Co-Captain, All-American and leading rusher on Texas’ 1963 Football National Championship team, Tommy Ford passed away earlier this summer. He was 79 years old.
Story courtesy of longtime Sports Information Director and Texas Athletics Hall of Honor member Bill Little.
The Backstreet Boys had a hit song about it; philosophers and interpreters wax eloquently about the meaning of the phrase, but for Longhorn fans who witnessed the rise to Texas' first National Championship in college football in 1963, Tommy Ford personified it. He was "larger than life."
In the dawn of the era of UT football which transformed Darrell Royal and the orange and white clad "boys of autumn " into legendary heroes of the college game in 1963, 48 players earned letters.