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.
Cullen played high school football in Texas, so he grew up wanting to play for the University of Texas.
Declining scholarships to other schools, he opted to walk on at UT in 1999.
Worked his way into the lineup as a longsnapper, while moonlighting at TE graduating in 2004.
Free agent signee of the Minnesota Vikings that year, and he quickly became the team’s starting longsnapper.
Cullen held the position down until 2010, when a back injury sidelined him.
Returned to the Vikings and played for the team through 2014.
He’d retire after being cut in 2015.
NOTES:
Longsnappers hold a certain ‘lunchpail’ lore to fans of football. The most unsung skilled player position in the NFL, if you don’t have someone who can 100% snap that ball from the line of scrimmage to a punter or holder’s hands, you’re taking a risk at it being blocked. As such, the position has become a sort of ironman position in the league. It’s not a glorified $20 million dollar a year job- as such, these guys once they get locked in, many of them play 10-15 seasons easy for the franchise, exclusively doing longsnapping.
My friend Mark has sort of cornered the market on Cullen. Apparently he has mutual acquaintances through him and was able to get this autograph on an off and on set need for me.
