On this weekend 50 years ago, Earl Campbell came to Houston for the first time.

In the hearts and minds of many who watched him that day and continued to do so over the next decade, he’s never left.

Campbell was born and raised in Tyler and has lived most of the last 40 years in Austin, but he remains a vital part of Houston’s collective memory. 

He played 55 football games in Houston from 1973 through 1984 on the road to becoming one of 11 Texans enshrined by the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame, College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame to have played every significant moment of his career for a team representing Texas.

“That just shows that God knew what He was doing with me,” Campbell said.

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Campbell was a short-term visitor to Houston on Dec. 22, 1973, when he and his John Tyler High School teammates beat Austin Reagan 21-14 for the Class 4A state championship before 16,000 fans at the Astrodome. He returned for a 1974 high school all-star game and for four games at Rice Stadium and the Astrodome with the Texas Longhorns before finding a home at the Dome from 1978 through 1984 with the Oilers.

But Campbell wonders whether any of the grand moments of his Texas career, including his Heisman Trophy-winning 1977 season, or his four All-Pro campaigns in 6½ seasons with the Oilers would have happened without that first visit in 1973.

In the process, he learned he also could change hearts and minds while, as one observer said, “turning linebackers into speed bumps and defensive backs into roadkill” en route to the end zone, where he took care to leave the ball within reach of the nearest official.

“The first time I scored in a scrimmage in high school, I did the touchdown dance I had seen from Elmo Wright (who instituted the TD dance at the University of Houston in the mid-1960s),” Campbell said. “But my coach told me, ‘Earl, when you score a touchdown at Rose Stadium, everybody will know. So don’t be doing that.’

“So I never danced. I laid the ball down after I scored or handed it to an official. I thought that if my daddy was alive and he was a referee, I wouldn’t want him chasing something I had thrown down, so why treat somebody else’s dad that way?”

Formative years

Campbell’s father, B.C. Campbell, never got to see his son play organized football. The elder Campbell died in 1966, leaving Earl, at age 11, and his six brothers and four sisters in the care of their mother, Ann Campbell, who worked as a housekeeper in Tyler and grew rose bushes on the family’s farm in Swan, just north of the city limits.

Family members remember Earl as an indifferent hand in the rose fields compared to his siblings. Cousin Gary Don Johnson, a high school teammate at John Tyler who played at Baylor University and in the NFL, remembers the oldest Campbell brother, Herbert, breaking up ground with a mule-drawn plow. It was a hard, meager living.

Campbell’s indifference to fieldwork was in sharp contrast to his enthusiasm for football. He began playing flag football in elementary school and advanced to helmets and pads when he moved to middle school at a time of dynamic change in his East Texas hometown. 

Tyler was a one-school town before adding a second high school in 1958. In keeping with the defiant attitude of many Southern towns after the Supreme Court’s “with all deliberate speed” desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, it was named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who served in the Army in Texas for 19 months in the 1850s but otherwise had no direct relationship to the state. 

In Tyler’s case, “all deliberate speed” toward integration dawdled for more than a decade. A handful of Black students began attending Tyler’s white schools in 1966, but it was not until the fall of 1970 with the closing of Emmett Scott High School, where Campbell’s older brothers Alfred Ray and Herbert played football in relative obscurity, that full integration was implemented.

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It was not a uniformly peaceful time. As a ninth-grader at Moore Junior High, Campbell regularly got into before-school fights along racial lines.

“One guy ran the white people. I ran the Black people, and we would fight like hell before school started,” Campbell said. “But our coach, Butch LaCroix, sat us down and told us to stop, that we were going to be teammates no matter what.”

The fights ceased, and the Mustangs won the 1970 city championship. A year later, Campbell moved to John Tyler, where a tense first year of integration ended in the spring of 1971 with a walkout of Black students in a dispute over cheerleader elections.

About 300 Black students boycotted class and were expelled but were reinstated by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice, who presided over the consent order that desegregated Tyler’s schools and played a major role overseeing lawsuits seeking to reform Texas’ prison system.

Seizing his chance

After a 4-5 finish in 1970, John Tyler in 1971 had a new coach in Corky Nelson, who brought in Campbell’s coach from junior high as an assistant. Still, Campbell languished on the junior varsity until the season’s sixth game. 

Installed at middle linebacker for his debut, he sacked future NFL quarterback Jeb Blount eight times in a 10-7 John Tyler victory. He was named the district’s sophomore of the year on defense and carried twice for no gain, helping the Lions rebound from 0-3-1 to finish 3-6-1.

As a junior in 1972, Campbell split time between offense and defense, again winning all-district honors at linebacker and rushing 59 times for 529 yards and six touchdowns. The Lions finished 8-2, their best record in almost a decade.

For all the attention he drew in East Texas, Campbell was mostly unheralded statewide entering his senior year. He was not listed among the state’s 90 best college prospects by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, and the magazine picked the Lions to finish fifth in their district.

Gary Don Johnson, however, knew the Lions had a defense that could dominate opponents even without Campbell, who was moved to offense full-time for the 1973 season.

“They wouldn’t let me practice against Earl because I’d try to get in the backfield and tackle every one of them,” Johnson said. “They didn’t know where to play me at first. They were asking, ‘Where are we going to put this guy?’ And Earl said, ‘Put him in the middle at nose guard.’ ”

Coaches agreed, and Johnson combined with Campbell’s younger twin brothers, Tim and Steve, linebacker Lynn King, who doubled as Campbell’s lead blocker on offense, and defensive back Ralph Caldwell, Campbell’s best friend on the team, to headline a unit that became known as the Wrecking Crew a decade before Texas A&M adopted the nickname. 

John Tyler swept through its regular season relatively unchallenged, save a 21-16 win over Texarkana in which Campbell ran for two scores and threw a 73-yard touchdown pass and a 14-7 win over Nacogdoches in which Campbell missed most of the game with injuries that also sidelined him from a blowout win over Palestine.

Off the field, Johnson said, some of the racial divisions that had plagued Tyler’s high schools in the early days of integration were dissolving.

“I think we kind of woke Tyler up,” Johnson said. “Guys like me and Lynn King all got along really well. We brought people together.”

March to a championship

The Lions opened the Class 4A playoffs with a 34-0 win over Plano at Rose Stadium that is remembered by those who saw it for a 26-yard run during which Campbell carried six to seven Plano players 14 to 20 yards before going down.

A week later, more than 10,000 fans jammed into Conroe’s Moorhead Stadium to watch John Tyler take on the top-ranked Conroe Tigers and their “Punishers” defense led by lineman James “Sugar Bear” Yates. 

Campbell missed a portion of the game with injuries but, with John Tyler trailing 7-3, carried nine times and threw an 18-yard pass to quarterback Larry Hartsfield on a 13-play fourth-quarter drive, scoring on a 5-yard run with 2:04 to play for a 10-7 victory.

“Sugar Bear and I went to Texas and became roommates, and he said they wished they had never knocked me out of that game, because that’s when I started playing,” Campbell said. “We still talk about that game.”

Afterward, Conroe coach W.T. Stapler, who in the mid-1980s led Sweetwater to a state title and was selected to the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame, said of Campbell, “I always thought Superman was white, He’s Black, wears number 20 and plays for John Tyler.”

Campbell met another future teammate in playoff Week 3 against Fort Worth Arlington Heights and its all-state candidate Mike Renfro, who, to his chagrin on that December day, played safety as well as receiver.

“It was early in the game, the score was something like 7-6, and I hit Earl right above the knees in body block fashion,” Renfro said in a 1991 interview. “Ninety percent of the time, the ball carrier would dive over me and go to the ground.

“But Earl’s legs jammed my facemask into the grass. By the time I pulled the grass out of my facemask and looked around, he had gone 72 yards.”

It was one of four Campbell touchdown runs in John Tyler’s 34-12 win, which set up a semifinal game at Baylor Stadium against Arlington Sam Houston, which was led by all-state defensive back and punt returner Ronald Burns. 

Burns returned a John Tyler punt inside the 1-yard line in the first quarter, but Campbell, back at linebacker in the goal line defense, forced a fumble and, three plays later, ran 85 yards for a touchdown. Teammate Ronnie Lee helped clinch the win with a 79-yard reception from Hartsfield on John Tyler’s only pass attempt of a 22-7 win.

With that, the Lions were off to Houston to play Austin Reagan, winner of three Class 4A titles in the previous six years, for the title.

“There wasn’t any nervousness,” Campbell said. “We were a bunch of country guys from Tyler. We knew we had some exceptional athletes on our team.”

Campbell had a 52-yard touchdown run in the first half, but the Lions trailed Reagan 14-7 at halftime. He accounted for 41 of John Tyler’s 81 yards during a third-quarter scoring drive, and he scored the game-winner on a 1-yard run with 51 seconds to play. He had 164 yards on 32 carries, giving him 2,036 yards and 28 TDs for the season and 852 yards and 11 scores for five playoff games.

“I don’t think, as a kid, as a high school student, that I understood what we were doing above football,” Campbell said. “But when we won the state championship, I think that meant a lot to everybody in Tyler. There had been racial problems, but when our team won the championship, that broke the seal, and everybody started trying to live as human beings.”

Eyes of Texas upon him

After the game, in the John Tyler locker room, Campbell had his first face-to-face meeting with Texas coach Darrell Royal and Houston lawyer Joe Jamail, who would become a friend and lifelong adviser. 

A few months later, following another trip to the Astrodome for the high school North-South all-star game, Campbell headed to Austin as the centerpiece of the Longhorns’ 1974 recruiting class. He was recruited by Ken Dabbs, who as head coach at Sweeny in the mid-1960s tried to convince Royal to break the color barrier by signing Elmo Wright. Royal subsequently was criticized for moving too slowly to recruit Black players. 

In an interview for the book “Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact” by Asher Price, Dabbs said he asked Royal about that when he was hired as a UT assistant and told to focus on recruiting Campbell. “If I had listened to you in 1966, I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in now,” Royal replied.

Dabbs did his job, and Campbell turned down a relentless sales pitch by Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer in choosing Texas over the Sooners.

“Blacks are through selling themselves, or at least I’m not going to sell myself,” Campbell said on signing day. “Texas offered me everything legal, and there was none of this stupid talk of cars and money.”

The rest of the story is holy Longhorns writ: 4,443 career rushing yards, 40 touchdowns, the 1977 Heisman Trophy and a statue of his likeness at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium, where the playing field is named in honor of Campbell and 1998 Heisman winner Ricky Williams.

Campbell had two standout games in Houston for the Longhorns, rushing for 95 yards to win the outstanding back award in a 38-21 win over Colorado in the 1976 Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl and bludgeoning the Houston Cougars for 173 yards and three scores in 1977.

In February 1978, he returned to Tyler for a parade that was attended by 5,000 people and culminated on the city’s courthouse square. When he thinks of that day, he remembers the adulation, but he also remembers stories about the days when downtown Tyler was less welcoming for a Black man.

Campbell said his mother told him stories of Black men who were lynched and burned at the stake on the square, no more than a hundred yards or so from the spot he stood on that day in February 1978. 

The stories, he said, linger still. The acclaim he received that day, however, reinforces the gratitude he feels for the impact he and his team had on his hometown and for the blessings he received from football.

“I think I would rate (the Lions’ 1973 championship) above everything,” he said. “One of the greatest things that happened in my life was integration. If it had not been for integration, I do not think I would have made it. I think I would have gotten stuck like my older brothers, who were better players than I was.

“Sports became my way to a better life. I was a part of a group of guys who did a lot. We were just a bunch of young kids, but we thought we were the best at what we did.”

Feeling the Luv

From Austin, sports took Earl Campbell to Houston, where he and his teammates and their coach, Bum Phillips, created an era that remains dear to Houston sports fans. After spending a year and a half at New Orleans, Campbell finished his NFL career with 9,407 yards and 73 touchdowns, and he was selected two years ago to the NFL’s All-Century Team.

The Oilers’ “Luv Ya Blue” era burned brightest on Nov. 20, 1978, when Campbell ran for 199 yards and four touchdowns to give them a 35-30 win over the Dolphins on “Monday Night Football.” 

During the three years, 1978-80, that Campbell played for Phillips at the Astrodome, the Oilers were 18-7, and Campbell recorded 12 100-yard games and 23 touchdowns.

“I had a chance to play high school ball at the Astrodome and then the ultimate thing, pro football. And I got to play every (home) game at the Astrodome. It was unbelievable,” he said.

Campbell left Houston after retiring from football but is hardly a stranger. He returned in 1994 to the Astrodome, in company with his high school teammate Lynn King, to see John Tyler win a Class 5A championship. In 2016, he joined Hakeem Olajuwon and Nolan Ryan in the first induction class of the Houston Sports Hall of Fame.

Perhaps his most significant Houston appearance in recent years, however, came in November 2012, when he celebrated three years of sobriety and spoke frankly during a speech to the Council on Alcohol and Drugs Houston about his struggles with alcohol and painkillers. 

Campbell said his wife, Reuna, encouraged him to get help, and he finally agreed to do so at the urging of his sons, Christian and Tyler.

“The thing that got me was when they said, ‘Dad, did you see what happened to Michael Jackson? You keep doing this, that’s going to happen to you,’ ” Campbell said.

Christian Campbell said he and his family continue to be impressed by the emphasis that Campbell has placed on sobriety.

“I think we all underestimated how strong addiction is,” the younger Campbell said. “We couldn’t pray and will a disease away. He needed to get some professional help.

“His stints in rehab have helped mold him to what people see today: a clear thinker who is approachable and someone who is willing to help others get and stay sober.”

He remains sober more than a decade after those remarks, and he remains active as the public face of Earl Campbell Foods and as co-owner with Tyler native and former NFL player Gary Baxter of Project Rose Research Institute for Sports Science in Tyler. He also is the namesake of the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award, given each year in Tyler to the top college football player from Texas.

Campbell also helped unify his hometown in 2020 when residents were in an uproar about a plan to change the name of Robert E. Lee High School. Campbell’s suggestion, which was adopted, was also to change the name of John Tyler High School, which bore the name of the man who was president when Texas was admitted to the union as a state where slavery was allowed. The schools are now known, respectively, as Legacy High School and Tyler High School.

“When it comes to renaming John Tyler and Robert E. Lee, I think that was something that needed to be done a long time ago. We know what those names stand for, and I take my hat off to the city of Tyler for renaming them,” Campbell said in 2020, noting he surprised community officials with his desire to see the school name appearing next to his in the record books relegated to history.

“I’m interested in the future. I think me getting involved in it kind of eased the pain and, ‘OK, let’s do this.’ ”
 
He also has reunited with his former NFL team. After years of keeping a discreet distance from the Tennessee Titans, the franchise formerly known as the Oilers, Campbell made his first visit to a Titans game in Nashville last weekend to watch his teammate Billy “White Shoes” Johnson get inducted into the Titans’ Ring of Honor.

New Year's wish

Also, after years of health issues stemming from the pounding his body took as a runner — he learned after retirement that he suffered from a spinal condition that could have resulted in paralysis — Campbell is making physical progress as well. He still uses a wheelchair in public but is active and says he is able to come and go as he pleases. 

“His physical recovery comes from playing the game he loved at a high level,” Christian Campbell said. “He always says he has no regrets doing it; he just would have liked to have done it a bit longer because it was so much fun.

“He’s worked to get back on track and take good care of his body, taking sobriety and physical recovery day by day.”

Campbell works out three days a week at the Longhorns’ training facility, and he cherishes the chance to spend time with head coach Steve Sarkisian and UT's current players.

“Meeting Earl Campbell is one of my great thrills since being here,” Sarkisian said. “I loved watching him play and even had his Houston Oilers poster up on my wall as a kid. 

“I was like a fan when I first met him, but the more I got around him and got to know him, I was taken by how humble and genuine he is. He’s been unbelievably supportive, comes around all the time, and it’s always so special to see him. We’re lucky to have a great legend of the game and person of Earl’s stature staying connected to our team.”

Campbell said Sarkisian “handles these kids like they’re men. He gives them a little rope to do their thing, but he lets them know that they’re a team and that there are things they need to accomplish.

“I talk to the kids about things and tell them to pray about things, and the right answer will come. If they have questions for me, I try to respond.”

Texas fans, meanwhile, have a question about the 2023 Longhorns: Can they capture a national championship, the one gem that escaped Campbell during his college days? 

The answer is forthcoming. If Texas beats Washington in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Eve, it will advance to the College Football Playoff title game Jan. 8 at NRG Stadium against the winner of the Michigan-Alabama semifinal at the Rose Bowl.

If that comes to pass, the eyes of Texas will turn once more to Houston. And Earl Campbell expects to see greatness once more. 

“I want to predict that Texas is going to play Michigan for the championship and that Texas is going to win,” he said.