This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness factors in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 80: = Donn Moomaw, UCLA football = Henry Ellard, Los Angeles Rams = Johnnie Morton, USC football
The not-so obvious choices for No. 80: = Bob Klein, USC football, Los Angeles Rams = Duane Bickett, USC football
The most interesting story for No. 80: Donn Moomaw, UCLA football center and linebacker (1950 to 1952) Southern California map pinpoints: Santa Ana, Westwood, Los Angeles (Coliseum), Hollywood, Bel Air, Pasadena
UCLA athletic department archives
With their first pick in the 1953 NFL Draft — the ninth-overall choice — the Los Angeles Rams selected center/linebacker Donn Moomaw, the first two-time All-American in UCLA program history and a local hero out of Santa Ana High.
Moomaw prayed on it.
Then he politely declined.
The NFL played Sunday games, which was Moomaw’s day for the Lord. It did not need any potential Hail Mary pass plays intercepting his focus.
As an end around, Moomaw could deflect to Canada, play for the Toronto Argonauts and the Ottawa Rough Riders in the CFL, and do more mid-week and Saturday engagements.
But soon enough, his rough ride of long-term pro football fame came with a change in heart. Moomaw became one of the most well-known preachers in the country. The fresh Presbyterian minister of Bel Air became a personal confidant of Ronald Reagan and his family, starting with his time as the California governor, and going all the way to the White House.
But then, the headlines that Moomaw made later in life were a cause to pause and pray some more.
The story
Don Moomaw’s time at UCLA was a glorious one. They weren’t booing him. When the 6-foot-4, 220-pound linebacker made a tackle, the UCLA cheerleaders would lead the crowd in “MooooooMAW!” He was known as “the Mighty Moo.”
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 88: = Tim Rossovich, USC football = Phil Nevin, Los Angeles Angels manager = Billy Don Jackson, UCLA football = Preston Dennard, Los Angeles Rams
The most interesting story for No. 88: Billy Don Jackson, UCLA defensive lineman/linebacker (1977 to 1979) Southern California map pinpoints: Westwood, L.A. Coliseum, Los Angeles Superior Court
All these years later, do you have a better read on what happened to Billy Don Jackson at UCLA in the late 1970s? Even now, it might be wise to review all the evidence.
A heralded high school recruit from football-rich Texas who stepped right in as a freshman starter on Terry Donahue’s UCLA squad, Jackson was voted by his teammates to receive the N.N. Sugarman Perpetual Trophy. It represents the player who exhibited the best spirit and scholarship.
Jackson won that twice. The second time was after his junior season, even after Donahue decided he had to punish him for missing classes with a four-game suspension at the end of the season, sending him to the scout team and effectively ending his college career.
There is also the Jackson who, once he was disengaged from Westwood, stood in Santa Monica Superior Court and heard a judge brand him as a “functional illiterate” during a testy sentencing hearing. Jackson had pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in a botched drug deal.
“This young man cannot even read ‘see Spot run’,” the judge, Charles Woodmansee, continued in his diatribe.
“My God,” added prosecutor Marsh Goldstein, “they brought this kid to one of the top universities in the country and it takes a court order for him to properly to learn to read and write. … Billy Don Jackson is himself a victim — a victim of the shoddy system we call intercollegiate athletes. Hopefully somebody in college sports will learn something from this tragedy.”
Jackson became the humiliating yardstick for everything perceived wrong with college sports and a winning-at-all-costs approach. How someone could spend that long at a major university masquerading as a so-called “student-athlete” was a huge red flag.
UCLA took it as a gut punch. College sports took it as a wake up call, beyond simple damage control.
The truth was, and still is, that Jackson had a pronounced reading disability, similar to dyslexia, that was supposed to be addressed by UCLA’s academic department through tutoring and individual attention. It didn’t happen. Who’s at fault?
The collateral damage is that Jackson would be referenced time and again by those outraged about the exploitation of Black athletics at the expense of an education, setting off a sizeable ripple effect for overdue reform.
“The one consistent exception to the negative images presented of Blacks in the media has been the black male athlete,” UC Berkeley sociologist Harry Edwards said in a 1982 L.A. Times story that particularly used the Jackson case as the cautionary tale. “The message, though subtle, is clear: If you are Black and want respect, justice and equality of opportunity and reward from white America, become an outstanding athlete.”
But it really wasn’t that simple for Jackson, despite what may still linger in the court of public opinion.
The context
The Longview News-Journal, Oct. 5, 1976
Sporting a name that sounded like a country western crooner, Billy Don Jackson was born Jan. 29, 1959 and, though trying circumstances, grew into a highly-sought after, 6-foot-4, 280-pound athlete from Sherman High, about an hour’s drive north of Dallas and not far from the Oklahoma border.
Right in the glare of “Friday Night Lights” in Texas football.
Jackson’s college recruitment drew attention unto itself. Bear Bryant at Alabama and Barry Switzer at Oklahoma came calling. Representatives from all the Texas schools urged him to stay home with all sorts of incentive plans. When Jackson played in the 45th Texas High School Coaches Association North-South game in Dallas, it looked like Southern Methodist had the inside track.
To talk to him meant a physical visit to see his mother, Annie. The two lived with his grandmother in a federal subsided $27-a-month upstairs apartment in a housing project. They had no home telephone. Jackson’s parents divorced when he was 3 and he supported his family working full-time in the summer and part time during school.
“He’s only 17 but he’s probably twice that old,” said his high school coach Ed Hunt in 1977 during that recruiting process. “The things he’s going through right now are easy for him compared to what he’s been through. He’s had times when he’s had to worry about feeding his family.”
“These guys won’t tell you they’ll give you a car; they’ll be real subtle,” Jackson said. “A couple of them said they’d take care of my homework, give me a tutor, whatever. Make sure I don’t have to go to class, things like that. That ain’t the life for me. Those schools are out of the running. I don’t give them a second look. My father taught me to appreciate a hard day’s work.”
UCLA, trying to recruit more out-of-state talent after Donahue’s first season as a head coach in Westwood, had someone who Jackson could trust. Billie Matthews, a former quarterback at Southern University who coached high school ball in his native Houston, came to UCLA from Kansas in 1971 with head coach Pepper Rodgers and coached defensive backs for one season before concentrating on the running back position. He spoke Jackson’s language.
Aside from bringing Jackson into L.A. on a trip to show off the sunny weather on a day it had been snowing and dreary in his home town, he had a sit down lunch with then-Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a UCLA alum.
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 48: = Les Richter, Los Angeles Rams = Ramon Martinez, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher = Dave Stewart, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher = Torii Hunter, Anaheim Angels outfielder
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 48: = Lionel Washington, Los Angeles Raiders
The most interesting story for No. 48: Milt Smith, UCLA football left end (1939 to 1943) Southern California map pinpoints: Redlands, Santa Ana, Westwood
Milt Smith, a 6-foot-3, 190 pound end, far right, is included in photo prior to UCLA’s 1943 New Year’s Day Rose Bowl appearance against Georgia as part of the Bruins’ first string linemen. Also included, from left: Burr Baldwin, Charles Fears, Al Sparlis, Jack Lecoulie, Bill Armstrong and Jack Finlay.
Watch what happens here, and tell us if we’re taking up too much time.
You’ve heard of the 1939 UCLA undefeated football team full of soon-to-be legendary figures?
Milton Bradley “Snuffy” Smith wasn’t one of them.
His name, after all, was Smith.
When the Redlands-born kid from Santa Ana High joined the Bruins roster as a freshman, the offense was already generated by the talents of Jackie Robinson, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. The Gold Dust Trio.
As Strode moved on after the season to start a film career and try some local semi-pro football, the sophomore Smith was named as his replacement at left end by coach Babe Horrell. But Smith’s season ended with a broken leg in the third quarter of a game in the next-to-last game against Washington — the team’ s only win that season. Smith was still selected second team on the Associated Press and All-Pacific Coast Conference teams.
In 1941, with Bob Waterfield coming in as the new UCLA quarterback, Smith was one of his favorite receivers. He ended up as an honorable mention for the All-PCC team.
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 28:
= Anthony Davis: USC football, Southern California Sun, Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Express = Bert Blyleven: California Angels = Albie Pearson: Los Angeles/California Angels = Wes Parker: Los Angeles Dodgers = Pedro Guerrero: Los Angeles Dodgers
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 28:
= Mike Marshall: Los Angeles Dodgers = Rui Hachimura: Los Angeles Lakers
The most interesting story for No. 28: Jack Robinson: UCLA football running back/defensive back (1939 to 1941) Southern California map pinpoints: Pasadena, L.A. Coliseum, Westwood
If the only number you associate with Jack Robinson is the No. 42 — the one he was randomly given by the Brooklyn Dodgers when he made his Major League Baseball debut in 1947 — that’s understandable.
The Pasadena native wore No. 42 for 10 seasons, none of them as a Dodger in Los Angeles, retiring just before their move. Forty-two has been codified as representing a man of social justice reform and restitution on behalf of the African American race.
Yet Robinson wouldn’t have been in that position had he not made a name for himself as an athlete — with his given first name of Jack — wearing No. 28 playing football at UCLA.
A four-sport athlete at John Muir High in Pasadena, Robinson moved onto Pasadena City College. His time at UCLA in Westwood was brief, but powerfully impactful.
What number did he wear for the UCLA baseball team during his only season of 1940? No one has evidence to show that it was 42. Or any other number. This appears to be the only photo of him in a Bruins baseball jersey, in the team photo, far left.
UCLA records say Robinson posted a .097 batting average in 1940, which included getting four hits and stealing home twice among four bases stolen in one game. He also reportedly stole home 19 times.
A Robinson UCLA replica football jersey sells at Ebbets Field Flannels (of all company names) for $350.
He wore No. 18 as a UCLA All-Conference basketball player. Yet as a football player, where Robinson made his most indelible mark, especially in Southern California.
At Pasadena Junior College, he wore No. 55 in football — that’s what he’s wearing on a statue outside the Rose Bowl honoring that part of his life. Robinson owns a school record for the longest run from scrimmage, 99 yards.
But for the two years he played at UCLA, No. 28 became quite magical.
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