Cotton lives in Central Texas and much like myself was affected by ‘The Texas Freeze’. He wrote me a nice note saying that normally he doesn’t respond to letters and just signs the cards, but that he too wished myself and my family well after what had happened to us.
An end of year surprise for 2023, my friend Mark G sent me a link to a signing that VY was doing at a Crunch Fitness in South Austin. I was really hesitant to go after my last experience a few years ago at Kickin’ It with Jeff, but in the end I am glad that I went. It was a far cry from that event from a few years ago.
I met up with Mark and I just basically word vomited on him about football for a while. He brought his kids who were SHILs but grabbed a few of their own. The line was long but moved quickly. VY showed up on time and was in a great mood. He signed everything that we had on us, despite the strict rule that he could only sign 2. In the end I got 7 things signed, with the help of Mark.
This made me super happy. I really like Vince. He’s a local football hero, and Htown hero, but to be frank despite his athletic trappings- it doesn’t mean things are come easy or mental health is simple. He’s struggled a lot and I feel that he does deserve the best in life like anyone and everyone else. He looked great too! VY grew in this sweet beard that’s gently whitening out.
We talked for a minute about how he always made the Texans pay for not drafting him and that his OT heroics still live rent free in my head. -And how when he ran, it always looked like he was moving in slow motion- but everyone was moving so much slower.
I loved his Htown Oiler hat, but I thought it’d be in bad taste to ask him where he stood on if the franchise stats, color, and color should be returned to Htown or not. He told me that he really liked my AAF jacket. We chuckled about how it was classic now, since it was from the fire festival of football.
I’m always looking to help out friends, or surprise them, so I dropped three of them in the mail to Joe, Rick, and Jake. Overall it was a great way to close out the year.
UT Upper Deck 2011, #16UT Upper Deck 2011 Certified, #16
CARD: UT Upper Deck 2011 Certified, UT Upper Deck 2011, UT Upper Deck 2011 National Champions 1969 ACQUIRED: EBay, 2020. TTM 2022, C/o Home SENT: 4/18/22 RECEIVED: 7/14/23 (452 DAYS)
CAREER SNAPSHOT:
Walk on Freshman who played for the Longhorns from 1968-69.
Finished Longhorn career with 13 interceptions.
Had a particular penchant for showing up big in big games.
Against Tennessee in the 1969 Cotton Bowl, Campbell intercepted 2 passes and batted down 4 more.
Tom had the game sealing interception in the ‘Game of the Century’ versus Arkansas in 1969.
Had critical interception in final game of career against Notre Dame, intercepting QB Joe Theismann on the Fighting Irish’s final drive preserving UT’s National Championship.
ACCOLADES:
Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame
NOTES:
I guess they really didn’t have any shots of Tom other than his press photo. While it is a nice shot of him, using it three times smacks of laziness and overkill.
Back in 2014 he was appearing at a card show in Waco but I was unable to attend because I got sick. In the long run I was lucky I didn’t go, as a random hard freeze occurred during that day and would have trapped me up there or made the journey very dangerous.
I thought that I’d written Tom a few times before I reached out to him in 2022. I had initially let this one go as a failure as I hadn’t heard from him in over a year, but lo and behold from right across town, one day these magically showed up.
Celebrating the game, the players, the cards, and the autographs for over 25 years.
