The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 16, 2000 Page: 13 of 24
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Hfa @AHtoUcUt RECORD THURSDAY 16 MARCH 2000
‘Canadian Comet’ Bill Cross enters Texas
High School Football Hall of Fame Saturday
Canadian High School alumnus Bill Cross—better known as the Ca-
nadian Comet—will be inducted into the Texas High School Football
Hall of Fame at Waco this Saturday, along with eight other high school
great* from the 1940's through the 1980’s.
Cross, who played for CHS in the 1940s, and went on to a successful
college football career and several impressive years in professional
football with the Chicago Cardinals and in Toronto with the Canadian
Football League. He and his wife, Joyce, have a combined family of five
children and eight grandchildren.
Cross will be recognized along with two athletes from the
pre-1940’s, Big Spring High School's Olie Cordill and Brownwood High
School’s Jim Thomason, as well as Abilene High’s Jimmy Carpenter
(1950’s), Longview High’s Loyd Phillips (1960’s), White Oak High’s
Mike Barber (1970’s), Idalou High’s Tracy Saul (1980’s), sports writer
Sam Blair, and Jay Stanley Fikes, who coached for Hamlin, Littlefield
and Temple.
Members of the Texes High School Football Hall of Fame are se-
lected by a state-wide committee made up of eight sports writers, eight
high school football coaches, and eight members of the Hall of Fame
board of directors.
The banquet, honoring each of the new inductees as well as the
coaches of the 10 state championship teams from the past season, will
be held Saturday at 7:00 p.m. at Baylor University’s Ferrell Center.
The Tom Landry Award will be presented to the Outstanding Coach,
and the Gordon Wood Award will be made to the Outstanding Team.
Banquet tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students.
little but mighty... Continued
meeting when, according to Mel
Bashore in The Coffin Comer,
“all the teams were just shooting
in the dark.”
“Not much was known about
him, and presumably not much
was expected," Bashore wrote.
“From out of little West Texas
State College, Cross had never
seen a pro player in his life.
[Cross] recalled, ‘I felt like I had
knocked on the wrong door.”’
Turns out it was the right door
Cross knocked on. During his
rookie year with the Cards, Cross
was the team's third leading
ground gainer, the fourth best
pass receiver, and stood second in
punt returns. A scrapbook full of
yellowed newspaper clippings
features headlines like Cardinal*'
Little Texas Comet Big Double
Cross to His Foes, or Bill Crosses
Bears' Goal Line, or Little Guy
Carries Big Load For Cards.
Throughout his pro-football
career, a great deal was made of
Cross’ small stature. Photos
showed him standing between
two towering linemen, or held
playfully aloft by two 6-foot-5
teammates. Today, Cross says he
really didn’t mind. “Seemed like
this little bitty kid got lots of pub-
licity,” he says, grinning. “I was
so small that they always had
something to write about.”
And indeed, they did. In a col-
umn by Bill Brown for the
Globe-Times, Cardinal teammate
Leo Sanford remembered Cross’
first game: “He was scared to
death that first week, and then
the first time they let him run
with the ball, he ran crazy. Went
65 yards for a touchdown, and
from then on, everybody on the
team was crazy about him.”
Following that debut, one Chi-
cago Daily News sports writer
said “Cross is hailed as one of the
trickiest runners to hit the pro
ranks in years; a twisting, darting
super-speedster. Split-second re-
actions have made Cross an elu-
sive target.”
The mighty mite from Cana-
dian lasted three years with the
Cards. The first contract he
signed was for $5,000. “Now you’d
get millions,” Cross says. “You
were making more than the aver-
age laborer, but you’d end up the
year just like you’d started. You
couldn't get a part-time job. You
couldn’t put anything back.”
“The only reason for playing
was to prove to yourself that you
could make it,” he adds. “That
was about it, because invariably
you were going to get hurt if you
stayed with it. As small as I was, 1
was thinking it was going to be a
bad hurt whenever I got it."
After three “good years,”
Cross called it quits and went
back home to his wife and son. He
bought into Buck’s Sporting
Goods in Amarillo, and stopped
returning the calls from Chicago.
“Finally, when I didn’t show up,
they put in the paper that I’d re-
tired,” Cross recalls.
Retirement, however, didn’t
last long. When Canadian Foot-
ball League officials saw the
newspaper notice, they invited
the Canadian Comet across the
border. “I guess I was acting
smart over the phone,” Cross
says, “and I said, ‘Well, a man'd
do anything once. What would
you give me?’ And damned if we
didn’t get together on a contract
over the phone."
Three days later, Cross was in
Canada, and after two days of
training, he made his debut for
our northern neighbors. Accord-
ing to league rules, teams were
only allowed a limited number of
American players—and those
BILL CROSS WITH CHICAGO CARDINAL TEAMMATES
players were expected to play.
“Boy, the made the Americans
play no matter what, even if
they’re hurt,” Cross remembers.
“I was fortunate, and never had a
piece of tape on me. I don’t know,
though. The old glory had gone
out of it There at first I’d have
gone up there for nothing and
played, but it wasn’t what it was.”
TODAY, CROSS REFLECTS on
the changes professional football
has undergone since his heyday.
“It’s not the same game,” he says.
“The drugs and dope...my respect
for it is totally gone.”
A notable exception, in Cross’
mind, was Tom Landry, “the
greatest asset football has ever
had,” he says. “He didn’t mind
correcting his best football player
if he was wrong. Duane Thomas,
he kicked him off because of these
things. Anytime you get to the
point that you can’t correct your
best man, you’d better give it up.”
Not that Bill Cross doesn't still
keep up with the sport, but he re-
serves his attention for college
games, and for Canadian High
School’s Fighting Wildcats,
whose praises he sang last fall
when we first interviewed him.
“I’ve kept up with them pretty
well,” Cross said, midway
through the Cats’ second consec-
utive run to the State
Semi-Finals. “You know, they’re
not a bunch of young boys.
They’re guys in a 40-year-old
body as far as their minds.
They’re the smartest group of
kids that I’ve seen, and boy are
they nice!”
Cross says he was thrilled
when the Wildcats invited him to
speak at one of their pep rallies.
“While I was there, I don’t know
what the heck I was saying,” he
adds, “but by their eyes, I knew
they were listening. I just
thought, ‘Boy, say something
smart.’”
“When they walked off,” Cross
says, “every one of them walked
by and shook hands. They were
men! And they were smart men!
And that’s what I credit half of
[their success] to. They’re not
smart alecks and hollering, trying
to get attention. They’re players.”
Senior Wildcat running back
George Peyton remembers going
to Cross for tips during his two
seasons on varsity. “Ty
[Dickinson] and I asked him for
some pointers, and he’s given the
running backs advice on how to
run the ball. Like when you’re
running, make the hit on the
other guy. You deliver the blow,
and they don’t want to tackle you
so much.”
Asked his impression of the el-
der Cross, Peyton offered, “I
think he had a whole lot of heart
[as a player].”
That’s as good a characteriza-
tion as any of what has motivated
“little Bill Cross”—from a diffi-
cult early childhood in which, at
age four, he lost his mother, fa-
ther and sister in a storm cellar
explosion, to a stellar perfor-
mance as a college athletic, to a
remarkable, if improbable, career
as a professional football player.
Bill Cross has the heart of a
competitor—even today, as he
makes his almost daily trips to the
Canadian Golf Course with a set
of clubs and a golf cart. “I still love
it,” he says. “I still love to com-
pete. That’s the only thing about
getting old. Golf is the only thing
you can do now, but I’d rather go
out there and compete, even
though I get my tail beat every
time I do.”
“I still love it, and I can’t get it
out of me,” Cross says of that
competitive spirit. “I don’t mean
that as a boastful thing. It’s just
built in.”
Attention Veterans
Your Veterans Service Officer,
Nick Thomas
can help you with any
Veteran-related problems,
paper work or medical records.
Call 323-9111
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Ezzell, Nancy & Brown, Laurie Ezzell. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 16, 2000, newspaper, March 16, 2000; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth738867/m1/13/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hemphill County Library.