Thursday, August 14, 1997

Father relates favorite college football story

By Bill Hart / Abilene Reporter-News

One of the featured articles in our Aug. 24 football special edition, "Kickoff '97," will be favorite high school games written by you the reader.

Perhaps in the future this idea can be used for college football fans, but Cleatus Rattan of Cisco passed along his favorite, Texas Tech versus Texas Christian University in 1990.

There's a reason for that choice, his middle son, Jason, was the backup quarterback at Texas Tech, and his youngest son, Raiford, was a defensive back for TCU. Here's Dad's version of what happended that day:

"At the start of the game, I was rooting, like everyone else around me, for TCU because Raiford was playing for TCU, and Jason only played for Tech on short yardage plays.

"Robert Hall was the Tech quarterback, but he was injured in the third quarter and Jason came in. On his first play, I guess TCU thought the new quarterback would hand off to someone to settle his nerves.

"But Dick Winder (then the Tech offensive coordinator) cleverly called a pass play and Jason completed a long one to Rodney Blackshear for a touchdown. The pass was to the other side of the field from where Raiford was playing, thank heaven.

"The remainder of the game, Tech ran the option and Jason made several good runs, including one for a touchdown. Tech won by two touchdowns, and Jason's reward was that he got to start the next week against SMU. He won the Equitable 'Offensive Player of the Week' award for his play against SMU.

"It was a nice way to end his career because he left school with a year of eligibility on the table as he chose to enter the Aggie (Texas A&M) Vet School.

"Several fun things happened in the TCU game. Raiford made a tackle. Jason was on the bench and cheered. I saw several of his teammates turn around and look at him oddly.

"A brawl erupted on the field, (Raiford started it), and Jason ran out there, not to fight, but to protect his brother. The fighting players parted like the Red Sea, and the two brothers, luckily ran to each other and with the fighting going on all around them, hugged. That moment was the highlight of my life.

"After Jason came in to play, I yelled first for one team, then the other. The people around me thought that I had gone peripatetically crazy."

Jason is a veterinarian today and living in Fort Worth, while Raiford is in his second year of medical school in San Francisco at the California College of Podiatric Medicine.

I guess the most impressive thing I remember about Jason was when he was injured early in the first quarter of an Eastland playoff game with Mart in Waco. The Mavericks were behind by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but Jason hobbled onto the field, drove the Mavericks for a touchdown and was driving for another when he was intercepted, and it was returned for a score. That happened a play or so after an Eastland player had dropped a pass in the end zone.

Raiford also played at Eastland High, but oldest brother Randall was a good athlete at Cisco High School. He earned a doctorate degree in clinical psychology and did a two-year internship with the United States Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs working with weightlifters and the shooters.

He is now director of the Drug and Alcohol Program in the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth and has a private practice in sports psychology there.

I wish all people letting me know the whereabouts of "wondering whatever happened to..." would furnish me with column ideas like this proud papa.