Brothers Owen and Clyde Goodnight both played in the NFL in the 1940s and proudly hailed from Holland. Long-time Holland residents could tell you that right off the bat.
Owen, the elder brother, played the 1941 season as a halfback for the Cleveland Rams coming out of Hardin-Simmons. His offensive numbers that single year left a little to be desired, completing 12 of 36 passes for 182 yards with one touchdown and five interceptions. He did, however, have one of the longest completions of the year at 61 yards and a 74-yard punt that was the second-longest of that season. He averaged 39 yards per punt and intercepted two passes in his nine-game NFL career.
Clyde, eight years Owen’s junior, had the more substantial NFL résumé. He was the 27th overall pick of the Green Bay Packers in the 1945 draft after an honorable mention All-America career at Tulsa, where he played in the Sun and Sugar Bowls.
Clyde played end for the Packers until 1949 when he was shipped to the Washington Redskins, for whom he played two seasons as a teammate of Temple native Sammy Baugh. During his Packer days, Goodnight routinely was among the top 10 receivers in the league in a few categories. In 1947, his best season, he caught 38 passes for 593 yards and six touchdowns.
However, it was Owen who derived his livelihood through football when his playing days ended.
Owen is far and away the winningest coach San Marcos High School ever had. From 1951-66 he compiled a 116-49-4 record as the Rattlers’ coach. His 1964 team reached the Class 3A state finals before losing 24-15 to Palestine, then led by future Texas and Eagles great Bill Bradley. The next two years the Rattlers were stopped in the semifinals by Bridge City, with another future Longhorn legend Steve Worster.
Temple resident Tom Buckner, who played on Goodnight’s first San Marcos team in 1951, remembers Goodnight as a “patient” man who “influenced hundreds of lives.” Buckner tragically witnessed the day Goodnight died at a municipal function in his honor not long after he stepped away from football to go into school administration. A junior high school in San Marcos bears his name. He was inducted in the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor in 1971.
Clyde, meanwhile, returned to Holland to set up his medical practice. Just as Owen influenced many through sports and education, hundreds came from all over Central Texas to be treated by the ever-reliable Dr. Goodnight before his passing several years ago.
- - -
A month ago this space was devoted to a retelling of the 1953 Temple High School baseball season and its coach, Barlow Anderson. A few days later I received an e-mail from Roy Chapman, one of the aces on that team and one of the great Wildcat athletes of that era.
While he enjoyed the nostalgia of his old team, he did want to set the record straight that although they all loved Anderson, they were a pretty good team anyway despite the hyperbolic comments that Anderson and the Telegram sportswriter of the time printed.
“Prior to Coach Anderson’s arrival we were not a bunch of wood choppers, hazards and chunkers,” Chapman wrote. “In fact, we could even chew gum and walk at the same time.”
Chapman also mentioned that in practice the day before the Wildcats’ one and only state tournament game against Tyler, he was struck in the face with a ball thrown from the outfield and his right eye was swollen shut.
“It made hitting a curveball and pitching a little more difficult,” he wrote.
- - -
I had the pleasure of a friendly chat with Texas A&M women’s basketball coach Gary Blair last week.
If Blair ever had an ego, he checked it at the door and left it there a long time ago. It’s what makes him one of the most personable coaches at a major program you’re going to come across. There are few better than he at getting the most from the talent he’s been dealt.
The topic of conversation came around to Fran Garmon, the former Temple Junior College women’s coach who led the Leopardettes to the junior college national championship in 1975.
“That lady has forgotten more basketball than I’ll ever know,” Blair said.
Garmon, who went on to coach at Delta State, Texas Christian and extensively for international teams, still is dispensing basketball wisdom as the eighth-grade girls coach at Lake Belton Middle School.
- - -
If all goes according to plan, locals could be following the exploits of Lache Seastrunk and Taylor Jungmann for many years to come.
Running back Seastrunk is the hottest football prospect Temple has had since Kenneth Davis 30 years ago. The college world is his oyster right now and the sky is the limit after that.
Pitcher Jungmann solidified the fact that he is far more than just a 6-6 project with Texas. The former Rogers star only increased his worth with a five-hit complete game in Game 2 of the College World Series championship series against Louisiana State.
Seastrunk would provide an extension to the string of notable pros the area has turned out for generations, beginning with Baugh and Ki Aldrich. From there you have the Goodnights to Bobby Dillon to “Mean” Joe Greene to Brad Dusek to Davis to Rickey Sanders to Tommie Harris, with many others interspersed through the years.
Jungmann could pick up the baseball thread left by the similarly built Craig McMurtry of Troy.
For the time being, though, let’s just enjoy watching these guys’ talents develop while they are still nearby for easy viewing.
twaits@temple-telegram.com
