Hayden Fry

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Hayden Fry bigraphy, stories - American football player

Hayden Fry : biography

February 28, 1929 –

John Hayden Fry (born February 28, 1929) is a former American football player and coach. He played college football for Baylor University. He served as the head coach at Southern Methodist University (1962–1972), North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas (1973–1978), and the University of Iowa (1979–1998), compiling a career college football record of 232–178–10. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2003.

Background

Born in Eastland, Texas, Hayden Fry was descended from one of the Texas First Families; his great-great-grandfather fought beside General Sam Houston in the Mexican War against Santa Anna in the battle of San Jacinto. Fry’s family moved to Odessa, Texas, when he was eight years old.

Fry worked multiple jobs as a child to help his family through the Great Depression. He also played sports, partly to stay out of trouble. Hayden played basketball, football, and track, but he most loved and was most successful at football, and Odessa was a football town.

When Fry played safety and quarterback for Odessa High School in the 1940s, their stands routinely had sellout crowds. In Fry’s senior year, Odessa won 14 straight games, scoring almost 400 points and allowing about 50. Odessa did not commit a single turnover all season. The Texas state playoffs placed every school into a single bracket. At the end of the year, Hayden Fry quarterbacked Odessa to the Texas state high school championship in 1946.

Fry then played at Baylor University from 1947–1950. Baylor had a 26–13–2 record during Fry’s four years there. Fry started a few games as an upperclassman at Baylor, but he could never win the full-time starting quarterback job. He graduated from Baylor with a degree in psychology in 1951.

Fry was an American history teacher and assistant football coach at Odessa High School for a year in 1951 before joining the U.S. Marine Corps in 1952. During his time in Odessa, Fry met and befriended a young George H. W. Bush, who would become the 41st President of the United States.

Fry served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1952–1955. He played with the Quantico Marines football team in 1953, winning the Marine Corps championship and playing in the Poinsettia Bowl. Fry also coached a six man football team while in the Marines, and the unique style of play allowed Fry to innovate and invent new creative schemes. He became friends with Al Davis, who was coaching a rival military team; Davis would later become the famous owner of the Oakland Raiders. Fry’s time coaching and serving in the Marines were an asset as he began his coaching career. Fry was discharged from the Marines in February 1955 with the rank of captain.

Head coaching career

The SMU Mustangs were members of the Southwest Conference at the time. Fry won the conference coach of the year award in his first season. In 1963, SMU opened the season with a 27–16 loss to a Michigan team coached by Bump Elliott, Fry’s future boss at Iowa. SMU lost to Oregon in the 1963 Sun Bowl, 21–14. After the season, Fry was also appointed as SMU’s athletic director.

When Fry took the job at SMU, he was promised that he would be allowed to recruit black athletes. Fry and the school wanted to make certain that the player they recruited was not only a good athlete but also a good student and citizen and someone with the mental toughness to be one of the first black players in conference history. Fry found that player in Jerry LeVias. LeVias was a great player, an exceptional student, and mentally tough. He had never had discipline problems and was deeply religious. LeVias was the perfect player for SMU.

Jerry LeVias had many other scholarship offers to good integrated schools, but he chose to attend SMU. LeVias became the first black player signed to a football scholarship in the Southwest Conference. In 1966, LeVias made his debut, one week after John Hill Westbrook of Baylor became the first black player to play for a conference team.http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/042110aah.html Fry received abuse for recruiting a black player to SMU in the form of hate mail and threatening phone calls, but he downplayed the treatment, because the harassment of LeVias was much, much worse.