63 years later, TCU returns to play in San Antonio

TCU’s appearance in next Saturday’s Alamo Bowl will mark the football program’s first trip to San Antonio in a little more than 63 years.

The Horned Frogs traveled to the Alamo City for Game No. 4 of the fall campaign of 1952, which turned out to be Dutch Meyer’s last as coach during a season in which TCU failed to meet lofty expectations.

The Frogs were the defending Southwest Conference champions who played Kentucky and coach Bear Bryant at the Cotton Bowl only 10 months before.

But they staggered out of preseason practice with notable injuries to key players, including quarterback Ray McKown, and had trouble scoring with Meyer’s renowned spread offense.

TCU was 1-2 with shutout losses to No. 17 Kansas and No. 6 UCLA and had scored only 13 points in its first three games.

Little Trinity of San Antonio was a timely reprieve.

Sophomore Ronald Clinkscale earned the start at quarterback and responded with three passing touchdowns, two to Bob Blair and another to Ted Vaught, and he ran in another in the Frogs’ 47-0 victory on Oct. 11.

The points scored were the most for the Frogs in 20 years, according to the Star-Telegram report.

“We’d had some injuries right away that stalled our offense,” said Marshall Harris, 85, a redshirt junior who was the starting right offensive tackle on the 1952 team. “That was part of it.

“But that was the first occurrence for me to be taking a shower at halftime and watching the rest of the game in my civilian clothes.”

Indeed, TCU dominated, producing 466 total yards while the defense collected six pass interceptions, including one by David Finney that set up the game’s first score. Johnny Crouch had a fumble recovery and interception.

After Clinkscale’s rushing TD to open the second half, Meyer pulled all the starters. Gil Bartosh entered at QB and rushed for three more touchdowns.

“Dutch didn’t [like to] run the score up, at least not intentionally. Unless he was playing Texas,” Harris recalled, laughing. “He hated Texas.”

Some things never change.

Fort Worth and TCU certainly have, however.

The city was the 38th largest in the country, according to 1950 census data, with 278,000 people. Today, Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in America with more than 800,000 residents. San Antonio, 25th in 1950 with 404,000 people, today is the seventh-largest city at 1.4 million.

Harris recalled, too, a TCU that would be unrecognizable today, with Army surplus buildings making up most of the classroom space on campus.

The basketball team played “in what we called the barn.” The first game at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum was still nine years away.

TCU today offensively doesn’t look just completely different.

Meyer borrowed Rusty Russell’s spread offense he made famous at Masonic Home and tweaked it to make it his own. Harris remembers quarterbacks Clinkscale and McKown, among others, taking snaps out of a shotgun formation.

Meyer’s book, Spread Formation Football, was published in 1952.

In fact, when Abe Martin took over the next season, he changed the offense to a T formation. The new coach, Harris said, “Thought the spread and single wing were old-fashioned and he wanted to be in the modern flow of things.”

After leaving San Antonio, the Frogs tied Texas A&M and Baylor before closing 2-2 in their last four games to finish 4-4-2.

“We were expecting to do great things and started out not doing very well at all,” said Harris, whose son, also named Marshall, played for TCU in 1974, ’76-78.

“Dutch always said, ‘In 1951, we just had a lot of good breaks. We played hard and just got breaks. In ’52, we had a better team, we played hard but didn’t get any breaks.’ ”

Meyer announced in January 1953 that he was stepping aside to become full-time athletic director. His top assistant, Martin, would take over the program and lead the Frogs to three SWC championships in the 1950s.

“Coach Meyer was a great guy, a real quality individual,” Harris said. “He didn’t beat around the bush, he told you exactly what was on his mind ... when he told you something you knew what he meant.

“Abe Martin was kind of a politician. Patting you on the back and jollying you up. Dutch would just tell you like it was. You always knew where he stood and how you stood with him.”

This story was originally published December 25, 2015 at 2:29 PM with the headline "63 years later, TCU returns to play in San Antonio."