Football

At His Beloved SMU

6/29/70-5/27/94

Hall-of-Famer Forrest Gregg, who starred for SMU in the 50s and later with the Green Bay Packers, was Chip’s head coach at SMU. Today, when Gregg speaks of those uncertain times following the death penalty, one story often surfaces: the day Chip, a 5-8, 200-pound offensive lineman from South Texas, strode into his office and asked to walk-on for the Mustangs.

It was the spring of ’88 and Gregg was busy putting together a team basically from scratch. The ’87 season had been cancelled by the NCAA and SMU had chosen not to play in ’88.

“We only had fifteen scholarships,” Gregg said by phone from his home in Colorado. “We knew we were going to have some walk-ons to fill out the football team.”

Chip, there that day with his parents, had already been accepted to SMU and was registered for classes. Gregg told Chip he was certainly welcome to walk-on and began explaining SMU’s challenging situation and detailing the prospect of no games for another year, only workouts.

“Look, coach,” Chip said. “I will do whatever is necessary to be a part of this football team. I want to be a Mustang and … I want to help you any way I can. I’ll carry water. I’ll hold a dummy. I’ll be a dummy. Whatever is needed, I’ll do it.”

Said Gregg, “I looked at him and said, ‘Well, you just won your spot on this football team.’”

“He came [to SMU] and did everything he said he’d do,” Gregg said.

Tough Guy

“He wasn’t big enough to play the position that he’d been trying for, which was offensive guard,” Gregg said. (Chip listed at 225 pounds in a 1990 program.) “But he was a tough little guy and … anytime he had a chance to get in the ballgame, whether it was to take a message into the huddle or whatever it was, he was always there and ready to go.”

“If a fight broke out, he was the first guy in the pile.”

“I’m telling you, you’ve got to have guys like that,” Gregg said.

Chip turned down an appointment to West Point for a chance to play football for the Mustangs.

“He always wanted to go to SMU,” Joe said from Weslaco, adding this was due in large part to Eric Dickerson, Craig James and the rest of the early 80s Mustangs. “Oh, he loved them,” Joe said. “He loved the Ponies.”

“For some reason, he never spoke about [the University of] Texas. He never spoke about [Texas] A&M. He always said, SMU, SMU.”

Chip started youth football as a fourth-grader in Virginia, playing quarterback and running back. “He had a sharp mind and could remember the plays and could see things on the field,” Ilda said.

After Joe’s retirement from the military in ‘81, the family moved to Texas where Chip would earn first-team All-District and All-Valley honors as center for the Weslaco Panthers.

“According to coaches his senior year,” Ilda said, “they’d never seen a better center than Chip.”

Said Joe, “Everybody else had a stopwatch on them and they’d pull a calendar out on Chip because he was so slow. But there was nobody quicker between that line of scrimmage and the defensive player.”

Chip was also a member of the school’s academic team and a student of arts and music. “[He’d] be playing classical music one hour and … Guns and Roses the next,” Joe said.

Eye-Catcher

SMU won two games that first year back from the death penalty, playing No. 1 Notre Dame in South Bend and a full slate of suddenly untouchable Southwest Conference teams. “We were totally outmanned,” said Gregg.

“It would start getting late in the ballgame and it was obvious that maybe, sometimes, we weren’t going to win. Chip would kind of start walking up and down in front of me so I’d see him. I’d catch his eye and say, ‘You want to go in?’”

“And he’d say, ‘Yes sir, I want to go in,’ so I’d send him in.”

Gregg gave starters first shot at limited stadium parking on game days. “I always had one for Chip,” he said. “But he would usually con me into giving him a couple more for every game. He must have had a lot of friends.”

Joe and Ilda attended nearly every game, home and away, during Chip’s tenure.

Chip lettered in ’91, his senior year, and, after graduating in ’92, stayed on with Gregg for one year as an athletic department intern. (Gregg became AD in ’90.)

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Chip’s dream, Ilda said, was to be general manager of a professional football team. “Forrest told him, ‘That’s a real steep goal, Chip, but it can be accomplished,’” she said.

Gregg even drew up a career “roadmap” for him, complete with timetables. “He was so special to our family,” Ilda said of Gregg. “Chip adored him.”

During Chip’s internship, the men’s basketball team made the NCAA tournament and traveled to Chicago to face Brigham Young. “I put him in charge of the bus for the players, going back and forth to practice and to the game,” Gregg said. “He jumped on that like a bulldog.”

Gregg recalled arriving at the arena and not being allowed in. “Chip bailed out of the bus, went up to the cops that were directing traffic and, boy, just gave ‘em what for: ‘This is the SMU basketball team. We’re supposed to be in here. You let us in here right now or we’re going to have problems.’”

“I’ll never forget that,” Gregg said. “That’s just one of those great memories of him.”

Returning Home

“He knew what he wanted,” Joe said of his son. “He had all the confidence in the world.”

Chip Vasquez was an All-District, All-Valley center at Weslaco High in South Texas.

Chip returned to Weslaco to teach and coach at nearby Lyford High School. He was head coach of the junior high football team and also helped out with the varsity.

As senior class advisor he was extremely well-liked by students. Kids in the stands at football games would chant, “Chip!Chip!Chip!” as he paced, Lou Holtz-like, up and down the sidelines.

“That’s the relationship he had with the kids,” Joe said. “He was very youth-oriented.”

On May 27, 1994, Chip drove to Lyford to see “his boys” graduate from high school.

As he returned home that evening, on a winding stretch of Highway 107, Chip’s life ended in a one-car accident. The DPS officer who came to the Vasquez’s door said they believed something crossed the road in front of Chip’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, causing him to swerve.

“As far we know, he didn’t suffer long,” Ilda said.

“Everybody was crying,” Joe said of the students. “It was terrible. I really hated it, not only because we lost our son, but because of the kids.”

Today Weslaco presents the Chip Vasquez Fighting Heart Award each year to the varsity player with the most spirit. The Vasquez family has given scholarships in Chip’s honor at Weslaco and Lyford High has done the same.

Said Joe of Chip’s SMU days, “They treated him very well when he was there and I am eternally grateful for that.”

Notes:

• Forrest Gregg was a two-time All-SWC selection as a two-way lineman at SMU. He owns three Super Bowl Rings, two with Green Bay (’67, ’68) and one with Dallas, (’71). Gregg was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1977. He coached SMU two seasons, 1989-90, and was AD from 1990-94.

• SMU’s first post-death penalty SWC win was over TCU, 21-9, on September 26, 1992, in the Cotton Bowl.