Damon Runyon

Leader-Tribune/October 27, 1937

We got tangled up with posse of West Texans last Saturday. It was at the football game between New York’s Fordham, and Fort Worth’s Texas Christian University, at the Polo Grounds.

We will not make too much here of the fact that this football game was one of the most popeyed gridiron propositions we have ever witnessed, and that Fordham was mighty lucky to sweat out a 7 to 6 victory in the last couple of minutes of play. That has already been gone into at length in the public prints. Our chief concern is with those West Texans.

They were headed by Carter, the hidalgo of West Texas, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and a fabulous character. He wore a pure white sombrero, the size of a. pup-tent, a pure white polo coat, and a pair of fancy stitched cow-puncher boots.

There were about 250 of the West Texans under command of the hidalgo, and they brought a band of 52 pieces with them, the musicians being arrayed in nice white uniforms. Between the football halves, Mr. Carter, in person, led the band in a parade about the field, and upwards of 25,000 inmates of the Bronx, Harlem, and other sections of New York cheered the imposing figure of Mr. Carter to what we locally call the echo.

The field was muddy. Mr. Carter’s high heels sank to his fetlocks in the ooze at every step. By the time he got back to his box in the upper tier among his fellow West Texans, he was all tuckered out, but his football enthusiasm was unabated.

It is only fair to report that Mr. Carter does not always go about sartorially accoutered like a cinema hero of a horse opera. As a matter of fact, in his native habitat, he dresses like all the other rich clubmen of Fort Worth, which is in the manner of Mr. Menjou.

The white sombrero, and the boots of Saturday, we suspect, were merely by way of a touch of color and atmosphere for the edification of the New York yeomanry, who like to see reality come up to their imagination, and who imagine everybody down in Texas wears those big lids, and footgear, and shouts yip-yip-yippy with every other breath.

Mr. Carter being the most adroit salesman of West Texas in all his section of the Lone Star state, and as frequent a visitor to New York City as if he had an office here, understands this New York idea, and basely panders to it. He even went in for the yip-yip-yippy business during the football game, especially in the early stages when Texas Christians whipped a score over on Fordham faster than you could say wojciechowiez, the name of the Fordham center, which seemed to baffle the soft spoken West Texans.

In this yip-yipping, Mr. Carter was joined by his fellow West Texans, who included Dr. E.M. Waites, president. of TCU, which has a student co-ed membership of 1,500, and Dr. Webb Walker, famous sponsor TCU’s team. Stanley Thompson, president of the Fort Worth baseball club, winner of the Texas league pennant and of the Dixie championship, and F. J. Adams, of the Gulf Oil Company, were also present.

Then Mr. Carter. had impaneled quite a number of former West Texans to augment his cheering section. They included Mr. Silliman Evans, noted publisher of the Nashville Tennessean, who was with Mr. Carter in Fort Worth for twelve years, and Mr. Byron Foy, president of De Soto Motors, and Chrysler vice president, a quiet, good looking gentleman, who was more repressed vocally than the others, but who gave the Texas Christian plays plenty of what we call “body English.”

That is to say, Mr. Foy’s anatomy moved with the plays, this way and that, and while no sound came from him, it was obvious that his movements were directed by violent internal emotion. This betokens the football fan who is apt to wind up with his internal organs slightly strained. A football fan on the order of, say, Mr. Silliman Evans, who lets himself go, runs no greater risk than the fracture of the larynx.

Among these ladies and gentlemen of West Texas, come all that long distance to lend their support to their favorite football team, you sensed something of the spirit that has made the sundown side of the lone star state one of lustiest, liveliest sections of the land. They were well dressed, hearty, healthy and prosperous looking folks of great amiability.

You judged from their conversation that their interest in their football team is something personal, and intimate, and neighborly. They knew all about the individual players. They were a little blue over the outcome, but they did not forget their West Texas courtesy, and gave the Fordham boys a round of applause at the finish.

A New York lady approached Mr. Carter, sitting silent and disconsolate after the game, for his autograph, and asked:

“Well, how did you like it?”

“I didn’t like it, ma’am,” said Mr. Carter, courteously.

“Oh, don’t cry about it,” said the lady, encouragingly. “It was a wonderful game.”

“I’m not crying, ma’am,” said Mr. Carter. “And it was a wonderful game. But you asked me how I like it, and I tell you, I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it. In West Texas, ma’am, truth always comes first.”