Tom Fears
![]() Fearsc.1955 | |||||||
No. 55, 80 | |||||||
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Position: | Split end | ||||||
Personal information | |||||||
Born: | Guadalajara,Mexico | December 3, 1922||||||
Died: | January 4, 2000 Palm Desert, California,U.S. | (aged 77)||||||
Height: | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) | ||||||
Weight: | 216 lb (98 kg) | ||||||
Career information | |||||||
High school: | Manual Arts (Los Angeles,California) | ||||||
College: | UCLA | ||||||
NFL draft: | 1945/ Round: 11 / Pick: 103 (by theCleveland Rams)[1] | ||||||
Career history | |||||||
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As an administrator: | |||||||
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Career highlights and awards | |||||||
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Career NFL statistics | |||||||
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Player stats atPFR | |||||||
Coaching stats atPFR | |||||||
Thomas Jesse Fears(December 3, 1922 – January 4, 2000) was aMexican-Americanprofessionalfootballplayer who was asplit endfor theLos Angeles Ramsin theNational Football League(NFL), playing nine seasons from 1948 to 1956. He was later an NFL assistant coach and head coach of theNew Orleans Saints,and is in thePro Football Hall of Fame.He played college football for theUCLA Bruins footballteam and is a member of theCollege Football Hall of Fame.
Early life
[edit]Born inGuadalajara,Mexico,Fears was the son of a Mexican mother, Carmen Valdés, and an American father, mining engineer Charles William Fears. The family moved to Los Angeles when Tom was age six. There, he began to display his ample work ethic by unloading flowers for 25 cents an hour, and later serving as an usher at football games for double that amount.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Tom_Fears_1947_%28cropped%29.jpg/175px-Tom_Fears_1947_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Fears first played football at Los Angeles'sManual Arts High School,where he metToby Freedmanof Beverly Hills High School. They became longtime friends. Upon graduation, he enrolled atSanta Clara University.He spent one year at the school before being drafted in World War II and spent the next three years in military service. After his father became a Japaneseprisoner of war,Fears sought to become a fighter pilot to fight Japan. He became a pilot, but was instead shipped toColorado Springsto play football for a service team.
Upon his release, he had been drafted by the Rams in 1945, but remained in school and transferred toUCLA,winningAll-Americanhonors each of his two seasons at the school. His senior campaign nearly ended in an abrupt fashion in 1947, when he and some Bruin teammates were investigated for posing in local advertisements for a Los Angeles clothing store. When it was determined that Fears and the other players worked for the store, and were not identified as athletes, the matter was dropped.[citation needed]
This job had been one of many provided by school boosters, and included a brief bit as a pilot in theHumphrey BogartfilmAction in the North Atlantic.The largesse by such people led Fears to joke that his $6,000 first-year contract and $500 bonus from the Rams meant that he was taking a pay cut.
Playing career
[edit]Los Angeles Rams
[edit]Selected as adefensive backby theLos Angeles Ramsin the eleventh round (103rd overall) of the1945 NFL draft,he is distinguished as being the firstMexican-born player to bedraftedinto theNational Football League.Fears quickly made his mark as awide receiverin 1948, while also displaying his versatility by playing on defense and atsplit end.During his first three seasons at the professional level, he led all NFL receivers in catches, and broke the league's single-season record with 77 catches in 1949.
The record would be short-lived as he increased that mark to 84 during the1950 season,including a then-record 18 catches in one game against theGreen Bay Packerson November 12. He also helped the team advance to theNFL title gamewith a trio of touchdown receptions in the divisional playoff against theChicago Bears,winning All-Pro accolades for the second consecutive year.
During the ensuing offseason, Fears became embroiled in a contract dispute with the team for the second straight year. The year before, he hinted at leaving the team to work forGeneral Motors Corporation,then announced on March 13, 1951, that he was retiring to work for a local liquor distributor. Neither threat materialized, and despite offers from fourCanadian Football Leagueteams, Fears signed for $13,000.
That season, Fears played in only seven games, but helped lead the Rams to their third straight championship game appearance. After two disappointments, the franchise captured its first NFL title since moving to theWest Coast,with Fears an integral part of the title game victory when he caught the winning score. His 73-yard touchdown reception midway through the fourth quarter broke a 17–17 deadlock with theCleveland Browns.
After bouncing back in 1952 with 48 receptions for 600 yards and six scores, the beginning of the end of his career began after he fractured two vertebrae in an October 18, 1953 game against theDetroit Lions.Limited to just 23 receptions that year, he averaged 40 catches the next two years, but after a preseason injury in 1956, he hauled in only five passes and retired on November 6. He was a contestant on the national radio programYou Bet Your Lifehosted byGroucho Marxin an episode that aired on December 7, 1955, and also included calypso singerSir Lancelot.For the remainder of the 1956 campaign, he served as an assistant coach, finishing his playing days with 400 catches for 5,397 yards and 38 touchdowns.
Coaching career
[edit]Packers, Rams and Falcons
[edit]Fears was out of the game for the next two years, but returned briefly as an assistant in the first year ofVince Lombardi's reign with the Packers. Business conflicts back inCaliforniacaused him to leave the position at midseason, but Fears resumed his coaching career the following year with the Rams under former teammateBob Waterfield.After two seasons in that role, Fears returned to Green Bay for a four-year stint as an assistant, where he was part of championship teams in 1962 and 1965.
Fears applied for the head-coaching job with theSt. Louis Cardinals(football) after the1965 NFL season,but after not being chosen, he joined fellow Packer assistantNorb Hecker,who had been named head coach of the expansionAtlanta Falcons.In the first game of the 1966 regular season, Fears caused controversy when he accused Rams coachGeorge Allenof attempting to garner inside information on the team from a player who had been cut, charges that were never proven.
New Orleans Saints
[edit]After that 2–12 first season inAtlanta,Fears became a head coach for the first time when he was hired by the expansion New Orleans Saints on January 27, 1967. He was the first Latino head coach in the NFL.[2][3]Despite the promise of the team scoring on the first-ever kickoff return in franchise history, Fears's nearly four years at the helm of what became a perennial losing franchise were an exercise in frustration.
In 1970, Fears was recognized for his professional playing career when he was elected to thePro Football Hall of Fame.That March, rumors of Fears replacing the departedDon Shulawith the Baltimore Colts surfaced, but the Colts hiredDon McCaffertyin early April. Issues between Fears and Saints ownerJohn W. Mecom Jr.,primarily Fears seeking the additional role of general manager, fueled such speculation. On April 20, the matter ended when he was given control over all player personnel matters, even though general managerVic Schwenkremained in his role.
Fears's tenure in his new dual roles, however, would be short, when the team ended the first half of the1970 seasonwith a 1–5–1 record, resulting in his dismissal on November 3 after compiling an overall record of 13–34–2. His last game as coach of the Saints was a 30–17 loss to the team he played for, the Rams, the same team that defeated the Saints in their first game in 1967.J.D. Robertswas hired as Fears's successor, and in his first game,Tom Dempseykicked an NFL-record 63-yard field goal to give the Saints a 19–17 victory over theDetroit Lions,New Orleans's only other win of 1970.
Eagles, WFL and USFL
[edit]Fears resurfaced in 1971, serving as offensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles, but when head coachEd Khayat(Fears's defensive line coach in New Orleans) was fired at the end of the1972 season,Fears was out of work again.
After spending 1973 off the gridiron, Fears was named head coach of the fledglingWorld Football League'sSouthern California Sunon January 14, 1974. The fragile financial condition of the entire league resulted in Fears leading the team for less than two years before the WFL folded in October 1975.
Fears's disappointment was soothed somewhat when he was named to theCollege Football Hall of Famein 1976, the same year he was named president of the All-Sports Council of Southern California, which helped amateur sports in the area. One year later, he returned to coaching as an assistant atSan Bernardino Junior College.
During this period, he was also working as a technical adviser for movies with a football connection, and in 1979, began a football scouting service. The two roles came together in controversial fashion when Fears began working on the production ofNorth Dallas Forty,a film that took a look at the sordid side of the professional game.
At the time Fears had three clients: the Packers,Houston OilersandPittsburgh Steelers,but after the movie was released, all three teams dropped his services. Claiming that the NFL had blacklisted him, Fears spoke with league commissionerPete Rozelle(who had worked for the Rams during Fears's playing days), but never again found work in the league.
Remaining on the fringes of the sport, Fears in 1980 worked as a coach for theChapman Collegeclub football team, then became a part-owner of the Orange Empire Outlaws of the California Football League the following year. In 1982, he was hired as player personnel director of the newUnited States Football League'sLos Angeles Express.Bolstered by huge spending from team ownerBill Daniels,the team reached the conference championship game, but saw financial troubles doom not only the team, but the league as well.
Fears's final position in football came in 1990, when he was named head coach of the Milan franchise in the fledglingInternational League of American Football.Four years later, he was diagnosed withAlzheimer's disease.He died from complications of the disease at a care home inPalm Desert, California,on January 4, 2000, at the age of 77. At the time of his death, he lived in nearbyPalm Springs.[4]
Fears was the first Mexico-born NFL player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
NFL career statistics
[edit]Legend | |
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Led the league | |
NFL champion | |
Bold | Career best |
Regular season
[edit]Year | Team | Games | Receiving | Fumbles | |||||
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GP | GS | Rec | Yds | Avg | Lng | TD | |||
1948 | LAR | 12 | 1 | 51 | 698 | 13.7 | 80 | 4 | 0 |
1949 | LAR | 12 | 11 | 77 | 1013 | 13.2 | 51 | 9 | 0 |
1950 | LAR | 12 | 12 | 84 | 1116 | 13.3 | 53 | 7 | 3 |
1951 | LAR | 7 | 7 | 32 | 528 | 16.5 | 54 | 3 | 0 |
1952 | LAR | 12 | 11 | 38 | 600 | 12.5 | 36 | 6 | 0 |
1953 | LAR | 8 | 5 | 23 | 278 | 12.1 | 31 | 4 | 1 |
1954 | LAR | 10 | 8 | 36 | 546 | 15.2 | 43 | 3 | 0 |
1955 | LAR | 12 | 12 | 44 | 569 | 12.9 | 31 | 2 | 0 |
1956 | LAR | 2 | 2 | 5 | 49 | 9.8 | 18 | 0 | 0 |
Career | 87 | 69 | 400 | 5397 | 13.5 | 80 | 38 | 4 |
References
[edit]- ^"1945 Cleveland Rams".databaseFootball.Archived from the original on July 16, 2007.RetrievedJuly 17,2020.
{{cite web}}
:CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^"History: Latin-Americans in Pro Football".Pro Football Hall of Fame.Archived fromthe originalon October 14, 2011.
- ^Branch, John (November 15, 2008)."For Alberto Riveron, From Cuba to N.F.L.'s First Hispanic Referee".The New York Times.p. SP1. Archived fromthe originalon June 18, 2013.
- ^Litsky, Frank (January 8, 2000)."Tom Fears, N.F.L. End and Coach, Dies at 77".The New York Times.p. C16.RetrievedApril 14,2023.
- McDowell, Markus (2002)."Fears, Thomas Jesse ('Tom')."Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic Series: Sports Figures.Charles Scribner's Sons.
External links
[edit]- 1922 births
- 2000 deaths
- American football wide receivers
- American sports announcers
- American sportspeople of Mexican descent
- Atlanta Falcons coaches
- College Football Hall of Fame inductees
- Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in California
- Deaths from dementia in California
- Green Bay Packers coaches
- Los Angeles Rams coaches
- Los Angeles Rams players
- Mexican emigrants to the United States
- Mexican people of American descent
- Mexican players of American football
- Military personnel from California
- New Orleans Saints coaches
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- People from Palm Springs, California
- Philadelphia Eagles coaches
- Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
- San Bernardino Valley College alumni
- Santa Clara University alumni
- Southern California Sun coaches
- Sportspeople from Guadalajara, Jalisco
- Players of American football from Riverside County, California
- UCLA Bruins football players
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- Western Conference Pro Bowl players