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RIP Julius Whittier


Machinator

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Following an undergraduate degree in philosophy, Whittier went on to earn a graduate degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs in 1976, and later completed his law degree at Texas. For much of his career, he worked as a senior prosecutor in the Dallas County District Attorney's office before retiring in 2012. He earned a spot in the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 2013 and, this past August, was inducted into the San Antonio Independent School District Hall of Fame.  

How the fuck did it take until 2013 for him to be Hall of Honor?    Dude was awesome on the field and in life. 

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31 minutes ago, Machinator said:

I remember walking on the west mall, with all the different booths students had set up to recruit and promote their various interests. That was one thing that made me understand how small San Antonio was. When I got to Texas, it seemed like the whole horizon got pushed back 5,000 miles. It told me San Antonio wasn't the only town on the earth.

That was a great time to be in college, not only because we were kicking butt in football but because the kids on that campus were genuinely and sincerely involved in more than just partying and sex and drugs.

The most memorable thing for me is not even football-related. My academic experience at UT was more than just getting the grades to graduate. It was waking up and appreciating the opportunity to go to a school like Texas and thinking, "How much is there that I don't know and don't understand?" That was the most amazing feeling.

Had I not gone to UT, I don't believe I'd be able to converse with as many different people as I am able to today. There's so much here - if you just let yourself experience it - that opens you up to many other realms of life that can be hidden from you if you have no clue how to act. UT is like a key; it opens doors.

I loved reading this.  It captures pretty well how I felt about UT too, except for the part about kicking butt in football.

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I have that book. Blew right past the passage on him. Shame on me. Great story.  RIP sir.  

I too have similar feelings about my time on the 40. When asked, I always tell people going to UT was a “feeling”. I think reading that exerpt pretty much captures that sentiment I’ve long remembered about my time at UT. 

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Horns up for a true legend.  Rosie, Earl, and so many followed, but to be the first black to play for the University and show the class that embodied his life is an example anyone would be proud to follow.  Saw him several times in action and he was a stud.

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He was super-prominent in maybe the Exes or whatever group recruited students in the Dallas area.  He was promoted as a multi-degree graduate of the University and football letterman.  Very solid citizen.  Didn't realize his "racial accomplishments" until several years later.

Too young and very sad if his footballing contributed to his passing.  RIP.  🤘

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RIP

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Texas recruited Whittier out of San Antonio and his parents were scared of what might happen to him in Austin. “My dad was scared for me,” Whittier said in 2007. “He’d known some guys who struck off into ’White’ territory and paid for it with their lives.” Whittier landed on a campus of nearly 35,000 students and only 300 were Black. He was a star on the freshman team, and Texas made Whittier available for interviews before his debut season. “I’m a loner up here,” Whittier told the San Antonio-Express News in early 1970, noting his coaches were treating him well but hinting at having problems with some of his teammates.

“Texas seems to recruit a lot of boys from small towns, and most of them have small minds just like their fathers,” he said. “They never think about the things that are happening in this country. You never hear them talk about Vietnam or racism. If you want to know the truth, the only people I’ve met that I can really talk to are the longhairs or hippies. They are really concerned about things like ecology and the war. I’m concerned about those things, too.”

A few months later, a group of sportswriters covering the Southwest Conference looked into his social life. The lead of a Sept. 8, 1970, article by The Associated Press noted that “Whittier, Texas’s black offensive guard, is rooming with a white player and occasionally dates white girls.” The story noted that Whittier said no one at school had said anything to him about the dating. “I don’t think it’s anything unusual. Well, unusual, but not abnormal,” Whittier said then.

https://www.afro.com/texas-first-black-football-letterman-whittier-has-died/

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From theathletic.com:

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Feldman: What Julius Whittier meant and means to Texas football and its university

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By Bruce Feldman 4h ago comment-icon@2x.png 4 save-icon@2x.png

Vince Young has become a Texas football legend. The towering QB put the Longhorns program on his broad back and carried UT to its first national title in four decades when Texas took down USC 13 years ago.

Years later, after Young bounced around the NFL and returned to Austin to get his degree, he wanted to write a paper on another Longhorns legend as part of a history class assignment. This former Longhorn wasn’t a person who was in demand for autographs or photo-ops. But truth be told, the guy means as much to the program as just about anyone else who’s ever suited up in burnt orange.

Full disclosure: I didn’t know the name Julius Whittier until last week when his obituary popped up on my timeline. The 68-year-old passed away Sept. 25, Texas announced. No cause of death was given, but Whittier had a long battle with Alzheimer’s.

Whittier was Texas’ first African-American letterman in football, playing his first varsity season at UT in 1970 as an offensive tackle on a team that won the national title. A year earlier, the Longhorns had become the last all-white national championship team in the history of college football. Whittier earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a degree in law from Texas before becoming a prosecutor in the Dallas County District Attorney’s office.

Young first heard about Whittier when he was Texas quarterback from Donnie Little, the first black QB who played at Texas in the late 1970s and early ’80s. 

“I was intrigued about his story,” Young said of Whittier over the phone Monday. “I did some research, and then when he was in town for one of our games, I had an opportunity to sit down with him for a little while. He talked about the different racial things that he had to go through in order to be the successful man that he was. He said that all that made him really tough-skinned, and he was always focused on the ultimate goal to change lives and change the things that were going on to get it where it is today. He was very inspired to make change, and he really did it.

“If it wasn’t him, I wouldn’t have been able to play quarterback or went to the University of Texas. I tip my hat off to him. I want to keep his legacy alive and keep doing the things that I’m doing and overcoming the battles that I go through in my life to open up more doors for the next young black male or black female.”

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Whittier, Vince Young and Billy Dale, Whittier’s college roommate and best friend. (Photo courtesy Vince Young)

When Whittier arrived as a college student from San Antonio, UT had 35,000 students and only 300 were black. Whittier went to Texas for the opportunity to change its culture, which he summed up in this quote from his senior year, according to the Associated Press: “I wanted to see if the myth about UT’s racism was true. If it was, I wanted to see what I could do to change it.”

Roosevelt Leaks, a punishing running back, arrived at Texas in 1971 and emerged as a star for UT, making All-American and finishing third in Heisman Trophy balloting in 1973. Leaks told me he viewed Whittier as something of a big brother when he arrived at Texas because Whittier’s decision to come to Texas opened doors for other African-American football players. “He made sure that we’d go to school and get good grades,” Leaks said.

Whittier was inducted into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 2013 and the San Antonio Independent School District Hall of Fame in August. Last weekend, Texas paid tribute to Whittier in its game at Kansas State by wearing “JW” decals on their helmets.

“Without him, there wouldn’t have been Roosevelt Leaks; no Raymond Clayborns or Vince Youngs,” Little said. “He had to open the doors for us for it to even be a thought to come to Texas. Other schools were definitely using Texas not having any minorities on their team against them in recruiting. We give all the credit to Julius because without him coming, Texas is not even in consideration. 

“And they couldn’t have picked a better one (to be a trailblazer). He wasn’t only about football. He set the example that while he was here, he’s gonna take full advantage of getting his degree to better himself.”

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Whittier upon his induction into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 2013.

Mack Brown, the coach of that 2005 Texas national title team, said a lot of folks, especially in some African-American communities around the state, didn’t feel it was a true national championship  in 1969 because it wasn’t an integrated team. “It was uncomfortable, but after we won (in 2005), we were more readily accepted in those areas, and Julius started all of that,” Brown said.

Brown tried to make his players aware of the story of Whittier along with other significant Longhorn football players from other eras for what they represented — “You gotta dream, take chances and take risks.”

Brian Jones, a former star linebacker at Texas in the late ’80s, said he knew of Whittier’s legacy before he arrived and that they developed a friendship over the years. “He was a real trailblazer with how he set the tone for black athletes at UT,” Jones said.

Less than a decade after Whittier finished his playing career at Texas, Little took on the high-profile role of becoming the Longhorns’ first African-American quarterback. Little said he read the hate mail he received. 

“Yeah, I can’t deny that I did,” he said. “It fueled you, made you want to try harder and do better, and it made you mature a lot faster.” But he added that he understood that not everybody thought that way.

Whittier was there for him because he had a unique understanding of what he was going through.

“He said, ‘Don’t think if they boo you for one play, they’re just booing you for the color of your skin,’ ” Little said. ” ‘They’re just booing you because the play wasn’t executed to perfection.’ But after they saw that I was here to stay and not going away, and that I’m not Superman and not inhuman, I was gonna take my licks just as if I was a white quarterback or green or whatever. He just shared that it’s the turning of the guard so to speak, and that it’s not just about him or me. It’ll be about the young men that come after.”

Young said he hopes the university does something special to honor Whittier’s legacy, maybe with a statue or an endowment in recognition of what he has done for African-Americans at Texas.

“He wasn’t just a football player,” Little said. “To me, that speaks volumes about him. He made it easier for them to recruit others that looked like him.”

 

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