Tommy McDonald, 1934-2018

One of the biggest characters, if smallest great players, in football history has left us.

Thomas Franklin McDonald was born on July 26, 1934 in Roy, New Mexico. This is a place where, to put it politely, and to use a line comedian Red Skelton once used about neighboring Texas, "They got miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles." The Census listed the population as 1,138 in 1940, and just 234 in 2010.

It's 142 miles west to Santa Fe, 174 miles southeast to Amarillo, 199 miles southwest to Albuquerque, 305 miles north to Denver, 430 miles east to Oklahoma City, 536 miles southeast to Dallas, and 614 miles southwest to Phoenix. And neither Denver, nor Oklahoma City, nor Dallas, nor Phoenix was a major league city when Tommy was growing up in the 1930s and '40s.

There ain't nothin' around by farms and ranches, and there ain't nothin' to do but work... and play football. When Tommy McDonald was in the 8th grade, his father suggested that he repeat it, because he was small and would have time to grow. Tommy agreed, so he got to Roy High School -- enrollment around 150 at the time, and long since closed because it wasn't worth keeping such a small school open -- a year behind his old classmates, but was physically and mentally a year ahead of his new classmates.

In 1950, the family moved to the big city: Albuquerque. As a sophomore, he transferred to Highland High School, but the size of the city (over 500,000) did not faze him, as he set a State points record in football, set a City scoring record in basketball, and won 5 Gold Medals in the State track meet. He could have written his own ticket, although, at the time, it would have made more sense to try for track & field at the 1956 Olympics than a sport like football or basketball, each of which puts a premium on size.

Bud Wilkinson, the football coach at the University of Oklahoma, didn't care, offering him a scholarship. Wilkinson was building one of the greatest college football teams ever, and McDonald would be one of the reasons they set a record that still stands with a 47-game winning streak, including the 1955 and 1956 National Championships. With Oklahoma's last loss coming while he was a freshman and ineligible to play on the varsity (September 26, 1953), and their next loss coming after he was already in the NFL (November 16, 1957) -- both losses were to Notre Dame -- he never played in a losing game in college.

He won the Maxwell Award as the nation's most outstanding college football player in 1956. In the voting for the better-known award, the Heisman Trophy, he finished 3rd behind Notre Dame quarterback Paul Hornung and Tennessee running back Johnny Majors. (Hornung would be better known as a Green Bay Packer running back, and Majors as the head coach at Tennessee and the University of Pittsburgh.)

McDonald was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 3rd round in 1957. Still small for a pro running back -- he was listed at 5-foot-9 and 178 pounds, but was actually just 5-foot-7 -- he was moved to wide receiver, and became a favorite target for quarterbacks Norm Van Brocklin and Sonny Jurgensen.

And he was tougher than his size would suggest. One play that survives on film shows him taking a pitchout from Van Brocklin, going around end, gaining a first down, getting hit, and spinning off the hit until he stumbles at the sideline, and knocks over a table loaded with cups of water. (No Gatorade in those days.)

"I don't like to let some big guy think he can hurt me, just because I'm small," he said. "If he gives me his best lick, and doesn't cave me in, he gets a little discouraged. I get a kick out of proving there's a place for a runt in pro ball."

The Eagle quarterbacks agreed. Van Brocklin said, "Tommy doesn't have to run a pass pattern against a defensive back. He just beats him." And Jurgensen said, "He was from another world."

In the opening game of the 1959 season, the facemaskless McDonald got his jaw broken on a hit. Doctors wired his jaw shut. He not only played the next week, he scored 4 touchdowns -- 3 receiving, 1 on a punt return -- personally outscoring the New York Giants as the Eagles beat them 49-21.

In the 1960 NFL Championship Game, against the Green Bay Packers, he caught a 35-yard touchdown pass from Van Brocklin and landed in a snowbank in the northern end of the Franklin Field horseshoe. The Eagles won, 17-13. In  1961 game against the New York Giants, he caught 7 passes for 237 yards, a team record that still stands, and 2 touchdowns.

In 1964, he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys, one of several dumb trades that new head coach and general manager Joe Kuharich made that angered Eagle fans. That season, McDonald played without a facemask, as he always had. This made him the last non-kicker to play without one. He was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in 1965, and he had to wear a facemask. He played for the Rams in 1965 and '66, the Atlanta Falcons in 1967, and the Cleveland Browns in 1968, by which point he was the NFL's active leader in receiving yards. (He was surpassed that season by Don Maynard of the Jets, but that was NFL and AFL stats combined.)

The Browns lost the 1968 NFL Championship Game to the Baltimore Colts (who then lost Super Bowl III to Maynard, Joe Namath and the New York Jets), and that was McDonald's last game. He retired the following March, 84 touchdowns receptions, then 2nd all-time, only to Don Hutson's 99. His 8,410 receiving yards were 4th, and his 495 catches were 6th. Indeed, while still an active player, in 1962, he wrote an autobiography, and titled it They Pay Me to Catch Footballs.

He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1985. In 1998, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, way too late, but he was able to enjoy it for 20 years, and enjoy it, he certainly did. When the 5-foot-8 Barry Sanders was elected in 2004, it officially made him the shortest member of the Pro Football Hall, but since McDonald was really 5-foot-7, he was still the shortest.

The Eagles named him to their team Hall of Fame and their 75th Anniversary Team, although his Number 25 remains in circulation. He attended the 1960 Champions' 25th, 30th and 40th celebrations at Veterans Stadium, and their 50th Anniversary celebration at Lincoln Financial Field. In spite of his size, and eventually his age, he would do backflips and chest-bumps at such gatherings in Philadelphia and Canton.

He and his wife Patricia raised 4 children in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. He became an artist, running a successful business providing portraits, particularly for athletes. In 2006, he sold a portrait of Joe DiMaggio that he painted for $4,000.

Tommy McDonald died yesterday, September 24, 2018, at age 84. He had lived long enough to finally see the Eagles end their 57-year championship drought by winning Super Bowl LII.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said, "Tommy McDonald played the game with a passion and energy that was second to nine. He will be remembered as one of the most exciting players ever to play his position. But what really separated him and made him so unique was the infections personality that he brought to his everyday life."

Rest in peace? Tommy McDonald didn't like to rest. Run in peace.

UPDATE: His final resting place is not publicly known.