accidental Beginnings

T HE CRASH THAT CO u LD HAvE ENDED J ERRY R HOME ’S FuTu RE INSTEAD MARKED THE BIRTHPLACE OF HIS CAREER

In summer 1955, 13-year-old Jerry Rhome and his friend, Fred Ferguson, were riding bicycles close to the Sunset High School practice field — located, both then and now, behind and north of Lida Hooe Elementary School. Barreling forward at his usual breakneck speed, Rhome began racing his friend, flying north up Franklin Street toward the corner of Franklin and Alden. The ultimate destination was still several blocks away.

But fate had another ending.

Losing control of his speeding bicycle, both Rhome and the bike jumped the curb, slamming the young teenager’s still growing body into a large tree on the northeast corner of the Franklin-Alden intersection. Rhome remembers the event as the time he “wrapped” his leg around a tree, certainly no experience for the faint-of heart.

Fortunately, the injured boy’s father, Byron Rhome, was close by, working a summer job that included delivering baseball bats to area parks. The elder Rhome had seen his share of serious football injuries during his own days as a high school and college athlete, as well as in his primary job: teacher and head football coach for the Sunset Bison.

Knowing exactly what to do, Dad Rhome removed bats from one of the elongated shipping boxes and used the cardboard container to make a splint for his son’s leg. After reaching Methodist Hospital, Rhome Sr. put in a call to orthopedic surgeon Dr. P. M. Girard, developer of the Carroll-Girard Screw, a device designed for the repair of severe compound fractures. Girard told Rhome’s parents that he couldn’t guarantee success, but he did think the screw would work.

And, work it did!

After spending four and a half months in a full body cast, the eighth-grader was ready to go by mid-basketball season. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The next fall he quarterbacked for the W. E. Greiner Jellowjackets. Then, as a forward on the basketball team, he led the city in scoring. Moving to Sunset High School, he set records and impressed fans, ending his career there with spots on the all-city and all-state first team roster, and as first team high school all-American. He went on to play in college, finishing his career with 18 NCAA records and as the runner-up for the 1964 Heisman Trophy, among numerous other awards. (Read “Blaze of glory” on page 22 for an extensive detailing of Rhome’s achievements.)

An eight-season NFL quarterback, a Super Bowl XXII championship coach, a personal quarterback coach and an all-around good guy, Rhome accomplished all this with, as a result of the bicycle accident, one leg an inch and a half shorter than the other. Amazing.

But at the time of Rhome’s accident, one item probably went unnoticed: its ironic location, on the cusp of the Sunset practice field the very place that shortly afterward gave Rhome his send-off to the highest level of fame, accomplishment, awards and recognition that he could have imagined. Without the gamble made by his parents and the surgeon, and the subsequent determination of the young athlete himself, it all could have ended there, on the corner of Franklin and Alden. Instead, it’s the place where everything sort of began. In a phrase — Rhome’s own Field of Dreams.

Granted, there were no rows of corn with old-timey baseball players emerging, but there were rows of football players. And, like the movie, Rhome’s father was there, too. For decades, this bit of turf has continued to be a place where young athletes have had the opportunity to dream a bit, of futures and careers, and possibly enjoy a brief moment in the limelight.

All this to say, the next time you have your own “wrap your leg around a tree” experience and you’re jolted, dazed and don’t know what to do — you might want to remember a 13-year-old Jerry Byron Rhome racing through Oak Cliff on his bicycle, colliding with a tree, and then being corralled for months in a full-body cast. Do what he did, although he probably didn’t recognized it at the time: Look a few yards away from where you “crash”. You may have landed, inadvertently, beside your own field of dreams.

Lift your head a bit and look for the possibilities that may lie straight ahead. Sometimes, unknowingly, your future may be only a few yards away and staring you in the face.

For Jerry Rhome, it certainly seems to have happened that way.