Introduction from The Sports Time Traveler™
As a Sports Time Traveler, I’m not a sports historian. I’m merely trying to experience the excitement of sporting events from the past.
Some of the events I travel to are ones I’m “re-living”, such as the 1973 Mets, which I followed when I was a 9 year old kid.
But many of the events are ones I’ve never known anything about and so I’m trying to experience them for the 1st time.
This was the case for the Navy football team of 1963, which was well before my time.
I knew nothing about this team. In fact I wouldn’t have even thought about following the 1963 Navy team if not for my friend, the Giffer, who was a 1985 graduate of the Naval Academy, and encouraged me to follow this team whose legacy had been a great inspiration for him growing up and was a factor in his determination to gain acceptance to the Academy.
Along the way on this journey through the fall of 1963 I learned of the great affinity President Kennedy had for Navy football. Kennedy had served in the Navy in World War II and was a Navy war hero.
As the President-elect in January 1961, Kennedy attended the Orange Bowl to root for #4 Navy as they played #5 Missouri.
And of course, Kennedy attended the 1961 and 1962 Army-Navy games while he was President. As commander in chief, he had to split his time during the game. So he sat on the Army side in the 1st half and the Navy side in the 2nd half. That way he could be there when his beloved Navy won the game.
Several weeks ago I wrote an article about the 1963 Army-Navy game which JFK had planned to attend a week after his trip to Dallas. You can view that article here:
Everyone who followed college football in 1963 knew that if Navy beat Army they were going to retain their #2 ranking and be invited to the Cotton Bowl to play #1 Texas.
It would be a de facto national championship game. In fact, it would be just the 2nd time that the #1 and #2 ranked college football teams met in a bowl game.
JFK certainly knew this.
In fact on November 22, 1963, Kennedy was scheduled to go to Austin after his event in Dallas to which the fateful open air motorcade was headed. His agenda in Austin included a visit to watch the University of Texas football team practice.
But of course, JFK never made it to see the Texas football team practice. His life was cut short at age 46 that afternoon in Dallas.
2 weeks later, after the game had been postponed a week, Navy did beat Army on December 7, 1963, and that set up the big game at the Cotton Bowl.
As I “experienced these events” in my sports time travels, it then occurred to me that if JFK would have lived, he would have attended the 1964 Cotton Bowl game. He would have gone back to Dallas just 6 weeks later to have the greatest experience he had ever had as a football fan.
To support my hypothesis that JFK would have attended the 1964 Cotton Bowl game I consulted an expert on the subject.
Michael Connelly is the author of a book titled, “The President's Team: The 1963 Army-Navy Game and the Assassination of JFK.” Michael indicated to me that, “I think he (JFK) would definitely go - especially with the rivalry he had with Lyndon Johnson.”
Further evidence that JFK would have attended the 1964 Cotton Bowl game comes from an article I found in The Banner Press on October 26, 2017 that indicated the speech JFK was prepared to make in Dallas, when he arrived at the Trade Mart, included this joke, “I like the idea of the Navy-Texas game, personally, and I’d like to do what I can to help, except that I know how you folks feel about federal intervention.”
So it’s pretty much a certainty. JFK would have attended the 1964 Cotton Bowl to root for Navy.
What greater moment could there have ever been for a Navy football fan.
Navy had never won a national championship. This was a grand opportunity.
As I pondered this, I felt a deep rooted sadness that JFK didn’t get to see the 1964 Cotton Bowl game.
This sadness was pervasive during my entire experience back in time to the 1964 Cotton Bowl game.
And now the article on the game.
The 1964 Cotton Bowl
DALLAS, TX - January 2, 1964
I’m here virtually in Dallas where yesterday #1 Texas met #2 Navy in the Cotton Bowl game.
This is only the 2nd time in the history of college football up to this time, that the #1 and #2 teams have met in a post-season bowl game.
This one was set up to be a real classic.
Texas (10 - 0) featured a great defense which had not given up more than 13 points in a game and allowed an average of just 6.5.
Navy (9 - 1) had a great offense. They had scored at least 21 points in every game and were averaging 31.4.
This game was a chance for Navy to avenge their only loss of the season which happened right here in the Cotton Bowl stadium on October 11th when SMU upset them 32 - 28.
Navy only lost when their Heisman trophy QB, Roger Staubach, fired a pass into the end zone, on the final play of the game, which was juggled and dropped by Navy wide receiver Ed Orr.
It was also in this same stadium that Texas barely maintained their undefeated record in the last game of the season, on November 28th, by staging a dramatic 4th quarter comeback from a 13 - 3 deficit to beat Texas A&M 15 - 13.
A capacity crowd of 75,504 fans filled the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day 1964, and millions more watched on the CBS television network when the broadcast started at 12:45pm CT.
You can experience the game as I did by watching this video:
Here’s my recap of the game with the time stamp on the video tape noted for easy viewing:
2:06 - Texas stuck first in the opening quarter when Duke Carlisle completed a pass to Phil Harris for a 58 yard touchdown catch & run.
4:42 - Roger “The Dodger” Staubach can’t escape the Texas blitz and is thrown for nearly a 25 yard loss.
6:25 - Navy avoids going down by 10 in the 1st quarter when Texas botches a fake field goal attempt.
6:55 - Navy can’t take advantage of the opportunity as Staubach is intercepted.
8:51 - Texas scores on a 63 yard catch & run from Carlisle to Harris again. Texas now leads 14 - 0 in the 2nd quarter.
11:39 - Carlisle scores the 3rd Texas touchdown on a 10 yard run in the 2nd quarter.
12:55 - 13:50 - The brilliance of Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach is best on display in this game in a 55 second sequence in which he has 2 scrambles out of trouble and 3 straight completed passes. But Navy can’t get across the goal line in the 1st half.
22:57 - In the 4th quarter Staubach runs it in for Navy’s only score of the game.
Texas ran up the score to 28 - 0 before Staubach’s touchdown made the final score 28 - 6.
It was an unanticipated rout.
The two long 1st half bombs had given Texas an insurmountable edge in the game.
It was a shock to Navy since Texas wasn’t known for their passing game.
Allison Danzig, who covered the game for the New York Times, wrote, “The Longhorns have been primarily a running team that ground out yardage and first downs. Today they passed as never before.”
Texas may have altered their strategy with the knowledge that Navy’s defensive back Pat Connelly was playing with a hamstring injury.
On both of the TD passes in the 1st half, Carlisle threw in Connelly’s direction, as Connelly was trying to cover Harris.
Connelly however was quick to dismiss his injury as an excuse, telling Alan Goldstein of the Baltimore Sun, “My leg was a little tight. It didn’t bother me that much.”
But Goldstein noted in his article that in the locker room after the game, “Donnelly paused as he cut away the tape around his injured leg muscle.”
As a result of the surprise aerial attack, by the 3rd quarter, Duke Carlisle had passed for 213 yards for a new Cotton Bowl record.
Texas was also able to blockade Navy’s running game. This was partly due to the limited effectiveness of Pat Donnelly, who was also Navy’s top rusher on the season.
Navy rushed for a total of MINUS 14 yards in the game and they never rushed for a 1st down.
Roger Staubach was constantly bombarded in the backfield. He told Goldstein, “I just got knocked on my butt and that’s all there is to it… I thought I could run… but I’ve never been hit so hard.”
Staubach credited the defense with, “the greatest pursuit I’ve seen.”
Texas shut down Roger from running and scrambling, but they couldn’t shut off Staubach’s passing game. He completed 21 of 31 passes and by the end of the game he surpassed Carlisle’s short lived Cotton Bowl record by amassing a total of 228 yards in the air.
9 of Staubach’s completes went to Ed Orr, who in a way avenged his missed catch in the SMU game, by setting a Cotton Bowl record for receptions.
But without an effective ground attack, Navy was only able to cross the goal line once all afternoon.
POSTSCRIPT
Texas left no doubt as to which team was the national champion of college football.
The Cotton Bowl game of 1964 cemented the first ever national title for Texas.
But who knows what might have transpired if JFK had lived.
Author Michael Connelly knows the 1963 Navy team as well as anyone. In addition to writing the book about them, he has been adopted as an “honorary teammate.”
By the way, that’s an honor, Connelly informed me, that has also been granted to hall of fame coach Bill Belichick. Bill’s father Steve was an assistant coach at Navy from 1956 - 1989.
Connelly asserts that, “the Assassination took a lot out of the Navy team.”
Perhaps if Kennedy had lived and attended the game, Navy would have had the extra adrenaline to withstand the Texas defensive pressure and shut down the Longhorns surprise long passing game.
If Kennedy had lived, just maybe, Navy could have won a national championship in front of their commander in chief.
Just maybe, instead of the date 11/22/63 being forever blasted into the American psyche as one of our most tragic dates, JFK himself would have remembered 1/1/64 as his greatest personal moment - when Navy was #1.
Sadly, we’ll never know.
ADDITIONAL READING ON THE 1963 NAVY TEAM AND JFK
For anyone who is inspired to learn more about the 1963 Navy team and the association with JFK, I strongly suggest you check out the great book by Michael Connelly which you can find at this link:
https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Team-1963-Army-Navy-Assassination/dp/0760337624
ADDITIONAL NEWS FROM 1964
The Sports Time Traveler™ is keeping an eye on 2 emerging stories in early 1964.
BOB HAYES
“Yesterday” in Miami, Bob Hayes, unofficially tied the world record for the 100 yard dash with a time of 9.1 seconds at the Orange Bowl track meet. That equals the time of Hayes’ pending world record.
The time was unofficial because of a 10 mph aiding wind.
But what was most impressive is that Hayes did it on a water logged cinder track.
Hayes is America’s best hope in the sprinting events at the upcoming 1964 Tokyo Olympics in October. The Sports Time Traveler™ intends to make the trip to Japan (virtually) to cover the Games.
THE BEATLES
This is not exactly a sports story, but it has all the excitement of sports and more.
A syndicated article from London appeared “this morning” in some American newspapers. The article was written by Hollywood Gossip writer Erskine Johnson, and it was titled, “Warning to United States. Beatles on the Way,” in the Public Opinion in Chambersburg, PA.
Johnson wrote, “I watch I’m appalled. The four young men on the stage call themselves “The Beatles.” … with shouts of ‘oh yeah yeah yeah,’ they wiggle like eels … The Beatles are England’s number 1 recording stars of beat music … It’s like Elvis Presley all over again. Only louder.
“The Beatles don’t even look human because of long, monstrous shaggy haircuts. Their names are Ringo, Paul, George and John and they are making a fortune.
“In February, they will invade the United States with two appearances on Ed Sullivan’s television show.”
The Sports Time Traveler™ plans to be there.
That’s all for today.
Thanks for reading.
JFK Would've Been There - The 1964 Cotton Bowl