The Greatest Texas Football Player Ever? (Part 2 - Oct 9, 2023)
by Scott Sosebee
This is the continuation of the article on Sam Baugh
When Sam Baugh graduated from TCU in 1937, he was not completely sure about his future. There was an idea in his mind that he might return to his baseball career. After all, by all accounts, Baugh was as good if not a better baseball player than he was at football and pro baseball players made quite a bit more money than professional footballers. So, he took a job with a lumber company in Pampa so that he could play with a semi-pro baseball team in that city. While he was there, Rogers Hornsby—the baseball great from Texas— saw him play and then brokered a deal for Baugh to sign a AAA contract with the St. Cardinals.
It turned out, though, that Sam Baugh was not done with football. During that summer he played for the College Football All-Star team that in those years played the defending NFL champions every year in August in an exhibition game. Although the pros did not take the game as seriously as the college players did, the college all-stars rarely came out on top, but in 1937, led by Sam Baugh, the college squad beat the NFL champions, the Green Bay Packers. Baugh intended to resume his baseball career, but the Washington Redskins had other ideas. Washington had just moved to the nation’s capital from Boston the year before and they needed someone who could be a “draw,” so George Preston Marshall, Washington’s owner, made a deal to get the top pick in the NFL Draft and they selected Baugh. Marshall flew to Texas to get Baugh’s signature on a contract and he offered him $5,000 a year, which at that time would have been the most ever paid for a rookie. Baugh, surprisingly to Marshall, turned it down. “I already had a job,” He once said, “And besides that I had no desire to play up north and I knew nothing about pro football,” Marshall, however, was determined, so he then offered his top draft choice $8,000. Sam Baugh could not turn that down and he became a Washington Redskin.
The rookie QB was making more money than everyone on the team—even the established veterans—but it was a good investment. Washington, who had lost in the Championship game the year before to the Packers, beat the Chicago Bears that year to win the Championship and Baugh led the league in passing. Baugh was a star and Marshall — a consummate showman — used his new QB as the centerpiece of a PR campaign. He began to use his old nickname to the press, calling him “Slingin’ Sam,” and marketed him as an authentic “Texas Cowboy.” Baugh was anything but, as he grew up on a farm and had rarely been on a horse and had never owned a pair of boots. Marshall asked him to begin to wear a pair as well as a huge western hat. Baugh demurred. He said in a memoir, “I had once worn some boots but they hurt my feet, so I stopped,” but Marshall had a pair custom-made for his star and Baugh agreed to wear them, although he did not agree to don the hat. Baugh and Marshall developed a “mutually dependent” relationship. Marshall was a prickly man (as well as one of the most virulent racists to ever own an NFL team), but he needed to keep his star happy, so he treated Baugh differently than he did the other players. I asked Baugh, when I spoke with him in the late 1990s how he got along with Marshall. He said, “George and I had a bit of an understanding, so we got along ok. All the other players hated him, though.”
Marshall gave Baugh a raise to $20,000 a year after his rookie season, which made him the highest-paid player in the league. Baugh likely deserved it since he often never left the field in those early years. Football was a one-platoon game in those days, although teams had to “hide” some star offensive players on defense because they were not quite as good on that side of the team. Baugh, however, was different. He was a fantastic athlete who would be named at various times as an All-Pro in three positions. He was one of the best cornerbacks in the game—he once led the league in interceptions— and he also spent time at running back and, amazingly, defensive tackle. There was also no doubt that he was the absolute best punter in the NFL, and some would argue that he was the best punter in NFL history. There is a story that after his NFL career, when Baugh had become a coach when he coached the Houston Oilers in the AFL in the early 1960s, he could punt the ball farther and with greater accuracy than any punter the Oilers had — and he was in his 50s at the time!
Sam Baugh would play 16 seasons in the NFL for Washington, and when he retired, he owned every passing record in league history. During his first nine seasons in Washington, the team never had a losing record and played in five NFL Championship games, winning two. One of the most memorable of those games—although maybe not for Baugh—was the 1940 game when the Chicago Bears, under George Halas, unveiled their brand-new T-formation offense. They blitzed Washington, winning 73-0, still the worst defeat in NFL history. Even in losing, Baugh had a memorable quote after the game. A reporter asked him after the game if it would have made a difference if a receiver had not dropped a sure touchdown pass in the first quarter when Chicago only led 7-0. He replied, “Sure, the score would have then been 73-7.” The later years of his career, his teams were not as prolific; Marshall’s management of the team was subpar, and Baugh was often surrounded by players of much lesser quality. Still, he remained a star.
So, was Sam Baugh the greatest Texas football player ever? I really don’t know but consider these stats and the era in which he played: he led the league in passing four times, in 1937, 1940, 1947, and 1948. He led the league in passing yards per game six times, in 1937, 1938, 1940, 1945, 1947, and 1948. He led the league in completion percentage an amazing nine times in his career. As a defensive back, Baugh amassed 31 career interceptions, leading the league with 11 in 1943. He remains the only player in NFL history to throw four touchdowns in a game and also intercept four passes, a record that no doubt will never be broken. There is a case to be made that he was at his best as a punter. For a career, Baugh averaged 45.1 yards a punt, which is now second all-time. He had four punts that traveled over eighty yards. When he retired in 1952, Sam Baugh owned 13 NFL records. He was named to the Hall of Fame as a member of the charter class in 1963.
Baugh coached in college and pro after his playing career, but he was never as successful as a coach as he was as a player. Eventually, he retired to his Bar Lazy S Ranch in the rolling landscape in the shadow of the Double Mountain in West Central Texas. He and wife Edmonia lived on the ranch and raised five children. He loved working on the ranch and did so as long as he could before his health failed. When he took time off, he played golf, something else he loved. Edmonia died in 1990. They had been married for 52 years and had been a couple since they were in high school. Heartbreak and the pain of a tough professional career began to take its toll on Baugh after Edmonia died, and Alzheimer’s disease meant he had to spend the last few years of his life in a nursing facility in Rotan. Sam Baugh—perhaps the greatest Texas football player ever—died in Rotan on December 17, 2008, at the age of 94.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be reached at sosebeem@sfasu.edu.
