Houston Headed to the Hall – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/17/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 17, 2005
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A two-time All-America honoree, a two-time All-Big Ten selection, a two-time team most valuable player at two positions all adds up to becoming Ohio State’s 20th immortalized player in the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame.
In August 2006, Jim Houston, a Buckeye from 1957-59, officially will be inducted in to the hall at an enshrinement ceremony in South Bend, Ind.
A 1979 inductee into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame, Houston is excited to join college football’s most prestigious fraternity.
“It is a great honor, of course,” Houston, 67, said. “I am very happy this has happened. It will be a wonderful experience to join the 19 other Ohio State players in there as well.”
Houston began building his legacy at Ohio State with a bang. As a sophomore, he started both ways for the 1957 Buckeye squad that claimed a share of the national championship. The team capped its 9-1 overall record that season with a 10-7 comeback win over Oregon in the 1958 Rose Bowl. Houston played all but 30 seconds of the 60-minute game and accounted for all of Ohio State’s 59 receiving yards. He hauled in a 37-yard first-quarter pass to set up the Buckeyes’ only touchdown.
Although Ohio State’s record dipped to 6-1-2 in 1958 and to 3-5-1 in 1959, Houston gained national acclaim as one of the best all-around players in college football.
“He was a two-way great,” Dick Schafrath, who played beside Houston on the Buckeye offensive line at tackle in 1957 and ’58, said. “He was a leader and a captain for us. He had the natural ability to play any position on the field he wanted.” Houston, who wore No. 84, and Schafrath played in an era of Ohio State football that did not feature much in the way of a passing attack on offense. For the most part, then-head coach Woody Hayes kept his game plan on the ground, so Houston was not afforded the chance to display his receiving skills, which included an average of 24.7 yards per catch by the end of his career in 1959. Although he amassed just 19 receptions as a three-year starter, Houston excelled in the other half of the dual role at offensive end – blocking.
“I played beside him on offense,” Schafrath said. “He was an outstanding blocking end. We had a great time double-teaming guys. We never let anyone out of our double teams.”
On the other side of the ball, Houston was just as dominant. In 1957, he was a main cog in a defensive unit that gave up just 9.2 points per game and allowed opponents to score only six fourth-quarter points the entire season.
“On defense, he never let anyone around his side,” Schafrath, who also played both ways as a defensive tackle, said. “He was a headache for opponents. No one ever wanted to run on his side. That is probably how I got so many tackles on my side.”
Houston played some special teams as well, meaning he hardly left the field. For his career, Houston averaged more than 51 minutes per game.
“People always ask me how Woody Hayes was on our sideline,” Houston said. “I would respond with `Well, I don’t know. I was never on the sideline.’
Houston’s career is a unique case study in that he had success at all levels and never had to leave the state of Ohio. He helped Massillon Washington High School win the Ohio state championship his junior year. Then, he played a major hand in the 1957 national title at Ohio State. Later, he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, where he joined Schafrath and fellow former Buckeyes and Pro Football Hall of Famers Lou Groza and Paul Warfield on the 1964 World Championship team.
“I have been the luckiest guy in the world, because I had the same deal in high school, college and the pros,” Houston said. “We won championships every time. With all the success my teams had, I can’t complain about anything.”
Having remained with Ohio teams throughout his playing career afforded Houston the opportunity to play under two of the most highly regarded coaches in the history of the game in Hayes and Paul Brown, who coached the Browns in Houston’s first three seasons in the pros.
“Woody and Paul are the premier guys,” Houston, whose brother Lin played for Brown at Ohio State from 1941-42 and with Cleveland from 1946-53, said. “Coach Brown never said much. He never had to. When you messed up, he would just look you in the eye and then look at the ground and shake his head.
“Woody was a friend of mine after I graduated. When I was playing for him, I was not a friend because if you messed up, he got on your case for sure. Woody would say things all the time. You could hear him all over the place.
“That was the difference between the two, but their intellect and capability as coaches was readily apparent.”
Brown drafted Houston in 1959 as the No. 5 selection in the NFL Draft. He ended Houston’s days as a two-way player, focusing Houston’s abilities at defensive end.
Although his days playing both ways on the football field were over, Houston took on a new sense of double duty early in his career with the Browns.
During the 1962 and ’63 seasons, Houston was enlisted in the Army and was stationed in New Jersey. He would spend the entire week on duty and then fly in for Cleveland’s games on Sunday – no matter home or away. He would play that day and then fly directly back to base.
“I was a first lieutenant in the army in the early part of my pro career,” Houston said. “I would work during the week and then fly and meet the team and play that weekend. Then, I would hop back on a plane and be back for roll call at 6 a.m. Monday.”
Despite missing the week of practice, Houston would start every game and according to former Browns teammate Paul Wiggin, would never miss a beat.
“He was always on key,” Wiggin, Houston’s teammate from 1960-67, said. “He was a gifted player, a natural. He was smart and instinctive and quickly picked up on our adjustments and always knew his job.”
This year, Houston will receive the ultimate reward for his double-duty career in football. Fittingly, there is double pleasure in his enshrinement into the college football hall of fame, because Wiggin, who is a lifelong friend outside of football, will join Houston in the 2006 induction class.
“That is the most exciting thing about it. I get to go (into the hall) with my teammate,” Houston said of Wiggin, who played his college ball at Stanford. “We played about three yards apart in Cleveland. You could not ask for a much better place to reunite.”
