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Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Where Are They Now?
Fort Worth, TX
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Ask any diehard Cleburne High School football fan about the 1959 team, and he or she will likely recount it as the pinnacle of Yellow Jacket athletic lore. Ask any UT football fan about the 1963 National Championship team, and they’ll probably tell you it was among the best of all time. One thing in common with both of those teams was David McWilliams.
McWilliams was born in Cleburne and graduated from CHS in 1960. He spent three years on the football team, playing linebacker and center.
“We had a great coach in Brooks Conover,” McWilliams recounted. (The stadium in Cleburne has since been named for Conover.) “He was a real motivator from the standpoint of taking care of your business…He came into Cleburne and turned that program around.”
McWilliams and his teammates from 1957-1959 enjoyed an impressive run of success. His sophomore year in 1957, the Jackets made it to the state semifinals before losing to Sweetwater. In 1958 CHS returned to the state semifinals, but again lost.
“By my senior year, we’d been through all that and decided we didn’t like losing after being that close, so we made it all the way to the state championship game, where we played Breckenridge High School.”
That game actually ended in a tie, but rather than use a tiebreaker, the teams opted to split the state title.
McWilliams then moved on to the University of Texas, where he won a national title as a player in 1963.
From there, McWilliams got into coaching, though that wasn’t initially his plan.
“I majored in mathematics,” he said. “So, I had thought about going into some sort of mathematic field. But then Coach [Darrell] Royal called me said that Abilene High School…wanted to run a wide-tackle six defense, which is what we’d run at Texas, and so I went out and visited.”
McWilliams was offered a position coaching the varsity and accepted.
“It was one of the best things I did because I met my wife out there and we got married,” McWilliams added.
He was an assistant at Abilene for two years before taking over as head coach. In 1970, McWilliams was again contacted by Coach Royal, who this time invited him to coach at UT. McWilliams worked in various assistant positions before moving to defensive coordinator in 1982. In 1986, McWilliams was offered the head coaching job at Texas Tech University. After only one year, the Longhorns again called upon McWilliams and offered him the head coaching job in Austin. In five years, McWilliams compiled a 31-26 record before tendering his resignation following the 1991 season.
“I just felt like it was time for me to get out,” McWilliams said. “I want Texas to be a winner and I wasn’t getting it done to be honest. So, I stepped down.”
The university offered him a position within the athletics department, allowing him to stay a part of the school he had given so much to.
Initially, McWilliams helped raise money for scholarships. A few years later, the department decided to add a full-time position that would help the university do more for its alumni lettermen. McWilliams was named the executive director of the T Association – the position he still serves.
The T Association oversees the Longhorn Hall of Honor and reunites past teams so that former teammates can gather and keep in touch.
“I’ve got a good job,” McWilliams asserted. “I do all kinds of reunions and get-together s and I’m really enjoying it because I get a chance to go to all the football games.”
Though happy with his life in Austin, McWilliams certainly hasn’t forgotten his roots in Cleburne. He still checks the paper to see how CHS fares each Friday night.
“Every Saturday,” he said. “That’s the first thing I do is try to find out how the Yellow Jackets did.”
(Texas photos courtesy of University of Texas, Cleburne photos courtesy of CISD.)
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