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Football great Jerry Rhome hit the ground running in Oak Cliff and hasn’t ever stopped, leaving a trail of awards and accolades in his wake

STORY BY Gayla Brooks Kokel

PHOTOS courtesy of Jerry and Carmen Rhome

He was born at Methodist Hospital and attendedLidaHooeElementarySchool, where his mother was later a teacher. The Rhome family lived on Sunset Street and were members of Sunset Church of Christ. HeshoppedatWynnewoodVillageand onJefferson,ateatAustin’sBarbecue, munched on ice cream at Polar Bear and bought his school supplies at Skillern’s.

On neighborhood streets — riding his bicycleatlightningspeedorcareening down Oak Cliff terraces and slopes — the OakCliffyoungster“burned”.Jumping and leaping, crashing and dashing, Rhome, a self-described daredevil, never stopped.

Throughthedecades,hehasbroken both his arm and his leg, plus four of his fingers.Hehashadthreeconcussions, two separated shoulders, two torn rotator cuffs, and serious knife cuts and gun damage(fromblanks),bothtohisleft hand.Rhome says he injured himself continuously in his quest to find “adventure” everywhere he went.

“I was a wild kid,” he says.

But it didn’t stop there.

Byhisfreshmanyear,Rhomewas quarterback of the 1956-57 W.E. Greiner Yellowjackets. He also excelled on the basketball court and baseball diamond, shining on defense and offense in both sports. From that point on, he says, “I never looked back.”

However, it was the football field that held his future.

In fall 1958, this Oak Cliff high school athlete’sperformanceexplodedonthe sports scene, and people throughout the state took notice. He was a passing-punting-running dynamo.

DuringRhome’s years with the Sunset Bison, his father, Byron Rhome, mentored his son as Sunset’s head football coach. The impressive stats racked up by Rhome, who naturally took the helm as team captain his senior year, led to his induction into the Texas High School Hall of Fame. (Turn the page for a rundown of Rhome’s stats.)

But he also continued his involvement in other sports. At the conclusion of football season, he played for the Bison hoopsters and, in the spring, played outfield for the baseballteam,garneringtophonorsin both of these sports, as well.

After graduation he quarterbacked for the Southern Methodist University Mustangs but transferred at the end of his sophomore year to the University of Tulsa — a perfect fit for his talent package. At the helm for the Hurricane, he emerged as a true phenom, and set heads spinning with his ramblin’-scramblin’ performance.

According to Rhome, teammates affectionately called him “The Rhomer” — a nickname he picked up during his high school days, “because they said I roamed all over the field.” The tag remained even during his professional years.

In college, as in high school, Rhome dominated the football field. In just one example, the Hurricane’s game with Louisville,

Tulsa came out on top 58-0 with Rhome scoring all 58 points, running and passing. No shabby performance.

While at Tulsa, he set 18 NCAA records, a one-player tally that will probably never be matched or broken. And all during his senior year.

In a Nov.16,1964issueof Sports Illustrated, writer John Smith made the following comments:

“The shows revolves around Jerry Rhome.

“He works hard at learning to pass when things are not going right, throwing off balance, while falling, on one knee, or with the wrong foot forward. He throws to all distances and he knows when not to throw.

“[Against Louisville] Rhome threw seven touchdown passes, a national record. In another, two weeks ago, he completed 35 of 43 for 488 yards, and four more national recordsfell.Thismodestfeatoccurred against Oklahoma State, a favored team that went into the game with the second best pass defense in the U.S. and came out with a devastating 61-14 loss.”

In the 1964 Heisman Trophy race, Rhome finished only 74 votes behind the winner, in the closest poll ever (to that date). The player who finished third — a whopping 477 votes below — was none other than six-time Pro-Bowler Dick Butkus.

The University of Tulsa retired Rhome’s No. 17 jersey, followed by his induction to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

Drafted in 1964 by his hometown NFL team,theDallasCowboys,Rhomewas theteam’sbackupquarterbackfortwo seasons. While in that role, he managed to survive the infamous 1967 Ice Bowl game played in Green Bay, Wis., describing the event(playedintemperaturesof13-25 degrees below zero with a wind chill of 36 degrees below zero), as “brutal.”

“It got a lot colder,” he added, “when Green Bay scored on the last play of the game to win the championship.”

Rhome went on to quarterback for the Browns, Oilers and Rams. Then he spent one year in the Canadian Football League before a rotator cuff injury ended his playing career.

However, the former Oak Cliff kid quickly switched gears and jumped into coaching. He began at his alma mater in Tulsa, and later coached for 10 different NFL teams, guiding both quarterbacks and wide receivers. For 17 of his 25 years in professional coaching, he served as an offensive coordinator. He coached both Pro-Bowlers and Super Bowl MVPs, among them Joe Theisman,

TOP/ Out of 326 passing attempts during Jerry Rhome’s senior year at the University of Tulsa, he scored 32 touchdowns and threw only four interceptions. ABOVE/ During his years as a Sunset Bison, Rhome’s coach and mentor was none other than his father, Byron Rhome.

It’s impossible to sum up Jerry Rhome’s career, but here is a brief overview of his high school and college achievements:

AS ASUNSET BISON:

·Racked up 3,440 total yards of offense, both passing and rushing

·Completed 182 of 329 tosses and scored 35 touchdowns

SENIOR YEARATSUNSET: Kicked 14 of the team’s 16 extra points

Passed for 28 of 30 twopoint conversions

Earned first team, allcity and all-state honors

Named a high school allAmerican

Nabbed the 1960 Bell Award (Dallas County Player of the Year)

· MVP in the North-South AllAmerican Game

· Inducted into the Texas High School Hall of Fame

AS AUNIVERSITY OF TULSA HURRICANE: Threw for a total of 4,779 yards and 52 touchdowns

SENIOR YEARAT THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA:

·Racked up 2,870 of the yards

Scored 32 touchdowns off his 326 attempts with only four interceptions

· Beginning with the second game of the schedule, threw no interceptions for the remainder of the season

·Achieved the record for most touchdowns in a game and in a season, and most passes without an interception in a year and in a career

Sports Illustrated player of the year

Associated Press player of the year

Oklahoma Sportsman of the Year

·College Football Hall of Fame member

University of Tulsa Hall of Fame member

Garnered the 1964 Sammy Baugh Award presented by the Touchdown Club of Columbus to the nation’s top collegiate passer

· Won the 1964 Walter CampAward for being the national passing winner

Named to nine different all-American rosters including the NCAA

· Led the nation in passing and total offense

· Named the 1964 Bluebonnet Bowl MVP although he’s had a stellar career and ranks at the top of the list in professional coaching, in all respects rhome is still a down-home Oak cliff boy, proud of where he was raised.

To top it all off, as a member of the Washington redskinscoachingstaff, rhome was awarded a Super Bowl XXII championship ring — a ring he wore on a Sept. 25, 2010, visit to Sunset high School where he participated in a photo shoot featuring 74 years of Sunset quarterbacks.

“We were very lucky to grow up in Oak cliff in the ’50s through the ’70s,” rhome says. “It was sort of like a movie: clean, fun, cool hangouts, not dangerous and lots of adventure.”

“Every January, males of our ’60 class gather on a ranch for a four-day blast out in West Texas,” rhome says. “and, hundredsofclassmatesfrom’56-’70 have newsletters, Facebook [pages], emails and stay in contact. [There are] many gatherings in the Dallas area, with golf, parties, etc.” rhome visits Oak cliff regularly, and on a recent trip he experienced a new “first”. after receiving a coaching request from a local football mom, rhome scheduled a private coaching session with the woman’s child — who turned out to be her daughter

“actually, after working with the girl for a while,” rhome says, “I suggested to her mother that the young lady spend more time with her books and not playing football. I don’t think she was very happy with my evaluation, though.” rhome currently resides near atlanta with his wife, carmen, and spends his time coaching privately, giving inspirational speeches, holding camps and coaching clinics, staying in contact with friends in atlanta and Dallas, and traveling a lot. he works out, attends church, goes to movies, and plays both golf and a lot of pool.

“I do all those things I didn’t get to do when I was putting in 18-20 hours a day working in the NFL,” he says. “I’m in good shape and healthy, except for old injuries.” at age 68, you’d think rhome’s football playing days would be over. But not so. he continuesplayingregularly,still quarterbacking in the NFL — that’s the Neighborhood Football League, if you will. Performing at the helm of what he’s tagged the “Dream Team” — made up of 7- to 17-year-old neighborhood boys and girls —rhome is still burning.

PerhaPs most amazing?

Rhome accomplished all of this with legs of two different lengths, a result of a serious accident at age 13. Read more on the accident in Kokel’s Back Story column, page 30.

LEFT/ Proudly donning their Sunset letter jackets are all-city players Charles Marshall and John Beall with Rhome, who achieved all-city, alldistrict and all-state honors his senior year.

Snowangel

East Kessler Park resident AndreaBondSpencer snapped this photo of her 4-month-old son, DanielSpencer — perhaps the littlest snow angel during last month’s freeze.

SUBMIT YOUR PHOTO. Email a jpeg to editor@advocatemag.com.