Thursday's Internet Edition, July 03, 2008. This Week in Texas History: Bible brings Longhorns back from the dead By Bartee Haile - The DAILY TEXAN, the student newspaper at the University of Texas, reported on Dec. 13, 1936 that the athletic council had a secret game plan to replace the current football coach with the legendary Dana X. Bible. Although a charter member of the Southwest Conference, the state's largest college had just three measly championships to show for 22 seasons. The Longhorns had fallen on humiliatingly hard times in recent years finishing dead last in the latest seven-team race. Jack Chevigny realized his coaching days were over at Texas and only hoped to exit with his tattered dignity intact. But a student representative on the athletic council leaked the hush-hush decision to fire him to the campus paper, and Chevigny was forced to resign in disgrace. The unanimous choice to raise the lifeless football program from the dead was Dana Xenephon Bible, the gridiron genius who posted a phenomenal 72-19-9 record at rival Texas A&M before moving on to Nebraska. He expressed an interest in returning to the Lone Star State, if the price was right. Negotiators listened in stunned disbelief as Bible recited his exorbitant demands: a no-cut contract for 10 years, $15,000 annual salary, $5,000 more to cover his moving expenses and, to sweeten the deal, his new employer had to pay his income taxes. To the casual observer, Bible might as well have asked for the moon. How could anyone expect to earn twice as much as the university president and four times the income of a professor for teaching young men the finer points of a violent sport? But football has always been much more than a pastime in Texas. Influential alumni overcame the vehement objections of the faculty and state legislature by guaranteeing the controversial compensation would come from gate receipts at athletic events. Bible no sooner set up shop in Austin than he made a rash promise to the victory-starved faithful. "We shall try to give Texas a winning football team. We do not mean five years from now or three. We mean starting new fall." Bible knew from long experience that college football games are won in the living rooms of top high-school prospects, so-called "blue chips." During the off-season, he unveiled the Bible Plan, an aggressive yet squeaky clean campaign to attract cream-of-the-crop players. The next year the lowly Longhorns lost every contest save one, the Thanksgiving Day grudge match with the Aggies. The silver lining in the black cloud of 1938 was the varsity-freshman scrimmage, where Bible's initial batch of recruits beat the daylights out of the outclassed upperclassmen. Nineteen thirty-nine was the turnaround year as the superb sophomores took charge. The reinvigorated Horns not only recorded their first winning season in five years but upset mighty Wisconsin on the road and came from behind in the closing seconds of a home-field cliffhanger to surprise Arkansas. Even though their helmeted heroes tasted defeat just twice in 1940, UT fans dreaded the finale with the Aggies, who had crushed 19 consecutive opponents behind the power running of All-American John Kimbrough. But after the offense tallied on the fourth snap of the pigskin, the stingy defense did not surrender a single point to the potent A&M attack. In 1941 Bible had a hand-picked squad at last. Headed by the fabulous freshmen of '37, who had matured into veteran seniors, every spot on the roster was filled by a product of his tried-and-true "plan." Coaches, players, students and alumni all believed their time had come. The Longhorns clobbered their first six foes piling up 230 points while allowing a grand total of three touchdowns. This astonishing start landed them on top of the college polls and on the cover of LIFE magazine. A national championship as well as the conference were within reach. However, someone forgot to tell the Baylor Bears that Bible and his boys were invincible. The Horns escaped the Waco ambush with a tie only to lose to TCU the very next Saturday. In eight traumatic days, a dream season went up in smoke. Texas bounced back to beat A&M, but the Aggies still went to the Cotton Bowl. Passed over by the Rose and Sugar, the frustrated Horns bombed Oregon 71-7 the day before Pearl Harbor. Bible won back-to-back SWC titles in 1942 and 1943, but the repeat feat was tarnished by the musical-chairs effect of the world war on college football. His star running back, one of a score of players "on loan" from the military, had been Texas Tech's best peacetime ball carrier. At the end of his ten-year contract in 1946, Dana X. Bible passed the reins to Blair Cherry. He stayed on at the University of Texas as athletic director and spent a second decade molding the Longhorns into a perennial powerhouse. Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549. This is an on-line publication of Groesbeck Journal P.O. Box 440 Groesbeck, TX 76642-0440 254-729-5103 For comments or questions, email Publisher: Thomas Hawkins groesbeckads@gmail.com The Web Site contains material which is protected by international copyright and trademark laws. No material may be copied, reproduced, republished, broadcast or distributed in any way or decompiled, except that you may download one copy of the Materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. On-line publication, Copyright 2000, Groesbeck Journal. Web page design, Copyright 2000, EZ Edit Web Publishing.