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Their paths continued to parallel even after leaving Baylor. 'I figured up one time,' he continued, 'we played in almost 100 football games together.'

I was in his wedding when he got married,' recalls Hickman, himself a Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame member (1973) who now lives in retirement in Tyler. 'We started together in the seventh grade in Kilgore and we went through junior high, high school and college together. Humphrey and Hickman, they go together in memory like two peas in a pod - star members of the same Baylor teams, high school teammates as well, experiencing the same highs and lows at Baylor, going from the jubilation of a stunning Sugar Bowl triumph to a pair of last-place finishes in the SWC as juniors and seniors. (Three famed predecessors, All-America selections John Kimbrough, Jack Pardee and John David Crow, topped out at 210 to 212 pounds, according to the record book.) The SWC record book lists him as a 6-2, 215-pound fullback, and that would make him the biggest or at least the heaviest All-SWC back to play in the league since its inception in 1915. Hickman was a consensus All-Southwest Conference choice as a 1958 senior when he led the league in rushing (670 yards) and ranked eighth nationally. Humphrey helped rescue the Bears late in their Sugar Bowl season after an injury to Doyle Traylor left the Bears with questionable backup help behind starting quarterback Bobby Jones, and then he set school and conference records and led the nation in passing as a senior in 1958. History will assure you those Baylor recruiters did not waste those two scholarships. Humphrey was the athlete with the marvelous physique who had played both quarterback and halfback at Kilgore, and Larry Hickman was the muscular, heavier halfback who had made similar waves on those same Kilgore teams. Humphrey came to Baylor as part of the powerful one-two punch that then-Baylor coach George Sauer and his assistants recruited out of Kilgore High School following the 1954 season. 27 at the Cashion Building on the Baylor campus.

January? Buddy Humphrey, now deceased, had the credentials and the leadership qualities to qualify for any of the three nicknames you might want to reserve for him.įittingly (and would say tardily), he took his place among the spotlighted honorees when the 2006 class of the Baylor Sports Hall of Fame claimed center stage in enshrinement ceremonies on the evening of Oct. Humphrey was elected a co-captain of the 1958 Baylor Bears, a co-captain of the South team in the Miami Shrine game, and finally a co-captain of the winning South team in the Senior Bowl game that followed. 'If I had a passer like that, I'd probably throw more (at Texas),' the infantry-minded Royal said after the game.

Quarterbacking the South team coached by Texas' Darrell Royal in the North-South Shrine Classic played in Miami, Humphrey bombed his team to victory by throwing no fewer than five touchdown passes - a total that still stands as the all-time record for TD passes in a single game by a Baylor player. That game against the Owls was Baylor's season finale, the last game Humphrey would ever play for the Bears.īut he did have two more games on his personal schedule that season. 20, 2006.Īnd his 22 completions in that game left him as the national leader for the season in pass completions (112). The aerial yardage he amassed that afternoon in a wild game played at Baylor Stadium that stood as the most yardage a Baylor passer ever accumulated in a single game until Shawn Bell's record-setting day against Kansas, Oct. 29, 1958, that same Buddy Humphrey, by then a senior, threw for 387 yards with 22 completions in 37 attempts against the Rice Owls. It was a victory that still stands as the most celebrated bowl triumph in the university's long football history. 1, 1957, in New Orleans' famed Sugar Bowl game, in tell-tale action in the fourth quarter, sophomore quarterback Buddy Humphrey squirmed one yard for the touchdown that became the winning points in Baylor's 13-7 victory over the undefeated, highly-favored and No. He will be added to the 'B' Association's Wall of Honor.īy Dave Campbell, Insider Associate Editor

Also being honored is Weldon Bigony, who earned letters at Baylor in football and track in the early 1940s, then left for military service during World War II and returned to Baylor 60 years later to finish work on his business degree in 2003. Joe and Mike Hughes track All-American Deon Minor ace baseball pitcher and current BU baseball coach Steve Smith and women's basketball star Carol Reeves-Brandenburg. Members of the 2006 class are former football standouts Buddy Humphrey, J.J.

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Editor's note: This is the third in a series of features that will feature Baylor's 2006 Hall of Fame inductees.