Football to many people ended last Sunday as the Seahawks buried the New England Patriots 29-13.
I didn’t much care who won but New England seemed to be the underdog, reminding me of an earlier Super Bowl in 1986 when the Patriots were destroyed by the Chicago Bears.
I was the Kerrville Daily Times managing editor in 1986 and Kerrville seemed to have a connection to the big game.
That’s because the Patriots head coach back then was Raymond Berry, a legendary pass receiver for the Baltimore Colts in the 1950s and the prime target of the great Johnny Unitas.
Berry was remembered for running routes and catching passes – he caught more passes than anyone before him.
Before the 13 years with Baltimore and the exceptional career with the SMU Mustangs, Berry landed at Schreiner Institute in Kerrville in the fall of 1950.
Tall and skinny (6-1, 154 pounds), Berry’s talents for catching a football emerged on the Scheiner Mountaineers gridiron.
He’d gone there because Schreiner was the only school to offer him a scholarship.
His dad was a football coach in Paris (yes, Texas).
Berry turned things around for Schreiner in that freshman year, with the Mountaineers going 7-3 and barely missing the small college playoffs.
He later shined for SMU and was drafted by the Colts in 1954.
I met Berry in 1986 with my Sports Editor Cliff Newell and a former sports editor who’d gone to work at Schreiner in the 1980s.
Cliff is who dug up all that information 40 years ago.
Berry was at the school to receiver its distinguished alumnus award.
For Schreiner, Berry was indeed a drawing card.
And Berry had good memories of Schreiner, joking how no one took him seriously.
One Schreiner former student remembered how a campus bully ended up in the hospital by underestimating the Paris wide receiver.
He played for the Colts at their premier in the 1950s and 1960s and I remember watching those early pro games on TV with my dad and hearing Berry’s name.
Berry also was a big name for teenagers in the 1960s.
He was the Colts star in 1958 in what was considered the greatest game ever – the Colts beating the Giants in overtime and winning the championship.
Alas, Berry’s Patriots fell to Chicago Bears and their coach Mike Ditka.
Oh, and for “Refrigerator Perry” - a large Bear lineman who scored in that Super Bowl.
One more thing, I paid close attention to the game because of the Patriots’ field goal kicker – A&M All American Tony Franklin.
