When I was hired by Eastman Kodak in 1977,the HR guy told me I would have to move from Austin to either Houston, Denver or cough (something that sounded like Oklahoma City).
I moved the family to OKC in May 1977. I survived the okies on newspapers at hotel stands where you could buy the Dallas Times Herald, Morning News and the Fort Worth paper daily. I soon discovered the OKC library not only received these but had Sunday editions of the Houston papers, Arkansas paper and the Austin paper.
It became evident that a number of guys were waiting on Wednesday/Thursday to read the Austin sports page. We got to know each other, one of them mentioned Jerry Scarbrough, the Associated Press rep for Oklahoma had an office in the capitol building and was a Texas-Ex. I looked up Jerry and spent hours in his office talking Texas sports and reading a bunch of small Texas papers he received. Jerry loves track and I soon figured out he knew more about Texas high school players and college recruiting than anyone I'd ever met.
When football season was approaching, the bunch I had met decided to form an OKC Texas-Exes chapter. We held meetings in each other's homes to listen to radio of Texas football games, watch the occasional TV game. Night games were assisted by a telephone call to my parents' who would lay their phone down next to a Wichita Falls station for the broadcast. We used a cheap Radio Shack speaker devise that had suction cups to relay the broadcast.
Our Texas Exes chapter granted us status to receive a 16mm film of each previous weekend's game (no sound). One of us would pick up the film canister at the bus station on Wednesday, we'd watch the film that night and put it on a bus to Midland on Thursday. Before moving from Austin, I was a member of the "Longhorn Club". We'd meet for lunch on Wednesday's at the Paramount movie theater, $5.00 bought you a box of fried chicken & drink, Freddy would set up the projector and DKR would narrate the game film. Jerry provided an almost similar narration to the OKC Texas-Exes. Let me say, Jerry hated the okies.
I was promoted to Dallas after a couple of years but tried to say in contact with Jerry for recruiting updates. Jerry left AP and bought a small paper in South Texas, Beeville, I think. I continued to move around the country. When Jerry started Tru Orange, I was among to first to subscribe.
Jerry had made an art of following recruiting, every Friday/ Saturday when the Horns were not playing Jerry was on the road to watch a high school game of interest, he originated the concept of a recruiting guy calling prospects for info, Jerry was reporting Texas sports going on long before us old guys ever knew how to use a computer or the Internet. He could recite track times and performances of the top 100 prospects each year off the top of his head. He was an insider's insider. .
God bless Jerry Scarbrough, he is a significant part of my Texas Longhorn experience. Hook 'Em!
