Topeka Daily Capital
Oct.14, 1959

Football weekend…

We met at the airport and Charlie Howes rolled his new Comanche out of the hangar. While he was closing the hangar doors, he turned and saw Frenn working on the fuselage with his fingernail file.

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked. “Seeing if I can find any loose bolts to tighten.” He looked up then to the radio antenna, a single wire stretching from the cabin to the tail section. “What’s that?” he asked.

“That,” said Charlie, “holds the tail on. Get in.”

Frenn and Pritchard got in the back seat, and we were off the ground before three o’clock. A little after five, Charlie was calling Dallas Approach Control on the radio and the man on the other end warned, “Traffic is extremely heavy.”

Frenn looked up from the gin game long enough to tell Charlie, “You heard what the man said.” Charlie replied: “I’ve got on my light fall suit, in case we hit anything.”

Frenn paled. . . .

We were down before six and by a little after seven we were in the Cotton Bowl, ready to watch Missouri play Southern Methodist. Frenn got in the press box, but was drafted for duty as a spotter for Kansas City radio announcers Merle Harmon and Bill Grigsby.

“He might have done all right, Harmon said later, “if he had remembered to bring his glasses.”

After the game, there was time for a visit in the SMU dressing room with the coaching staff — Bill Meek, John Cudmore, Sharkey Price and Clyde Van Sickle, the guys who gave Kansas State its last winning seasons.

Later, at the Dallas Press Club, There was Virgil Trucks, who spent 18 years pitching in the major leagues, and who wound up with the Kansas City A’s. He’s a car salesman now, and part-time radio color man.

“When I first went up to the big leagues,” Trucks said, “I was just a hit country boy from the South. I was so green that the first time we went into New York I was afraid to leave the hotel. I took the grapes they had in a bowl in my room and leaned out the window and dropped them one at a time, trying to hit somebody. I got a real kick when I did. . . .”

“The series? Well, I think it was a pretty lousy series in some ways. No starting pitcher finished a game. But this Sherry is something. He has a live fastball, a slider, and he can get the ball over the plate. If you can do that, you can win up there. . . .”

By now it was after 1 a.m., and out on the street there were thousands of people, mostly young people, driving and honking, and jamming the sidewalks, singing, drinking and raising general hell.

The curbs were lined with empty beer cans and whiskey bottles, and the police had no choice but to ignore almost anything. They arrested 12 people that night.

By 2:30 we were in bed, fighting for sleep against the noise on the streets and in the hotel. We were up and dressed at the crack of 10 a.m. and then experience paid off. We knew where to find a place where we could get served breakfast, and afterward, while others fought for taxis, we boarded a city bus which plods through traffic jams to the fairgrounds.

Then we were back in the Cotton Bowl. Long before 76,000 fans jammed the place and stood to sing “The Eyes of Texas.” The game started and Oklahoma led 12-0 in the first period, but Texas led 13-12, at the half. And a man said, “I hope this game picks up a little in the second-half.”

We were back at the airport and off the ground by seven, and home ordering a steak by ten.

At about the same time we took off from one Dallas airport, the Texas team plane was taking off from another for the trip back to Austin. Before it taxied out, Texas coach Darrell Royal told his players, “Be sure to get your injuries looked at tomorrow. Oh, incidentally, you all played a great game. Thanks.”