Published: October 30, 2009 08:03 am      

Celebrating a Champion: Big ’Dogs

Navarro’s 1989 national title team was built on the recruiting trail

Navarro’s 1989 national championship season didn’t start on the practice field. It didn’t start in the film room. It didn’t start at the Bulldogs’ first team meeting.

It started with Bob McElroy sitting in his Navarro College office at all hours of the day and night, assistant coaches along with him, answering phone calls about prospective players.

Keo Coleman from Milwaukee, Wis.

Charles Thompson from Monahans.

Mark Wheeler from San Marcos.

Keith Moore and Orlando Williams from Corsicana.

Pat Williams from Dallas Hillcrest. Nate Williams from Houston Washington. Hunkie Cooper from Palestine.

And on and on and on.

Championship college football teams are built at any level by recruiting top players and coaching them up, and the 1989 Bulldogs were no different.

“It was a different game back then,” said Orlando Williams, who played defensive back for his hometown college. “We could throw it if we had to, but we would basically line up and run right at you. And we could play defense.”

The Bulldogs allowed 56 points all season.

They threw four shutouts.

They led the Texas Junior College Football Conference in total offense and defense.

They had conference leaders in punt returns, punts and interceptions.

To be that complete of a team, it takes great players.

And McElroy has a story for every one of them.

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McElroy was sitting in his office in the summer of 1988 when a coach on Hayden’s Fry staff passed through Navarro after visiting a recruit at Blooming Grove.

McElroy and the Iowa coach started discussing recruits with eligibility issues — “I was always asking that,” McElroy said. The Hawkeyes’ assistant started telling him about a player from Milwaukee, Wis. that Iowa couldn’t get into school.

The player was Keo Coleman, a linebacker. McElroy obtained Coleman’s high school coach’s phone number. The coach passed him on to Coleman.

McElroy never met Coleman in person before he arrived in Corsicana. This was strictly a phone interview.

“I asked him if he was interested in coming down here and he did,” McElroy said. “If he’s not the best player we had, he’s one of them.”

McElroy could have been out playing golf or fishing somewhere on a summer day, and missed that Iowa coach. And missed out on Coleman, who went on to play at Mississippi State and then for the Green Bay Packers for a season.

“It was a result of where I ought to be,” McElroy said.

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McElroy was born in Norman, Okla. in the shadow of Oklahoma University in 1932. It was long before Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer.

But it was still Oklahoma Sooner football, and McElroy was just two blocks away from it all.

“I remember the band playing on Saturday,” he said.

McElroy decided he wanted to coach when was 12. His family was living in Alex, Okla., and lucky for him they started a football team his sophomore year.

The coach that brought McElroy to Corsicana, Jim Payne, hired him as an assistant in 1970. That lasted three years before Payne and his staff were replaced.

McElroy didn’t stay out of coaching long. Navarro coach Harold Hern called and asked McElroy to help out with the Bulldogs, the only problem being he couldn’t get him on full time. McElroy worked part-time at Navarro for two years and tried to sell insurance.

When that didn’t work out, he went to Grand Prairie High School for a year. Hern called again, this time offering the defensive coordinator spot. McElroy took it and even moved back in the same house.

McElroy said Hern, who went into the NJCAA Football Hall of Fame this fall, was an excellent recruiter. “A little bit of that rubbed off on me,” McElroy said.

When he became the head coach in 1986, he relied on his instinct to find players. He learned that being honest about what the program had to offer was the key selling point.

“The school sold the kid once he got on campus,” McElroy said.

Don’t let McElroy fool you. He sold Navarro.

“He’s a genuine person,” said Pat Williams, who grew up in South Dallas. “He’s a father figure. A great motivator. He brought us all together.”

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McElroy was sitting in his office one day when a coach dropped in and told him about Mark Wheeler, who went on to star on the defensive line for the 1989 title team.

Actually, the conversation started with the coach saying,” What are you doing?”

McElroy’s response: “I’m sitting here in my office.”

The visiting coach: “There’s a man you need to go see in Sam Marcos. You need to recruit him.”

“So I did,” McElroy said recently.

The coach and his wife Beanie jumped in their car and drove three hours to San Marcos to see Wheeler play basketball.

“You could tell he was a good athlete,” McElroy said. “He could run well. He was tall, 6-3, 270 pounds.”

McElroy talked to Wheeler’s high school counselor, who told him that she was concerned that Wheeler might not pass an English course he was taking by correspondence. Wheeler passed the English class.

He wound up being the anchor of the Bulldogs’ defense and going to Texas A&M, where he was All-Southwest Conference. He played eight seasons in the NFL for Tampa Bay, New England and Philadelphia.

“All because I was where I was supposed to be,” McElroy said.

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The Bulldogs went 8-2 in 1988 and made it to the Jayhawk Bowl, where they lost to Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College.

The Bulldogs probably should have won that game but had to play without several starters. The loss served as motivation for 1989.

“I’ve never thought of it that way but it did,” McElroy said. “We had good players, obviously some good freshman players. We were really, really good.

“I know our team was disappointed that we lost,” he said. “And they didn’t lose again.”

The Bulldogs opened the ’89 season with a 48-0 rout over Tarleton State’s junior varsity. The Bulldogs held Tarleton to 81 yards.

Next up was Tyler and the Bulldogs routed the Apaches, 35-7. The Bulldogs forced four turnovers and held a powerful Tyler offense to 163 yards. The stage was set for Navarro and No. 1 Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.

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Wide receiver Eddie Brown could be the best player to ever play at Navarro.

The Miami, Fla. product played one season for the Bulldogs in 1982, went on to play for the national champion Miami Hurricanes in 1983 and was picked three spots ahead of the best receiver in NFL history, Mississippi Valley State’s Jerry Rice, in the 1985 NFL Draft. Brown was the NFL Rookie of the Year for Cincinnati in 1985.

Brown wound up at Navarro because of the relationship Hern had with a Miami, Fla. coach. As McElroy said, the Hurricanes would “let us know about some guys.”

“We would make it clear that if anyone would help us with a player we’d make certain he got back to them,” McElroy said. “(Brown) was going to go back to Miami.”

The ‘89 title team was built off players that played for or were recruits for the best Division I programs in the country.

Nose guard Nate Williams, who combined with Wheeler to dominate up front, was a transfer from Oklahoma. Defensive back Carlos Scott played for the Sooners. Defensive back Steve Harris, who had seven interceptions, had been at LSU.

Strong safety Jerome Pipkins had been at Iowa. Left guard James Prather at Tulsa. Tackle Bill Hurst at Clemson.

“Coach Mac gave a lot of guys a second chance,” said Pipkins, who now works as a parent-liaison for the Paris Independent School District. “He took a bunch of individuals and taught us a team concept.”

The Bulldogs’ coaching staff found defensive end Joe Green in Houston. Offensive linemen Mark Weiss in Virginia. Quarterback Gary Clayton in Birmingham, Ala. Free safety Vernon Shaw in Garland.

“Most of those guys could have gone anywhere,” McElroy said.

There were sleepers like offensive lineman Earl Bell from Teague. There were recruits in small towns like Thompson in Monahans, Walter Ransom in Boyd and Carlos Fleeks in Wichita Falls.

McElroy credits his coaching staff for finding and recruiting players — offensive coordinator Steve Wright, defensive coordinator Tony Hensley, secondary coach Keith Thomas, offensive line coach Sam Stoia and receivers coach Jesse Cummings.

“They were as good a coaching staff as there was as far as football knowledge,” McElroy said “But superior to that was recruiting. To find and go into homes and to tell recruits this is the right place for them.”

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McElroy also knew he needed to find players who were good enough to beat Northeastern Oklahoma A&M. Few programs had the tradition of NEO.

“My feeling after the ’86 season, I thought that what we needed to do at Navarro was field a team that could beat NEO,” McElroy said. “I thought we had to play to their standards. They had won a bunch of national championships. They had some great players.”

NEO had been effective recruiting on a national stage, getting the best players out of Oklahoma and then raiding Georgia and Florida. McElroy felt like he needed to have a program like that.

So he recruited top players from Texas and went into other states. What Navarro ended up with in ’89 was a dominant team, maybe the best ever in JUCO history.

“That team had a sense of dominance in them, McElroy said. “They were very, very confident. They were very consistent.”

The Golden Norseman were on an eight-game winning streak and ranked No. 1 in the nation when they arrived in Corsicana.

Navarro led only 3-0 at halftime on a 38-yard field goal by Roger Miller. The Bulldogs, namely Thompson, exploded in the second half. Thompson rushed for four touchdowns, all from inside the 10-yard line.

NEO actually won the yardage battle, 311-237, but the final was Bulldogs 31, Golden Norsemen 14. Navarro coasted from there, winning their last six games by an average margin of 28 points. The Bulldogs’ defense was incredible, pitching three shutouts.

McElroy was able to control the TJCFC because he didn’t worry much about losing a player to a rival junior college.

“Tyler and Kilgore really did a good job,” McElroy said. “My philosophy was it didn’t make any difference, if they got a player we all wanted, I would find a player that was better. I always felt like it would work.”

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McElroy got to see and recruit receiver Pat Williams from Dallas Hillcrest. He went after him hard and lost him.

“He told me, ‘Coach, I’m going to Ellsworth, Iowa,” McElroy said.

McElroy asked Williams if he knew anything about Iowa. Williams said, “No sir. That’s where I want to go.”

McElroy told Williams point blank, “you’re not going to like that. It gets cold in Iowa.”

The coach continued, “So when you get up there and you find out you don’t like that cold weather, and this is going to happen, call me. Here’s my number.”

McElroy said he left Williams a business card.

Williams did go to Ellsworth, even made it out for practice for a week. “We’re practicing two-a-days, it’s real hot and Pat calls,” McElroy said. “He says, ‘I want to come home. I told him to get his stuff together. He caught the bus and he came on back.”

It wasn’t even winter yet. The McElroy magic had won again.

“I was a little homesick,” Williams said. “I rode 12 hours on a bus.”

Williams caught a 24-yard touchdown pass from Hunky Cooper in Navarro’s 41-17 bowl victory over, of all teams, Ellsworth Community College of Iowa Falls, Iowa.

Williams made a spectacular catch over Ellsworth’s Dale Carter, who starred for the Tennessee Volunteers and then in the NFL.

You can’t beat great players without a lot of great ones on your side.

The Navarro Bulldogs had them in their championship season of 1989.

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1989 Navarro Bulldogs

No. Name Pos. Class

1 Eugene Farmer DB S

2 Louis Anderson DB S

3 James Berry RB F

4 Steve Caldwell QB S

5 John Howe K F

6 Leroy Mann DB S

7 Shawn Rutherford QB F

8 Gary Clayton QB F

9 Jerome Pipkins DB S

10 Bart Price DB S

11 Marvin Oglesby LB S 12 Matt Glover K S

13 Roger Miller K F

14 Carlos Scott DB S

15 Rudy Valdez P F 16 Orlando WIlliams DB S

17 Pat Williams WR F

19 Bryant Brinkley DB S

20 Odis Booty RB S

21 Carlos Fleeks RB F

22 Stro Godfrey RB F

23 Travis Smith RB F

24 Greg White RB F

25 Hunkie Cooper QB F

26 Jody Tyler QB F

27 Eris Mooney RB F

30 Bryan Waitman RB F

31 Walter Ransom RB S

33 Charles Thompson RB F

35 John Harper DB F

37 Alvin Ray DB F

40 Kyle Boyd DB F

41 Vernon Shaw DB F

42 Bryan Roussell LB F

44 Keo Coleman LB S

45 Thomas Huddleston LB F

46 Lance Tidwell DB F

48 Joe Green DE S

49 Kelly Poff LB S

50 Craig Briggs OL F

54 Ronnie Shelby OL S

55 James Prather OL S

56 Johnny Johnson LB F

57 Bill Hurst OL S

60 Chris Snider OL F

61 Chris WIlliams DL F

63 Marc Fisk OL F

66 Josh Favre DE F

67 Keith Moore OL F

70 James Bryant OL F

71 Earl Bell OL F

74 Ed McCormic OL F

75 Randy Lovelace DL F

76 James Cargile OL F

77 Scott Tufts OL F

80 Joe Dederian TE F

81 Daryl Giddings SR S

82 Brent Hooten DE S

84 Jeff Blevins OL F

87 Mark Wyche DE F

88 Bryan Wilson SR F

89 Mike Rose TE F

93 Darron Parker LB F

95 Nate WIlliams DL S

96 Kenney Marshall DL F

97 Mark Wheeler DL S

98 James Anderson LB F