Childress & Stallings Named to Collegiate Football Hall of Fame
May 27, 2010 | Football
May 27, 2010
NEW YORK - Texas A&M graduates Ray Childress and Gene Stallings were both named to The National Football Foundation & College Football Hall of Fame today. From a national ballot of 77 candidates and a pool of hundreds of eligible nominees, Archie Manning, the chairman of NFF & College Hall of Fame, made the announcement of the 12 first-team All-America players and two coaches.
Childress, played defensive line for the Aggies from 1981-84 and ended his Aggie career with 360 career tackles, the most of any defensive lineman in school history. He earned first-team All-America honors in 1983 and 1984. At the close of his A&M career, his 25 sacks were second only to Jacob Green's record 37 sacks at the time. The 1984 Aggie team captain is credited with changing the attitude and culture with Aggie football.
"Ray didn't say too much, he was a quiet leader," former Texas A&M head coach Jackie Sherrill recalled. "After we got shutout in Arkansas (28-0), he challenged everyone on the team. We were facing two bowl teams in TCU and Texas to finish out the year and we won both games and set the course for three straight Southwest Conference championships."
Childress, a 1985 Aggie graduate, would go on to become the third player selected in the 1985 NFL draft and he played 11 seasons with the Houston Oilers. He earned All-Pro honors six times and made five Pro Bowl appearances. During his career in Houston, he helped the Oilers reach the playoffs seven times.
A 1990 member of the Texas A&M Hall of Fame and a 2008 member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, Childress and his wife, Kara, helped form the Childress Foundation to help at-risk youth during the 1990s. His son, Wells, is currently a redshirt freshman on the Aggie football team.
Stallings currently serves on The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents and was inducted into the shrine as a coach. His first head coaching position was at Texas A&M from 1965-71 and after a long and illustrious NFL coaching career which included serving with Dallas Cowboys' legendary coach Tom Landry, Stallings returned to the collegiate game as the head coach at the University of Alabama from 1990-96 and led the Crimson Tide to the 1992 National Championship.
Stallings played collegiately at Texas A&M and is a member of the "Junction Boys". The group of Aggie football players who survived a 1954 training camp put together by Aggie head coach Paul "Bear" Bryant in Junction, Texas. Former sports information director Jones Ramsey quipped "they went out on two buses, but came home on one bus. I was the only SID who could type the roster sideways on a page."
Stallings was a three-year football letterman (1954-56), earned All-SWC honors in 1955 and was named a team captain as a senior on the undefeated 1956 Aggie football team.
He would join Coach Bryant's staff as an assistant coach at Alabama before Texas A&M named him as the head coach prior to the 1965 season. Stallings would lead the Aggies to the 1967 SWC Championship. In the 1968 Cotton Bowl, the Aggies faced the Crimson Tide and the student, Coach Stallings, defeated the teacher, Coach Bryant, and as the game ended Coach Bryant hoisted Coach Stallings in the air.
Upon Coach Stallings' retirement, he has served on President George W. Bush's Commission on Intellectual Disability and wrote a book about his late son, John Mark, who was born with Down Syndrome. Stallings was appointed to The Texas A&M System Board of Regents in 2005 by Governor Rick Perry.
The 2010 College Football Hall of Fame Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Class will be inducted at the NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 7, 2010, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. They will be officially enshrined in 2011.
2010 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS
PLAYERS
Dennis Byrd, DT, North Carolina State (1964-67)
Ronnie Caveness, C, Arkansas (1962-64)
Ray Childress, DL, Texas A&M (1981-84)
Randy Cross, OG, UCLA (1973-75)
Sam Cunningham, RB, USC (1970-72)
Mark Herrmann, QB, Purdue (1977-80)
Clarkston Hines, WR, Duke (1986-89)
Desmond Howard, WR, Michigan (1989-91)
Chet Moeller, DB, Navy (1973-75)
Jerry Stovall, HB, LSU (1960-62)
Pat Tillman, LB, Arizona State (1994-97)
Alfred Williams, LB, Colorado (1987-90)
COACHES
Barry Alvarez, Wisconsin (1990-2005)
Gene Stallings, Texas A&M (1965-71) Alabama (1990-96)
