Doing something a little different for this week’s installment of the 1954 Glomerata. Usually, of course, I put a few of them here. And they’re seldom ever the posed photos. But we’re just going to look at one photo this week, one that’s worth concentrating on for a few moments. So let’s dive in.
This is the ninth installment of our glance through the Glomerata. (Find ’em all — Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven and part eight.) All of them will wind up in the Glomerata section (eventually). You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all the covers. I wouldn’t blame you. They’re quite handsome. The university hosts their collection here.
This is the official portrait of the 1953 football team, coached by Ralph “Shug” Jordan in his third season in the top job at his alma mater. And he had these guys going the right direction. They finished the season 7-2-1, their best season in almost two decades, and an appearance in the Gator Bowl — the school’s second bowl in a row, and just their third bowl game ever.
But the guys on the team, that’s what’s important here.
The guy on the left side of the front row is Fob James. He would become a construction engineer and an entrepreneur, making and selling physical fitness equipment, ballasts and counterweights. He became a politician, a two time governor of Alabama, first as a Democrat from 1979–1983, and then as a Republican from 1995 to 1999. (The times were changing around him, and he changed parties quite a few times in his long career.)
In his first term, the state had financial troubles. (This would somehow be a recurring theme.) He did a bit of education reform, and worked on the state’s mental health system, and overcrowded prisons. He cut state spending by 10 percent, and laid off a bunch of state employees. What money he could put his hands on, he put toward K-12 education over higher education, which was controversial — any choice he made there would be. He also integrated the government, which is a mind-boggling sentence for 1980. He nominated the first Black man for the state Supreme Court. (Justice Oscar William Adams Jr. would serve from 1980 until 1993. I believe there have only been two more Black justices since then.)
In his second term, now in the ascendant Republican party, he governed as a tough-on-crime, staunch conservative. He revived chain gangs and presided over seven executions. He defended Roy Moore and the display of the Confederate flag. He once again bolstered primary education through a series of reforms. But the state was fighting all sorts of revenue problems, and he refused to take federal money. Eventually the state’s board of education went around the governor and took the money anyway.
He gutted higher education. Meanwhile, he also blew $25 million in appealing a federal judge’s ruling in a 15-year appeal that required Alabama to improve two historically black public universities. It was a devastating series of events.
But enough about Fob. Lets look at some of these other guys.
We learned about George Atkins, #78, a few weeks ago. He became a coach, and the second most impressive athlete in his marriage.
Joe Childress, #35, was from a sleepy south Alabama town, was a two-time All American, and made it to the big time, playing for nine seasons in the NFL, a Cardinal from 1956-1965. He was a coach on the Houston Oilers staff for five years, and eventually landed in the securities business. He was diagnosed with cancer, and fought it for several years until he died in 1986, at just 52 years old. The next year he was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. He and his wife, a hometown girl, had four children. She remarried, and passed away in 2018.
Bobby Freeman, #24, was nicknamed Goose. After his college playing days he was a third-round NFL pick, but that was after he signed a deal with a Canadian Football League team for a two-year deal that paid him about $88,000 in today’s money. When he signed with the Browns, his dueling contracts became a legal issue. He went to training came in Cleveland, not Winnipeg, and they took him to court. He lost the court case, which became historically important, and it kept him out of football for two years, then the former QB became a defensive back in Cleveland, Washington, Green Bay and Philadelphia. He coached at his alma mater (some people do get to go home again) for 10 years. Freeman died in 2002, survived by his wife and five children. Before she passed away in 2022 she counted 23 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren in the family they created.
Chuck Maxime is the guy on the far left of the second row, #77. He played college ball for four years, including on the championship team. He was down from North Dakota, and I’ve no idea how that happened. When he hung up the pads he became a teacher and coach in Mobile, staying on with the Murphy Panthers for his while 34 year career. He and his wife and four sons, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. When he retired, he just followed his grandchildren, which sounds like a life fulfilled. They give out a memorial award to local coaches in his name, and that ain’t nothing. He died in 2011, at 80.
Frank D’Agostino, #67, was an All American tackle. He played with the Philadelphia Eagles, his hometown team, in 1956. He was with the New York Titans in 1960. He died, in Florida, in 1997.
Ted Neura, #61, joined the Air Force, and became a captain. He was killed in a plane crash in the Mekong Delta area of Vietnam about a decade after this photo was taken. He was just two months or so from coming back home to his wife. They buried him in Alabama with full honors, and he had been the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart, Bronze Star for Valor and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. He was just 31, but had a son and daughter, and nine siblings, including a teammate in that photo.
Johnny Adams, #47 lettered for three years. It looks like he lived a nice quiet life, with a full family, until he passed in 2015. They still write about his days on the high school gridiron on local Facebook pages. What high school players get remembered 80 years on? Folk heroes, that’s who.
Joe Neura, #83, was Ted’s brother. While Ted died young and his buried in Alabama, Joe passed away at 59, having returned to his native Ohio.
Jimmy Long, #55, was, the year after this photo, a team captain. After school, briefly served in the Air Force, mustering out as a captain. He would become an engineer at Alabama Power for more than three decades. He spent 15 years calling high school football, was a deacon and led Sunday School classes for 40 years. He and his wife of 50 years raised three daughters, and they gave the Longs five grandchildren. He passed away in 2006.
Quarterback Vince Dooley is on the third row, #25. Playing for Shug Jordan wasn’t challenging enough, so he became a Marine. When his time in the Corps was done, he coached at Auburn for about eight years, first as the QB coach, and then as head coach of the freshman team. And then Georgia called, and the boy from Mobile became a legend in Athens, where he coached for 25 years, winning a national championship, six conference championships and retiring as the second-winningest coach in SEC history. He flirted with political campaigns, but ultimately stayed on as the athletic director until 2004. He wrote a handful of books, served on the board of the Georgia Historical Society. He’s in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1978, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame. His name is on the football field at Georgia. Vince Dooley’s goodness and awesome character is just about the only thing Auburn and Georgia fans can agree on these days. Somehow, they share him. He and his wife had four children. He passed away in 2022, at 90.
Jack Locklear, #89, was one of the best centers of all time. They called him Black Jack, because he knocked out a lot of opponents. He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, spent eight years in the NFL, then went back home to Alabama and coached high school football, baseball and track. He won a state championship in track. He served on the local Board of Education and helped build a high school. He ran a bunch of restaurants in northeast Alabama over the years. He and his wife had a son and two daughters. He died, at 80, in 2012.
Bobby Duke wears the number 45 here. He was a three-year letterman, briefly became a high school coach and athletic director, and then took an Air Force commission, serving in the criminal counterintelligence and fraud investigations unit. He retired 22 years later as the director of fraud investigations for the USAF. Then he served for 18 or so years as an executive of a paper company in south Alabama. He and his wife of 51 years had four daughters, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren when he passed away at 75, in 2007.
Ed Baker, #81, Baker, was another Mobile boy. He followed his bachelor’s degree with a master’s at Southeastern Louisiana University. Eventually he became a head football coach at five different high schools in Alabama and Florida, and then a ran a semi-pro team. After all of that he still had the energy to run a vocational technical school for 21 years. He had three children and seven grandchildren. He was 80 when he died in 2011.
Ordwell Warren, #54, played end for Auburn. He served in the Army after school, moved to Florida in 1971 and sat on a local school board there for 22 years. He and his wife had two sons and two daughters, 11 grandchildren and eight great-grandkids.
Jim Lofton, #56, was Vince Dooley’s roommate. For decades people told the story that Lofton didn’t know who Dooley was. But they told the story because the two men remained lifelong friends. Lofton joined the Army right after high school, a peacetime paratrooper. Playing on a base football team, he began to get noticed by college coaches. He became a storied Georgia high school coach for almost 50 years, and a multi-time high school coach of the year. His day job was as an English teacher. His wife and his whole family called him Coach. He won 250-plus games, a state championship, and Dooley wrote the foreword to his first book. Lofton was the kind of guy who was the quiet center of the places he worked and lived, maybe he was the Disney movie waiting to happen. Everyone turned to him for mentorship, a shoulder, a small loan. He and his wife were married for 62 years. He died at 85, with five sons, 24 grandchildren and a huge family besides. He was 85 when he died on New Year’s Day, 2015.
Jim Pybrun, #50 on the top row, played football here, but baseball was his better sport. He was drafted by Washington, but he eschewed the NFL and signed with the Baltimore Orioles. He was remembered as one of the school’s best two-sport athletes — Pyburn, Frank Thomas, Bo Jackson head that impressive list — and perhaps the player of the decade, which is impressive considering they won a national championship in 1957. He played three years as a third baseman and outfielder, got sent to the minors in 1957, hung up his spikes in 1958. A few years later he worked for his old pal Vince Dooley, coaching defensive line, linebackers and defensive backfield over a 16-year run at Georgia. He was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and died at 78, survived by his wife, two sons and three grandchildren.
David Middleton, #21, was another multi-sport star, lettering in football, track and basketball. On the football team, he was an end, a wide receiver and a halfback. (Imagine one guy playing all three of those positions today.) He was also an SEC champion in the 100 meter dash. He ran a hand-timed 9.6! He met his wife on the plains, and then played football for the Detroit Lions. Over a seven year career he led his team in receptions three times, won an NFL championship and caught a touchdown in a 59-14 blowout of the 1957 NFL Championship Game. While he was playing football he was also somehow going to medical school. He worked as an OB/GYN in Michigan. On Christmas Eve in 2007 he fell, and died a few days later from his injuries. He and his wife had three children and three grandchildren.
Next to him is Millard Howell Tubbs, #20. He was a star in high school and in college, where he was a quarterback and a center fielder on the baseball team. And this is why all of this is important. This is the first sentence of the second paragraph of the man’s obituary, “Bubba is best remembered for ending the long losing streak to Georgia Tech and never losing to Alabama in either sport.” He went to work at Air Engineers, Chevrolet and then worked at General Motors for 36 years. His wife, two children and a grandchild when he died in North Carolina in 2014.
M.L. Brackett, #60, played for three years in the NFL with the Bears and the Giants. He was Shug Jordan’s first ever recruit at Auburn, played four years there, after a high school career under a coaching legend. He played in that first sudden death overtime NFL Championship Game in 1958, which featured Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry as the coordinators. His obituary is full of little tidbits like that, along with plenty of dropped names. He was an umpire for 30 years, worked at a steel firm for 22 years, and was married for 57 years. They had three children and two grandchildren when he passed away at 81 in 2015.
Don Rogers, #64, was a bookend on the offensive line, opposite his brother, George Rogers. After football and graduation, Don fulfilled his ROTC obligations with the Air Force. He left the service as a captain, became a drug rep and later started a home building company with his brother. They built hundreds of homes around Birmingham. He reffed high school football for years. He and his wife spent almost 65 years together, raising a big family of three kids, seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandkids. He died just last year, aged 91.
And that’s his brother, George, #62, on the right side of the back row. They have remarkably similar life stories. Where Don married a hometown sweetheart, George married a college sweetheart. That might be the biggest difference between the two. George is remembered as a state champion in football, a track star, he was drafted by the Green Bay Packers, but went into the Air Force and reserves. He, too, went into pharmaceutical sales, and for the same companies as his older brother. Then they had that construction company. George also took on some other work, but he also called high school football games like his brother. He was incredibly active in his church. He and his wife were married for almost 56 years when he died, she, his four children and seven grandchildren survived him in 2011.
So that’s a governor, a hall of fame coach, a bunch of service men and a handful of professional athletes, and future community leaders, and I only looked up half of that team. But what a team! What a collection of young men.
And also Fob James.
All of these will wind up in the Glomerata section (eventually). You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all the covers. The university hosts their collection here.
