CARD: Upper Deck 2011 Certified
ACQUIRED: Ebay, 2020

CAREER SNAPSHOT:

• Doug Shankle played MLB for the Texas Longhorns from 1978-’81.
• Over his 4 years at UT he amassed a school record 325 solo tackles, and a school second best 478 total tackles.
• Considerably underrated, he appears twice in the school 10 ten single season record books for total tackles with 144 and 106 respectively.
• Ranked 7th in career tackles for loss with 41.
• In 1980, against TCU he intercepted a pass for 21 yards and returned it for a TD.
• After football, Doug went to work for Frito Lay.
• A few years ago he also beat colon cancer, and his coach Fred Akers was kind enough to give him words of encouragement and be by his side.

NOTES:

I don’t know why Doug didn’t translate to the NFL. The first thought I have is back then, colleges didn’t necessarily see pro ball as the next step, so they didn’t rigorously train him to go there. Regardless Doug was long overdue for a card.

This card, I got… mid 2020. I realized that the market was ripe for picking out singles I needed from this set to close it out, and I aggressively pursued any and all that I needed that were reasonably priced. With COVID driving prices up, I was happy buying two autographs I needed and wanted instead of buying a box of over priced cards and getting possibly nothing.

Upper Deck did a great job with this set. I wish they’d do an update, but with Panini and Fanatics chomping at the bit to eat up market share, this may be out of UD’s control.