Casey Hampton's Jersey Retired At Galveston Ball

Hampton was so dominant in college that the fact he didn’t win the Lombardi Award or Outland Trophy is a crime.

And even after watching Vince Young do his thing, I sometimes wonder if Hampton belongs in a discussion of most dominant Longhorn football player I’ve ever seen.

Obviously, a QB has the ability to dominate the game much more profoundly than a DT, but yeah, within his role, Casey was as good as it gets. Like Hugh Green/pick-any-Selmon brother/Chad Hennings college dominant.

There is a much greater appreciation for how good Hampton was in college 10 years after the fact. I can’t think of anyone else whose legend has, rightfully, grown so much, years later. I wonder why that is.

A late Mackovic signing with qualification concerns keeping interest low from other programs if I remember correctly. 3 star level recruit who turned in to one of our best defensive players.

That excerpt never fails to produce reliable, genuine, go-to laughter.
 
As beastly as Hampton was in college, that degree was three-fold in High School.

Thus the term Ballin’.

And he’s got two rings to show for it.

Most of closetojumping’s stories involve tears, profanity and violence.

he played linebacker before that, ran track, and could dunk. imagine him at backer coming after your ass…

All I remember about my trip to Ball High is a bunch of 5 year olds making obscene gestures at us when our bus pulled in and Patrick Bates absolutely lighting me up on a drag pattern. It seemed like a lovely place.

Mention Cephus Scott to closetojumping, and the dude curls up in the fetal position.

There is a much greater appreciation for how good Hampton was in college 10 years after the fact. I can’t think of anyone else whose legend has, rightfully, grown so much, years later. I wonder why that is.

I was in school at the time. Shaun Rogers was the more celebrated of the two, no?

He was the more physically gifted, yet slothful, of the two. I think he attributed a lot of his success to Hampton dragging him out to workouts.

I did a lot of mescaline then, so that could all be wrong.

then?

Casey is awesome, as is mescaline.

I think Hampton was headed to Missouri before a late Mackovic offer. The general understanding was, as someone said earlier, grades had kept him off the radar.

Almost makes up for a soon-to-depart Mackovic telling Gary Baxter, a lifelong Texas fan, he didn’t think he could play on the college level. Not really though.

Y’all are forgetting how dominate Chris Akins was. I was at the 97 game at Rice when Akins and Hampton blew out their knees… the team was never the same, and that season was UT’s worst in 20 years.

Ha, this thread made me laugh. Thanks.

Speaking of Shaun Rogers, I also played against him and LaPorte in a scrimmage before each season. I think he was a year behind me, or perhaps 2 back, like Hampton.

My senior year, we’re scrimmaging LaPorte and they are absolutely dismantling us. It’s before the school year starts on a Thursday afternoon in August. We’re on astroturf, the old dusty stuff that was hard as concrete and HenryJames’ girlfriend’s penis, and this particular turf was more than 10 years old that day. It’s all of 105 degrees on the field.

I am running routes repeatedly, sweating and heaving. I am also being covered, man to man, by Chris Anderson. This guy was recruited by Neuheisel and everyone else under the sun. I’m 6’2" and he’s towering over me and talking shit perpetually. It always surprised me how hated I could make myself by the other guy on a field of play. I was usually amused. That said, when Vernon Crawford the year before was threatening to murder my entire family and repeating my name over and over again during the game against Texas City, that was scary. Otherwise, I was usually amused.

The Anderson guy was also a stud basketball player and could run for days. Unfortunately, he was just not a very good cover guy and not very tough. I had caught about 5-6 passes on him, exacerbating his disdain as many of his teammates mocked him for not being able to handle a white guy.

For my part, I am as annoyed as I can possibly be with our idiot coaches as they continue to throw a screen pass out of trips formation, Trips Left and Right, if you will, to our Junior slot receiver. Meanwhile, I’m being forced to block for him, as is a friend of mine at the other WR position, who is also a Senior. We were big guys and were mauling the CBs even if Anderson had 3 inches on me. The coaches are raving about our blocking how this play could get us to the playoffs. I’m fuming and I see my season going up in thankless flames as this asshole catches 100 passes and take All-District honors on our 3-7 caliber team. My Senior WR friend is feeding off of me.

Anyway, midway through the scrimmage, as the Junior guy has caught about 10 of these already, the play is called again. I walk up to the line, look at Anderson, look at my buddy, then look in at Slot Guy and back at Anderson and wink. My goal was for Anderson to blow in on the play, make a pick or make a big tackle so the staff would stop thinking that the play was bulletproof. Well, he blew in on it. He flies by me as I play “Ole!” and he picks the Slot Guy up and literally body slams him into the turf. Slot Guy cries out and writhes in pain. I look down to see his elbow pointing in the wrong direction from the dude’s body. He’s fucked and doesn’t return for 6 weeks. I pray to God for forgiveness for being a total prick and a bad teammate.

Our primary formation goes from Trips to Twins and suddenly I am being forced to run that shitty play for 15 times a game. Two weeks later against Deer Park, I catch one and break it, then Jake Hammer or some other big asshole from DP gets blocked on top me and crushes my foot in the same miserable, ungiving turf. Karmic payback is a sorry bitch to deal with. I played the rest of the year running at about a 5.4 clip with a metal plate in the shape of my sole in my shoe from metal shop, with my foot broken. The amount of mini-thin ephedrin and Advils taken before each following game should have actually killed me.

That Slot Guy came back and we went back to the old play out of Trips. He caught 19 passes against Clear Lake and made the Chronicle in his first week back. In the photo in the paper, you could literally see a linebacker trampling some dude on the ground in order to get at the WR. You couldn’t see the number, but that was me getting mauled and embarrassed in front of family, friend, and foe. We played GBall the following week.

Casey Hampton was absolutely the motivating force behind Shaun Rogers vast improvement in college. I find it very doubtful Rogers would have gone on to the success he enjoyed - both in college and in the pros - without Hamptons’ presence in his life.

I’ll tell you a funny anecdote. Bucky Godbolt made something of a career in Austin by portraying himself as a key to getting Ricky Williams on campus, and then being his running coach, when it’s patently untrue.

However, he played a fundamental part in getting Casey Hampton to campus. Part of the agenda under which Mackovic was hired was to make sure academics were a priority for the football program - a systemic administrative problem that created a lot of the competitive difficulties from between 1984 through 1997, although that’s not the only cause.

Anyway, Mackovic was known for turning down players he felt couldn’t cut it in the classroom at UT (although how Shon Mitchell passed mustard, I have no idea) - Gary Baxter being my favorite example.

When Godbolt first brought up Hampton as a possible recruiting target, Mackovic turned him down. This is going to come as a shock to some of you, but Galveston Ball sometimes has difficulty in producing rocket scientist caliber students out of its curriculum, and Hampton, as a star football player, wasn’t exactly required to put forth maximum effort while staying eligible.

In a miracle of miracles, Godbolt somehow convinced Mackovic that Hampton would get the work done to qualify. It didn’t happen until well until the summer, but Hampton - as was the case for him throughout his life - worked his ass off (figuratively of course) to get the required combined classroom work and test score.

Later in his career, Mack Brown brought another recruit from Galveston Ball, Lawrence Richardson, on campus in December. He was a big time defensive back also considering Arkansas and LSU.

The kid wanted to know how hard it was at UT, since he’d been given promises regarding how much “help” he’d receive at his other choices.

Hampton told him straight out it’s a lot of friggin’ hard work, but that if you do your part, you’ll have a chance at a degree.

That wasn’t what Richardson wanted to hear. There were some other shenanigans that went on with that recruitment, but the bottom line is that Hampton had no desire to sugarcoat anything for Richardson to get him to come to UT. Come to campus ready to do the work, or go somewhere else.

Anyway, just one of the many reasons to like Hampton.

CTJ – Great stories. This greatness too:

You are all fucking dead

this thread belongs in the classics. great stories abound. really great reading.

i recall that casey was recruited the same year as cedric woodard, who was getting all the ink at dt. came the all-star game and i could hardly wait to see woodard. i was only dimly aware of hampton since he was not very highly regarded by the newspapers.

apparently the poor guy who had to play center wasn’t trained at that position and it was ugly what casey did to his sense of self-worth. first i had any inkling he was special.

First day of my final semester of college, spring 2000. I sit in the last row of Lamphear’s Military History class in Welch.

5 minutes after class starts, this hulking mass of human being appears in the seat next to me. It’s Casey Hampton. He’s not carrying books, a notebook, a pen or pencil, nothing.

He turns to me and says “We gon be sharing notes for this class.”

I’m not sure, but I think I said “Yes, sir.”

Every day after class we went to the copy machine and he took my notes.

We became close friends many years later when I removed a thorn from his paw.

I once threw a fade route to closetojumping that bounced off the top of his helmet as he was streaking down the field. It was beautiful.

I’m picturing Casey turning to Scally and saying, in a voice just loud enough to be heard over Otis Day crooning in the background, “You mind if we dance with yo’ dates?”

We became close friends many years later when I removed a thorn from his paw.

That’s a good line Scally.

And yes MN, that’s exactly how i read that line in my head too. classic.

Lawrence Richardson ended up at Arkansas, didn’t he? I seem to remember seeing him in their defensive backfield, but I don’t think he set the world on fire there.

This is great stuff.

“I once threw a fade route to closetojumping that bounced off the top of his helmet as he was streaking down the field.”

Streaking being a relative term.

Relative to running down the field naked wearing only a helmet.

“Lawrence Richardson ended up at Arkansas, didn’t he? I seem to remember seeing him in their defensive backfield, but I don’t think he set the world on fire there.”

I think he got kicked off the team eventually.

My freshman year at UT was Mack’s first and one of the biggest memories for me from that year besides Ricky’s Heisman run was how badly Rogers and Hampton absolutely dominated the #6 aggies on T+1. I think the ags ended up with quite a few negative rushing yards that day.

I believe Richardson was the one who introduced me to the term “crunk”. He said in an interview that Coach Nutt was crunk and I had to go to urbandictionary.com to decipher exactly what that meant.

I pretty much owe all of my limited knowledge of today’s slang to college football. Now when I hear kids talking about “purple drank”, “lean”, “f-lion” or “kicking b—ches”, I nod knowingly.

Richardson was very impressed with Houston Nutt’s attempts to act black.

Nothing to add. Just wanted to say great thread/stories. I love this site. Carry on.

dick,

My favorite Rogers memory of that game were three consecutive plays after he was called for roughing the passer on third down that extended the Aggie series. Rogers proceeded to destroy the next three plays and force the punt.

Unfortuately, what was hoped to be a preview of his senior season ended up being “cut” short of those hopes.

closetojumping:
 
Your stories are honestly one of my favorite things on the Web. You capture high school football, petty rivalry, the idiocy of coaches, and our inner Lord of the Flies traits better than anyone on the ‘net. Barking Carnival may have to introduce a weekly feature called Storytime With CloseToJumping.
 
scally:
 
Great story. I loved Lamphear’s class, by the way. I took both of his military history classes and actually ended up TA’ing for him. Very interesting dude and a lot of fun to work with.
 
I’ll never forget the guy who turned in an essay exploring the decline of the mounted knight in Feudal Europe when peasant armies equipped with polearms came to the fore. He mentioned one specific battle where a group of Swiss peasants armed with HALIBUTS (rather than halberds) slaughtered a contingent of French knights (proof that fishmongers held the key to world domination?). The same individual contended in the very same essay that The Black Prince “was probably a Moor.”

justaguy, I remember the Shaun Rogers U of H chop block you’re referring to. As the Longhorns went to the side line to discuss meat packing strategy with Bull Reese, Hampton stayed out on the field over the ball, barking at the UH huddle. Mf’er didn’t even go get water.

In a perfect world, one of CTJ’s teammates would have chop blocked Galveston Balls’ other defensive tackle. It would have been even better if the injury came on one of CTJ’s world reknown crab blocks.

So many CTJ stories. Tearing the Longhorn shirts off his friends after a Texas loss to OU and then mailing them to Belmont? Being banned from a Houston flag football league? Mocking the toughness of a teammate as he lay on the football field with a collasped lung (I think)? Participant trophy? Using the handicap stall in the bathroom at work when a handicapped dude wheels in? Impossible to even make a top ten.

I’m dead serious when I say I want this to be a feature. I may look at his contract and put the squeeze on him.
 
You left out Doane’ Dad, btw.

HJ-
The story behind the collapsed lung is this…

CTJ and I are playing in Clear Creek our freshman year. 2nd (or maybe 3rd) and short, coach calls a QB sneak. Snap. Center comes off the ball, i am behind him, the MLB DD Lewis’s right by us, leaving the middle of field open. We go 15 or so yards where the center proceeds to miss a block on the SS as I am engaged with the FS, basically about to shed the attempted tackle and take it to the house. The SS spears me right under the left shoulder blade with his helmet. I am down. I am out.

When i regain consciousness, CTJ is standing over me with his finger in my face telling me to “pull myself together”.

I go on to have 2 surgeries and spend 6 days in the hospital with a collapsed lung.

Now, he didn’t have anything to do with the play, but somehow, someway, shit like this happens when he’s around. I have seen it repeatedly over the past 20 years. Fucker.

And… to bring the story full circle, the center who missed the block on the safety is the same guy who got missile launched into the QB 3 years later.

Not to mention the “We got class” chanting high school coach, and vomiting outside of Texas Stadium after the Big 12 Championship game vs. Colorado after not consuming one drop of alcohol.

That is greatness.

I’m tempted to believe that ‘My Name Is Earl’ is based on ctj.

joe fickey for the win.
 
I never ever tire of closetojumping stories.

Fickey,

Were you with him at the 14-3 OU game?

Yes. He assassinated some dipshit who started berating Simms for the Roy Williams Super Man play. CTJ got him to eventually admit that he didn’t see the play, he just didn’t like CS.

I had to physically restrain CTJ from hurting the guy after CS threw a pick on the next drive.

“Oh yeah, MAN, I saw that one! I guess that wasn’t his fault either, huh, Man?!?!”

CTJ simply responded with “Dude, you’re about to see my fist plunging through your face and I won’t think twice about it. I will leave you for dead where you stand. Right here. With your 6 year old watching.”

We left.

Please have some collection of CTJ’s stories. I havent read them all as referenced in this thread, but every one I have has been gold.

God, these CTJ stories make me so happy.

I should note that on his twitter this past week, CTJ mentioned he was going to see Les Miz. Besides the inherent gayness of that tweet, I misread it as going to see “Les Miles” an I thought CTJ finally got a meeting with the most important role model in his life.

That story is greatness!

Oh good grief. Listen, fickey, if you are going to jump in, then take the story the whole way. I am concerned that you have located this board.

Anyway, after that 14-3 game, joefickey and I were walking out of the stadium and into the Fair towards our car. At this point, the two of us encountered a number of sooner fans shouting at several Longhorn people about how bad Simms sucked and what a pussy he was. Sadly, the Longhorn fans were agreeing with them and hanging their heads in shame. Well, I was still in some absurd fit of rage and threw myself into the fray. I started arguing about how that play was a miracle and wasn’t Simms’ fault. I also proceeded to start telling one of the sooner fans that a doctor could fix his hairlip and crosseye issues. Even the Longhorn fans started shouting me down as the rhetoric escalated. Nobody wanted to defend Simms that evening, it seemed.

joefickey eventually pulled me away from getting jumped by about 10 guys that probably should have just beaten the shit out of me. “You are not his sworn defender, man. He is a grown human and doesn’t need a retarded superhero protecting his reputation. Get it together.”. I kind of stood there, blinking, and then snapped back to the reality and absurdity of my behavior.

We walked back to the car, near the freeway and miles away from the Cotton Bowl and the Fair. You could still hear “Boomer Sooner” being played in the stadium and assholes cheering as their little cannon shots were going off. It was a particularly chilly and windy day for any October that day in 2001. We were on the shady side of the stadium, too. I remember that walk back to the car well. We didn’t say a word and my lips were so parched and dried out that I wanted to tear at them. I was alternating between that thought and the idea that we were never going to beat the sooners again while they had Stoops and we had Brown at the helm of UT football. Those thoughts isolated my mind and did battle with each other as I worked myself into a quiet internal frenzy.

As we neared the car, the sun was dimming on the day, probably around 6 on an October Saturday with no cloud in the sky. You know how that feels and probably remember that shithole day. Anyway, I finally just ended up erupting and tearing my newly purchased burnt orange, Longhorn polo off of my chest. I struggled tearing it off, like an idiot, and almost started bawling out of frustration until it tore completely off and over my head. I then kicked it violently into a nearby gutter and then I grabbed my knees and heaved for breath. As I caught my breath, I looked around and there was joefickey, standing there, staring at me from about 40 feet away near the car. “Are you ready man? Are you fucking ready?”, he said. “Yeah, I’m ready, man, let’s go.”. We got in the car and drove off. We’ve rarely spoken of the incident since, but I always laugh at what I think about might have been going on in his mind during the whole episode.

I had planned on coming back and finishing the story. I did notice you left out the part where we stumbled upon the crimson-and-cream-striped El Camino with the OU magnets on the doors parked 2 spots over from us. One of us ripped off the antenna, broke it over a knee (Bo Jackson-style) and threw it through the half open window onto the front seat. The last words uttered for the next 30 minutes were the ever-lasting “FUUUUUCK!! YOUUUUU! SOOOOOONER!”

holy shit, that is some greatness.

it was that game that my friend who is the one guy that should not get seats right on the 50 yard line did indeed get those very seats. let’s just say that no Sooner, no matter the age or gender, was spared his drunken wrath that day. especially after the roy williams play.

little did you know that 4 months later, VY would send in his letter of intent and everything would change.

I do love that story by CTJ.

And congrats, Casey! You deserve it!

Sweet Baby Jeebus. I would pay money to read CTJ.

He’s got twitter? Sweet manna from heaven, where do I find that?

CTJ,

As a G-Ball grad this is funny shit to me.

Lots of great players from Ball, but they could never qualify. Casey was nice sweet dude, never really said much.

I remember a scrimmage against Forrest Brook (maybe, don’t remember) and they apparently didn’t scout much. Its funny watching three lineman trying to block one NT. Before they could figure that out, it was chaos and there were O-Lineman flying all over the place.

Good times.