Turning 50, focus shifts beyond the football field
Founded 50 years ago as a haven for Southwest Conference fans to chat about football and listen to others chatting about football, the Touchdown Club of Houston has survived to its 50th anniversary because its members started focusing less on chatter and more on service.
The non-profit group, which now serves as Houston’s chapter of the National Football Foundation, will celebrate the anniversary of its 1966 founding by presenting its annual Touchdowner of the Year award Wednesday night at the Westin Galleria to foundation chairman and former NFL quarterback Archie Manning. A welcome change
On hand will be at least one of the 140-plus charter members who used to gather weekly at the Rice Hotel to hear the likes of Darrell Royal, Emory Bellard, Bill Yeoman and Grant Teaff for the magnificent sum of $50 for 11 luncheons.
“We had coaches come in from all over the country — Ara Parseghian from Notre Dame, guys like that,” said insurance executive and charter member E.J. Chromcak, 89.
Wednesday’s tickets will be twice that seasonlong amount that Chromcak and his friends paid in 1966, but the Touchdown Club has more on its plate than football talk these days.
With the 1990s demise of the SWC, the group has turned to service projects for high school athletes while expanding its college programs to events for Texas Southern, Prairie View A&M, Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin.
“When the Southwest Conference ended, we had to start looking elsewhere, and that’s when we affiliated with the National Football Foundation and started doing community- oriented things for the local high schools,” said Don Trull, the former Baylor and Oilers quarterback and a past club president.
“That’s been a lot more rewarding than a bunch of good old boys sitting around talking about who’s going to be good next season.” New philosophy
For decades, the club’s most highly attended event was the Thanksgiving week luncheon previewing the Texas-Texas A&M game. With the end of that annual rivalry, high school events honoring public and private school athletes and scholars have taken center stage.
“As the membership has changed, the club’s philosophy has changed,” said Keith Kilgore, the current Touchdown Club president and retired Fort Bend School District athletic director. “We still try to have fun with football, but I don’t see us going back to being just a social group.”
The club’s signature program since 2002 has been donating weightroom equipment to 39 Houston high schools and, in conjunction with the Texans, used football shoes to area schools. It also helped organize the Houston Senior Showcase, which since 2009 has led to about 800 local athletes receiving about $80 million in scholarship grants from NAIA and NCAADivision II and III schools.
The club’s charter membership list included Oilers owner Bud Adams and general manager Don Klosterman, former Baylor quarterback Adrian Burk, University of Houston athletic director Harry Fouke, broadcaster and advertis- ing executive Kern Tips, Harris County Commissioner E.A. “Squatty” Lyons and energy executive Corbin Robertson.
Former Texas A&Mand Oilers quarterback Charles Milstead joins Chromcak as the only known living charter members.