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Terry Frei was 2,000 miles away and just an interested young teen when the biggest game of the 1969 college foot- ball season was played on a frosty, foggy December day in Fayetteville. An admitted college foot- ball junkie as the son of then University of Oregon football coach Jerry Frei, young Terry was enamored with college football. Like many across the country, Frei watched the spectacle dubbed the Big Shootout play out on his tele - vision screen in Eugene, Ore., as No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Ar- kansas clashed in the Ozark Mountains. Frei had no link to the game or any of its partic- ipants at a time when the country was weeks away from turning the page on the most tumultuous decade in American history. But life is filled with twists and turns, and it sometimes has a way of pulling us into events that otherwise would not be a blip on the radar screen. Terry Frei is an example of that. "My father was a contem- porary of Frank Broyles and Darrell Royal," Frei said of the respective Arkansas and Tex- as coaches. "I was exposed to major college football in a very close up and sometimes painful and sometimes exhil- arating way. I saw the game and was very interested in it from afar." Frei said the game, al- though played in the heart of the Dixie south, was a big deal even on the west coast. "Being the son of a college football coach, it really caught my attention," Frei said. "I also was kind of a political junkie/nut at the time, too, so all of these things kind of combined. Politicians in the stands, Richard Nixon going to the game, so that caught my attention." Two years after Texas ripped the hearts out of thou- sands of Arkansas fans with its 15-14 win, Terry Frei made his first connection with the game. It lasted a lifetime. Following Oregon's 1971 season, the Frei family packed up their belongings and moved to the Rocky Moun- tains, where Jerry Frei was hired as an assistant coach by the Denver Broncos. Jerry Frei spent the next 30 years in the Broncos organization as a coach, scout and admin- istrator. He also has stints with Tampa Bay and Chica- go Bears. "He told me I was going to be a Wheat Ridge Farm- er," Terry recalled. "I thought I was moving to the big city, and he told me I was going to be a Wheat Ridge Farmer." The disappointment didn't last long once Terry realized the school his father enrolled him was a suburb of Denver and had a definitive connec- tion to the college football game he intently watched a couple of years before. On that Dec. 6 Saturday in Fayetteville, Freddie Stein- mark did his best to try and cover Arkansas' fleet receiver, Chuck Dicus. Steinmark gave a gallant effort but seemed to be hobbled by a gimpy leg. In the boisterous Texas lock- er room with U.S. President Richard Nixon after the game, Steinmark is seen in iconic black and white photos with a toothy smile and a shock of dark, sweat-dampened hair hanging over one eye. In the midst of that cele- bration and the championship trophy presentation, Stein- mark had no idea how his life would forever be altered in just a couple of days. Steinmark was one of just three starters on the Texas team that did not grow up in the Lone Star state. Stein- mark and fellow starter Bob- by Mitchell were both Wheat Ridge Farmers. Unbeknownst to any of the Texas players or coaches at the time, Steinmark's left leg had been consumed by can- cer. How he managed to play in the game at all was essen- tially a miracle in itself. Just six days after the game, the leg was removed at the hip. "Freddie had passed away, but I was indoctrinated in the legend of Freddie Steinmark," Frei said of his high school days. "I succeeded him as baseball captain and was real- ly indoctrinated in his legend. I was very impressed by it. "So the combination of be- ing involved in the game as the son of a college football coach at the time, and ending up in the six degrees of sep- aration world of going to the same high school as Freddie Steinmark had gone to, it re- ally was a confluence of that perfect storm of circumstanc- es was how I became so inter- ested in the story." Flash forward to 1994 and Terry Frei was working for The Sporting News as a national football writer. His editor, John Rawlings en- couraged his staff to pitch story ideas outside of their normal beats. Frei pitched the idea of doing a piece on the 25th anniversary of The Big Shootout, and Rawlings gave him the green light to pursue it. With limited time, re- sources and other factors, Frei cobbled together a piece for The Sporting News. "That was the one I picked out as one I absolutely want- ed to do," Frei said. "He was very supportive and let me do it. In all honesty, it wasn't very good, because it was not very much in-depth. I barely scratched the surface." On the surface was the game itself, a spectacle that ABC Sports manipulated in- to made-for-television drama to end the 100th year of col- lege football. The game was moved from its annual Oc- tober date to the first week of December. Both teams did their part to arrive at the date undefeated and ranked 1-2 in the national polls. Outside the white chalk lines of the playing field, the event had much deeper rami- fications. There was the racial unrest at the time across the country, and particularly the south. Both teams had deep varsity rosters devoid of black players. The black students on the Arkansas campus were poised, ready to storm the field that day if the Arkansas band continued to play Dixie as its fight song. There were Vietnam protests outside the stadium. Nixon, who had just been elected to office a year earlier, was trying to boost his public image by attending the largest sporting event in the coun- try that day. Then you add in appearances by a multitude of state and national dignitar- ies — even the owner of one of the country's leading fast- food chains — it's no wonder the nation's eyes were on Ra- zorback Stadium. Even eyes in Eugene, Ore. "There was so much more going on besides football," Frei said. "The magazine sto- ry was barely adequate. For the length of the story at that time, it was good, but I was just shocked to find out how much more material there was. "A l i t e ra r y a ge n t a p - proached me about expand- ing the article into a book. He initially had misgivings, but with The Sporting News story essentially serving as a pro- posal, the book was pre-sold to Simon and Schuster before I ever wrote a word." As he dived into the re- search for the book it seemed like for every nugget Frei found, there was a quarry of other nuggets that he uncov- ered. Horns, Hogs & Nixon Com- ing was published in 2002. It is 343 pages filled with great detail of the game and all the events that swirled in the stands and outside the walls of Razorback Stadium. "That's what I was most proud of," Frei said. "Going to the next level below the surface, I just kept stumbling across things. It wasn't things that had never been told, al- though there were some things that hadn't been told, too. So the combination of fleshing out and connecting the dots and also discovering considerable revelatory mate- rial, I think is what turned it into a much better book than a magazine story." Frei was in Fayetteville in 2004 when Texas made the trip to the Ozarks for the first time since the teams went their separate ways from the old Southwest Conference in the early 1990s. Players from the 1969 game from both Tex- as and Arkansas got together for a 35th reunion and invited Frei to speak. "For the most part, I think the players loved it," Frei said." I pretty much told the story about everyone who started in the game on both sides of the ball for both teams. I made a lot of friends for treating it that way. I was very proud of profiling virtu- ally everybody who played a major role in the game." In the 50 years since The Big Shootout was played, much has changed. Rosters were finally integrated the fol- lowing season. Freddie Stein- mark succumbed to cancer in 1971. Nixon was re-elected in 1972, then resigned two years later. Broyles and Royal met for the final time in 1976, then both never coached again. The Southwest Conference faded into oblivion shortly after Arkansas departed for the SEC. On that gray day in 1969, the world looked on as one of the greatest college football games ever played filled their television screens. Terry Frei was among the viewers, then became much more than that. Frei has written six more books since, including two novels and four nonfiction works. He has also done several collaborations in- cluding most recently with former Columbine (Colo.) High School principal Frank Deangelis. Frei's website is terryfrei.com. Six degrees of separation led Frei to pen book CHIP SOUZA NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE File photo/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Author Terry Frei signs stacks of his book Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming during the Arkansas Literary Festival on April 24, 2004, in the River Market. File photo/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette President Richard Nixon (center) attends a University of Arkansas football game against the Uni- versity of Texas on Dec. 6, 1969. Left of the president (with hat) is Arkansas Gov. Win Rockefeller. At the far left is George H.W. Bush, who was a Texas congressman at the time. have to tackle Steve Worster on every down. "Our players tackled bet- ter than we ever have. They looked the quickest I've ev- er seen them. This showed how ready they were." Same as in the Texas Tech game, Arkansas kicked off with the wind to start both halves. "In any big game," said Broyles, "you're better off with the other team at its 20 than you are with the ball at your 20." Rick Kersey proved that. He penetrated on the sec- ond down of the game and messed up a handoff to Koy and Bobby Field recovered the fumble. Arkansas covered four Texas fumbles and inter- cepted two passes, six turn- overs. "They weren't just drop- ping the ball," said Broyles. "Our tackling out there was fierce." Arkansas moved 22 and 53 yards after fumbles to score its touchdowns. The Razorbacks drove 93 yards for an apparent score on their second possession. A penalty (a receiver blocked on a passing play; a run had been called and he couldn't hear the check-off because of crowd noise) wiped out a finger-tip catch by Dicus. And a 23-yard loss eliminat- ed a field goal opportunity. Even so, the Arkansas of- fense kept moving the ball and the defense kept giving Texas a hard way to go, and the Razorbacks wound up with the best field position they've had in their last 12 games against Texas. The closest Texas ever got the ball was at its 36. Street faced an average 72.7 yards on the 10 UT posses- sions. And that was the most successful part of the game plan. The Texas defense had been giving that mighty running offense the ball on- ly 10, 20, 30 yards from pay dirt two to four times a game against other foes. What now for Arkansas? A sign on the door of a Holiday Inn room in Fay- etteville on Sunday morning read, "Texas No. 1, Arkansas 1 ½." The Associated Press, which had them No. 1 and No. 2, announced Sunday that it will take yet anoth- er poll this week (as well as one after the bowl games.) This gives the Penn Staters one more shot. They can't win on this ballot and the chances are that Missouri, quietly sick of reading Joe Paterno's statements by now, will slaughter the Nittany Li- ons in the Orange Bowl. Arkansas is sure to drop, because that's the way the voters operate. Maybe to fourth or fifth. That is of no consequence. If a team isn't No. 1, anywhere in the Top Ten is good enough. There are no prizes past first place. Would Broyles consent to a Texas-Arkansas replay of this type at Austin next December? "At this time," he said Saturday night, "I'm against everything. How I'd feel in March, I don't know." The way it worked out in 1969 brought the game of the year and the attention of the nation to Fayetteville, Ark. That can't be all bad, even if it did make it a one-game season for the fans. What a game it was. T h e R a z o r b a c k s w i l l prepare for the Sugar Bowl game with Mississippi the same way they did for last year's visit to New Orleans, Broyles said. They'll do their serious work at Fayetteville, after Christmas, and they'll go to New Orleans for five days, two days before Janu- ary 1, two days after. That one, Archie Man- ning vs. Bill Montgomery, could give the Heisman Trophy voters of 1970 a good preview. A te a m t h a t l o s e s i t s emotionally-charged climax game isn't generally a good bet in a bowl game. But then, Arkansas wasn't supposed to be a good bet against Texas, either. Henry v Continued from Page 3S File photo/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Texas quarterback James Street runs for a 42-yard touchdown during the fourth quarter of the Big Shootout. The Big Shootout ∂ ∂ FRiDAy, DeCeMBeR 6, 2019 v 5S