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Playing catch-up with Billy Sims
Published: 9/3/2010 2:32 PM
Last Modified: 9/3/2010 2:32 PM

I interviewed Billy Sims, 1978 Heisman Trophy recipient and first pick in the 1980 NFL Draft, for a story that is scheduled to run in Sunday’s Tulsa World.

After writing the piece, I retrieved some of the “deleted scenes” and pieced together a Q-and-A blog.

You said you weren’t interested in football until you were in the 10th grade?
Sims: “I really didn’t have any allegiance to any teams when I came out of high school. That’s why I was headed to Baylor, mainly because my grandmother liked (coach) Grant Teaff. Oklahoma was my last visit.”

So you switched to Oklahoma and became a wishbone halfback?
Sims: “Wishbone, chicken bone, it didn’t matter to me. Hell, I didn’t know what a wishbone was. And of course I came up and Bud Wilkinson was in town on that visit and they brought in Greg Pruitt, who was playing for the Cleveland Browns.”

One of the things that sold you on OU is you were from Hooks, Texas, and they had a lot of Texans on the roster. What else?
“Coach Switzer enticed me and the thing I liked about my visit with him was (he asked) what is going to happen when you are not playing football 20 or 30 years later? And that’s why we are such great friends today -- not just me, a lot of guys that played for him. It was more than just football. He did a hell of a job recruiting on me, in fact he had a guy by the name of Bill Shimek who was on the staff (and later coached Barry Sanders at Oklahoma State). He spent 77 days with me in Hooks, Texas. Of course that would be illegal now.”

But things were different in recruiting then?
“ It was the wild, wild west, I’m telling you.”

You and your agent tried to arrange a trade before you got picked first by the Lions in the 1980 draft?
“Of course Detroit wasn’t going to trade me. Back then, that was the only team I even tried out for because they told me right off the bat. I’ll never forget. They sent a scout here to Norman. Of course at that time we ran up under the stadium. I needed to warm up, so I went out there and ran a 4.45. I said, OK, let me get me another warm-up and he said, no, that’s good enough. We’re not going to trade you anyway, so it don’t matter. That was it. That was the only team I tried out for. We went up there and of course the rest is history.”

You played only 60 NFL games before suffering a career-ending knee injury. If you had the benefit of today’s medical advances, do you think your career would have been extended?
“I would have been able to play a few more years. But I sort of had a game plan when I got a chance to play in the NFL. Coming out of college, I was older than most rookies. I was two years behind and I knew then that I didn’t have a whole long time to play this game as a running back. The life expectancy is about three or three and a half years for a running back. But I enjoyed it while it lasted. We got in the playoffs a couple of times.”

Did you enjoy everything that came with being the first pick in the draft?
“I kind of got used to it by playing at the University of Oklahoma, on a big stage. That prepared me and the fact of being around coach Switzer, trying to give me some guidance and everything. Of course it’s not like it is now. In Detroit, we immediately had won four games in a row and you would have thought we had just won the Super Bowl. To turn that program around (from 2-14) to 9-7 was pretty good. I’m pretty sure they would take 9-7 right now.”

The Lions have had eight winning seasons since 1980 and seven came when you or Sanders was in the backfield. Minus you two, they haven’t had a lot of success.
“We had pretty good years. We were winning games moreso than they are now. Since Barry Sanders was the last time they have done anything. You look at all the other bad organizations. Tampa Bay. New Orleans. (Their fans) used to wear the bags and they finally won a Super Bowl. I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe there’s some truth to that story when Bobby Layne was there, the quarterback, and they traded him and he had the statement that Detroit would never get in the playoffs or win a playoff game ever again.”

I’m giving you a do-over. You want it?
Sims: “You know what? My only do-over would be my (17-14) loss at Nebraska in ‘78. (OU fumbled 10 times and lost six, including a fourth-quarter fumble by Sims at the Nebraska 3.) Thirty years later, people still bring it up.”

Does it stick in your craw?
Sims: No. I laugh about it. Of course coach Switzer told me a great quote. He said just tell people that if it wasn’t for the other eight (fumbles), we would have won. And I tell everybody I have a lot of fans in Nebraska because of that and I also helped save coach Tom Osborne’s job, because he couldn’t ever beat Switzer. They were threatening to fire him.
“But people say they can remember one game I played and I know where they are going. I will never forget. Jason White and Steve Owens and I went up to Nebraska game last year, and they made a big deal out of it with their tradition and everything. Of course when they showed me, you know what one play they showed on the big screen. And the crowd went crazy. I was like ‘wait a minute. Where’s the rematch game?’ But we had a lot of fun with it.”


Reader Comments 1 Total
BLA (2 years ago)
Billy Sims was the first player I noticed as a kid and when the NFL became relevant and something I paid attention too. I enjoyed watching him play and run the football. Its too bad his career ended so quickly and abruptly.
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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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